The Innate Loop of Problem-Solving
Why We Cook Like Scientists
Why This Feels Familiar
You’re making a new recipe. Something smells off. You taste it—too salty. You add a squeeze of lemon, taste again, nod, and keep going.
Without planning to, you just solved a problem.
You noticed something unexpected.
You tested what was happening.
You made a small adjustment.
And you stayed ready to adapt again if needed.
This isn’t just cooking. It’s how humans navigate nearly everything—from fixing a bike, to writing a lesson, to helping a child through a meltdown. Problem-solving isn’t a checklist. It’s a loop.
The Loop Humans Actually Use
John Dewey noticed this over a century ago. He argued that experience doesn’t automatically lead to learning. Without reflection, experience hardens into habit. With reflection, it becomes insight (Dewey, 1933; 1938).
What Dewey described wasn’t a rigid method—it was a living cycle: noticing a difficulty, interpreting it, trying something, and learning from what happens next.
Spiral We builds on this idea by naming the loop explicitly and making it usable in everyday teaching.
The Three Gears
At the center of the Spiral We framework is an innate problem-solving loop with three gears:
Curiosity – noticing that something feels off, surprising, or promising
Micro-Research – gathering just enough information to understand what’s happening
Iteration – trying a small adjustment and watching what changes
This aligns with what learning science has long shown: people don’t solve problems all at once or all in advance. We learn by acting, then adjusting as we go (Vygotsky, 1978).
The Selector Principle (Why One Gear Shows Up at a Time)
Here’s the part teachers often recognize immediately: we rarely run all three gears at once.
Humans are energy-conserving problem-solvers. Cognitive science calls this bounded or resource-rational thinking—we do what’s “good enough” for the moment, given limited time, energy, and attention (Simon, 1955; Lieder & Griffiths, 2020).
Spiral We calls this the selector principle: at any given moment, one gear tends to be active.
That’s not a weakness. It’s how humans adapt.
Why This Matters in the Classroom
Imagine a student stuck on a math problem.
In Curiosity, they’re staring, uneasy: Something’s not clicking.
In Micro-Research, they’re sketching, asking a peer, testing a side idea.
In Iteration, they’re trying a solution and watching what happens.
A teacher practicing Adaptive Connection doesn’t just say, “Try harder.” They ask a quieter, more powerful question:
Which gear is this learner in right now?
When we push iteration before curiosity has settled, we get frustration.
When we push curiosity after a learner is ready to act, we get boredom.
Noticing the gear is often more effective than changing the strategy.
The Loop Beyond School
This loop shows up everywhere.
Parenting: Curiosity about what’s driving a bedtime meltdown, small tests of routine, gentle iteration.
Science: An anomaly appears, experiments follow, conclusions are revised (Dewey, 1938).
Teaching itself: We notice a pattern, try an adjustment, and learn over time—within real classrooms, real systems, real constraints (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Problem-solving isn’t about speed or intelligence. It’s about timing.
Why Skipping Steps Isn’t Failure
Sometimes we jump straight to iteration. Sometimes we linger in micro-research. That doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong.
It means we’re adapting
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The Spiral We framework resonates with teachers because it mirrors how thinking actually works. It doesn’t demand a perfect process—just awareness of where we are in the loop, and permission to spiral back when needed.
A Reflection for You
Think of a recent challenge in your classroom.
Which gear were you in first?
Did you stay there longer than you needed to?
What might shift if you simply named the gear next time?
You don’t need a new strategy.
You may just need a better read on the moment.
References
Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think. D.C. Heath.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. Macmillan.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. Harvard University Press.
Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69(1), 99–118.
Lieder, F., & Griffiths, T. L. (2020). Resource-rational analysis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. Handbook of Child Psychology.
Spiral We. (2024). The Spiral Model of Development, Spiral Adaptation Lens, and Adaptive Connection.
Interesting. Love, Mom
I appreciated the Dewey illustration! Human learning is fascinating.