This unit offers us the ooportunity to anaylyse what learning is all about. It also introduce to us to the main theroies of learning and how learning takes place. To most of us, "learning" means an attempt to create a memory that lasts. Mastering new dance steps, learning foreign languages, or remembering acquaintances' names require our brains to encode and store new information until we need it. As always learning can be categorries into many part such as :-
Performance - Behaviour that is observable by someone else. Example is Learn how to understand people.
Change - there is many type of changes such as temporary changes, permanent changes, natural responses and maturation and all the will relates to our changes in understandings, attitude or skills. Example Makes more friends.
Not always a result of teaching - learning does not necessarily take place as a result of teaching. Example to be a good listner we dont need someone to teach us.
Intentional/unintentional learning - intentional learning is somthig that we want to to learn like from library or from teachers and unintentional learning something to do with what we learn goes unrecognised because we are not concious of it. Example learn somthing from TV or Drama.
Learning is unconcious (innate, automatic system) - Some example for this is know people feelings.
Importance of meaning and understanding - Tell them how we feel and understand each other.
Scaffolding and zone proximal development - as always we need help and advise from people especially to our parents, friends and colleague.
Transfer - something to do with knowledege or skills which we shared to them and also the strategic or skills how to talk in public.
Behaviourist - something to do with what we learn from seeing any behaviour or movement like by seeing someone kicking a ball automatically we learn something from it.
Cognitivist learning theory - Listen and understand them.
Humanist learning theory - Remind each other, care each other or teamwork.
How do adult learn?
Learn from people by giving advise to each other or remind to each other, listen what they want, listen what they want to say ... respect each other.
In the figure above, it is clear that some of what we teach is wasted effort: but the diagram is a representation of only one learner’s learning. It may be that within a class as a whole, everything we teach is learned, by someone. The shape representing the teaching is smaller than that for learning, because students are also learning from other sources, including colleagues and the sheer experience of being in the educational system, as well as more conventional other resources such as books.
Experiental learning - whatever we learned from past experienced we used it and learned from past mistake example how to tackle the problem.
Accelerated learning - Minggle with more people, talk to the people and share knowledge and experienced which we can learn something from it properly.
For conclusion
-> Learning is the acquisition of knowledge by study. (19th century theory)
-> Learning is a permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience. (Behaviourist theory)
-> Learning is the sudden or slow acquisition of insight into the rules governing certain relationships in the environment. (Discovery learning)
-> Learning is the discovery of new facts and relating them to those already known. (Fundamental/active learning; store/retrieval system)
-> Behaviour involving purposeful use of motor muscular acrivity (a skill) cannot be learned without practice. The more practice the more successfully it is learned. (Pronunciation: motor muscular activity)
-> Using a language is a skill which has to be learned by practising it.
-> Successful practice is more effective than making mistakes. (Role of mistakes: risk-takers / mistake-makers make better language learners. Different kinds of mistakes e.g. failure of motor muscular system)
-> The amount of practice needed depends upon the complexity of the skills involved.
-> It is better to break down a complex skill into separate components and practise them separately. (atomistic)
-> The more difficult what is to be learned appears to be, the more unlikely it is to be learned. (motivation of the learner)
-> The more pointless what is to be learned appears to be, the more unlikely it is to be learned.
-> The more mysterious what is learned appears to be, the more unlikely it is to be learned.
-> In dealing with a situation which is new to them learners tend to equate it with what they are already familiar with.
-> The smaller differences are, the less likely they are to be perceived.
-> A skill has only been learned properly when it can be adapted successfully to unfamiliar situations.
