2/28: 4MAT Cycle Exercise

How McCarthy’s 4MAT System informed our thinking about framing learning steps for our problem space.

What is the 4MAT Cycle?

Bernice McCarthy showcases the core elements of learning in four quadrants, called the 4MAT Cycle.

The four core quadrants of learning —according to McCarthy

It describes two continua.

1. How do we take in the experience (how do we perceive it)?
2. How we act on what we take in (how do we process our experiences)?

The first continua, describes how we move from directly (concretely) experiencing, to conceptualizing it, which leads us to the “cognitive task of abstracting the experience” (McCarthy 3).

The second continua moves from processing the experience through reflection, where we can take them apart to analyze, generalize, and conceptualize. Then, we eventually reach the stage of acting on our conceptualizations, to try them out in the world.

Together, these continua make four quadrants, which we are able to move through in a clockwise manner, where we are able to raise four main questions.

1. Why is this experience relevant? (thinking through experiences had, personal connections, etc)
2. What information do we have/need? (define the learning through brainstorming)
3. How does our idea work? (experimentation)
4. What if? (thinking about the broader application as we create and refine)

Our group proceeded to use this 4MAT system in order to delve further into brainstorming more concrete ways of how we can move our target audience through our intended learning experience.

How did we use the 4MAT Cycle?

Our group’s 4MAT Exercise

This exercise really helped our group get into depth about how we can go from understanding our target learners’ needs/desires and start to make our way into how we can allow them to apply what they learn from our desired experience.

Key Learning Goal: Allowing students to feel confident when transitioning to financial independence

We asked ourselves four main questions, one for each quadrant, that encapsulated how we wanted to go about bringing our learning experience to life:

1. Importance: What content resonates with students and the concrete problems they have to solve in their lives?
2. Information: What concepts do students need to know in order to equip them to tackle these financial problems?
3. Practice: How can students engage with content that allows them to feel prepared to be financially independent?
4. Application: What can students walk away with knowing that will allow them to be confident in their financial independence?

What did we learn from the 4MAT Cycle?

Key moments that we discovered in our learning cycle included:

Key moments and how they follow the quadrants

Critical Thinking Abilities: We want students to feel prepared and confident when first handling finances, which includes being able to evaluate financial decisions and understand whether or not it is a good choice to make.

Goals as Context: Learning how to set practical financial goals and habits is (we believe) half the battle as it is more likely that they will retain the proper information through habitual context rather than sitting in a classroom memorizing vague concepts and definitions. This also allows our target learners to apply their knowledge right away, and see for themselves how these choices can impact their lives.

Final Thoughts

This was a great way of allowing us to unpack the information we wanted to teach them, and one-by-one, discuss how we can apply this in concrete forms and activities. Thinking both in terms of content learners and designers filled in any gaps that we had in our thinking and pushed us further to unpack what our goals were as designers and how we can concretely achieve those things.