Making sense together: participatory sensemaking, learning cycles, and group roles

The Kolb Learning Cycle is a popular model of experiential learning in which agents move through four phases: experimentation, concretization, observation, and conceptualization. This model is a dynamic learning model that aligns well with embodied approaches to cognition, as it centers on student agency, inquiry, and exploration. However, there is currently no 4E (embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended) account of the learning cycle. Furthermore, Kolb's theory focuses solely on behavior and learning in the individual. We here create a 4E account of the Kolb learning cycle by combining it with group role theory, ecological psychology, and participatory sense-making (PSM). We argue that, as individual members cycle through various group roles and their associated Kolb phases, they aid the group as a joint cognitive system in transitioning to new modes of engagement at the group level. Moving through group roles (leader, follower, naysayer, observer) often moves the agent into a new Kolb phase, which, in turn, changes the emergent dynamics of the entire group. Thus, social interaction can drive the learning cycle. Because the behavior of the individual is emergent, we cannot rely on reductivist accounts to explain group learning behaviors as the outcome of individual contributions. Rather, we consider the group as a cognitive system that drives learning.