The Unified Learning Cycle: An Educational Technology for Student-Driven Learning Personalization

Introduction

Just as the student’s leadership and motivation to change the learning space and content are critical factors in personalizing the learning (Ignatova, 2017), the learning process must also be clear and understandable. The learning process enabling learner-driven personalization should provide learners with more inspiring, creative, developmental learning projects where they can grow their expertise as creators and authors. The questions we discuss in the current chapter are: What pedagogical model could enable these learners’ roles, and how can the teacher design a student-driven personalization process to engage them in an authentic experience and promote a deep learning experience? The chapter aims to develop and discuss the comprehensive and flexible unified learning cycle (henceforth – ULC) as a conceptual pedagogical framework for online or blended and other learning contexts, which could be applied to the student-oriented learning process design as a new educational technology. To support teachers in managing such learning processes, the ULC model development provides a solution to change the usual forms of learning, such as lessons with educational or learning projects. These projects combine a comprehensive series of learning activities from the initial orientation to the final phase – evaluating and sharing the learning results. To conceptualize the ULC model structure, an inquiry-based learning approach can be successfully combined with project-based learning, reflecting the diversity of contemporary blended learning trends and other educational contexts. The inquiry becomes a more comprehensive concept than a science education instrument (Dewey, 1990), as the learner’s interest in communication, inquiry or construction, and artistic expression, according to John Dewey (1907, p. 61), are the “natural resources, or the uninvested capital of education, out of which active learning grows.”

Exploitation of Goodyear’s ideas of theorizing practices (2020) ground the ULC model development on the existing evidence from practice research of the positive effects of a cycle-based design for learning. The learning cycle (henceforth – LC) design is derived from the social constructivism theory and validated by practice research. Several studies on the LC evolution (Kanli, 2009) and its effects on teaching and learning (Özeke, 2009) were performed, considering the discussion on constructivist theory. Kanli (2009) found that constructivist foundations in LC are valuable for developing practical activities in science education or other disciplines. For practice, cycle-based design applications provide constructivist learning activities (Balta, 2016), engage students in authentic experiences, and promote deep learning (Friesen & Scott, 2017). The proposed ULC model covers the inquiry cycle (Pedaste et al., 2015) and is extended through the creation phase. The model focused on inductive learning activities to strengthen inquiry learning for students’ deep engagement in designing the learning environment, tools, and resources (Ignatova, 2017). The learning phases are classified on the theoretical basis of inductive and deductive learning dichotomy (Pedaste et al., 2015), and we consider the ULC model balances deductive and inductive meaningful learning activities (Prince & Felder, 2006) that enable students to be proactive in the learning process. Purposeful exploitation of the inductive learning potentials should enable a broad spectrum of students’ creative activities and open good perspectives to the student-oriented learning design and a student-driven personalization process.