Jessica Hagy's Indexed is an incredibly creative and thought-provoking (and funny) resource, and I find inspiration in her work on a regular basis. I was particularly struck by today's entry, How to Get Unstuck, which is really an expanded version of the Experiential Learning Cycle.
We typically view this cycle as a series of sequential steps from one stage of the process to the next, in part for conceptual simplicity, but also--and more importantly--to get us to think more deeply about how we can learn more effectively from our experiences (hence the name!)
But Jessica's inclusion of some additional steps in the process--seeing "Imagination" springing from "Frustration" and noting that "Experimentation" should precede formal "Implementation" reminds me that in reality we move through this cycle not in an orderly stage-by-stage sequence, but in a messy series of intertwined loops that often lead us backwards:
The point of a tool like this isn't to tell us the "right" way to do things--it's to suggest a different way of doing things that might allow us to learn more, be more creative, or be more efficient in the process. While I like Jessica's new version, you might find an even simpler one helpful:
