The learning cycle

A pattern for learning

For all of us, effective learning follows a cycle. But the cycle can only begin when we can see the point of the learning. There must be a real-life connection with the lesson to be learnt.

It may not be that we always start with an awareness of our need to learn – the skill of the teacher in the first part of a lesson is to bring the children to a point where they are thinking, ‘this topic sounds interesting and I’m willing to learn what you want to teach me.’ Conversation is often the most effective way of conducting this part of the lesson, possibly sparked by a game or activity, giving children the chance to relate their own experiences – actual or observed – to the focus of the lesson.

The next part of the lesson is its heart, the new information to be taught. This is where you will introduce the children to a Bible story. With younger children you will generally be teaching them a new story. With older children, and occasionally with the younger ones, you will be bringing new insights to an already known text. Once you have told the story in an age appropriate way, then you will need to ask questions to confirm that the children have understood – it is easy to mistakenly assume that the children have correctly heard the story you think you have told!

The third step of the learning cycle is to practise the information, to explore the Bible story and to begin to understand its relevance for today. This can take a variety of forms: drama, art, crafts, games, quizzes and writing activities can all play a role and will be more or less effective depending on the child’s learning preferences.

The final part of the cycle is to make the lesson focus, the teaching point drawn out from the story, applicable to each individual child. The teacher needs to know how the children can be expected to apply the lesson, but needs to be flexible enough to accommodate children wishing to add their own ideas.

As we explore the learning cycle it becomes apparent that children with different learning preferences will perform better, and want to assume a more active role, at different stages of the lesson. (Click here to read the companion article on learning preferences.) Imaginative learners, who enjoy talking and sharing their ideas, will be happy to participate at the start of the cycle, helping everyone to understand how the lesson focus fits in with their own experiences. The analytic learners come to the fore in the second stage of the cycle. They will not have contributed much in the first stage, always reluctant to speak in case they are seen as missing the point. However they will show an enthusiasm for learning the story, and will ask questions that help the rest of the group build an understanding of its meaning that wouldn’t otherwise occur. Without the analytic’s rigour at this stage the rest of the group would be too anxious to push on and would miss learning important facts. The common sense learners will particularly enjoy the third stage of the cycle, and they will encourage the whole group to spend time exploring and reinforcing the learning in a variety ways. They will follow the instructions for an activity once and will then ask what happens if you change the rules and do it a different way. This way they will bring added dimensions to the lesson. Finally the dynamic learners will make the group address the question, ‘what are we going to do about this?’ They will often come up with a series of crazy and totally impractical ideas but there will be times when they find wonderfully creative ways of putting faith into action that even takes their teacher by surprise.

Although everyone will have a place in the learning cycle where they perform at their best, it is still essential for each of us to follow the whole cycle through to learn effectively. In a group setting, children who experience the complete learning cycle every lesson will know that they always get an opportunity within each session to perform in the way they like best, and that will begin to give them the confidence to try new things that fall outside their main areas of strength. But we also know that each of us, as teachers, have one or two preferred teaching styles that will match particular segments of the learning cycle. If time is short we will always tend to stress those parts of the cycle, cutting short the rest because they seem less important to us. If we don’t want to exclude some of our children from developing to their full potential, then we must practise giving equal weight to every part of the lesson.

Extract from Children’s Ministry Guide to Tailored Teaching for 5-9s by Sue Price