LEARNING: DEFINITIONS, TYPES & LAWS

 

LEARNING: DEFINITIONS, TYPES & LAWS

 

Learning is an important phase of human life. It is a basic factor in education. It is growth in the adjustment of behaviour to a wide variety of situations and circumstances.

Definitions of learning

Gates: Learning is a modification of behaviour through experience.

Skinner: Learning is both acquisition and retention.

Kimble: Learning refers to a more or less permanent change in behaviour.

Crow and Crow: Learning is the acquisition of knowledge, habits and attitudes. It involves new ways of doing things and it operates in an individual's attempt to overcome obstacles or to adjust to new situations.

Types of Learning

Skill Learning:

Skill means to do something. An individual learns to do so many things throughout his life. In education speaking, reading and writing are fundamental skills, which must be mastered.

Perceptual Learning:

An individual observes, perceives things and objects in his surrounding and comes to acquire knowledge about them. This happens through the five senses of the individual.

Conceptual Learning:

Perceptual learning leads to conceptual learning. This means that knowledge of concrete objects leads to abstract thinking.

Associative Learning:

New knowledge is not obtained in isolation. New facts get associated with the old acquired facts giving rise to new knowledge. Thus, the knowledge of an individual grows by associating new knowledge with the old one. Attitudinal Learning: This type of learning pertains to the formation of attitudes. The development of attitude forms the basis of one's behaviour. Positive attitudes help in the formation of positive behaviour.

General Characteristics of Learning

Learning is Adjustment:

Learning involves the adjustment of the individual to his environment the individual must learn to adjust him to changes that take place around him.

Learning is Growth:

Learning must result in the growth of the child. An immature child is developed into a mature person through learning.

Learning is Purposeful:

The more intense the purpose of the individual the more rapid the learning. Lack of purpose in learning will hamper (slow down) learning. Learning is Active: Better learning will take place only if the learner is actively engaged in the learning process. Thus, the active participation of students is essential in learning. Learning is the Product of Environment: Learning is essentially an adaptation and adjustment to the environment. Thus, the environment has a great influence on learning.

Laws of Learning Law of Readiness This law emphasises the importance of readiness to learn. When a person feels ready to learn he learns more effectively and with greater satisfaction than when not ready. This implies that the learner must be mentally ready to learn. This emphasises the importance of motivation in learning. Educational Implications:

1.      Arouse a child's readiness to learn.

2.      The law calls upon the teacher to motivate the child before he undertakes (starts) any teaching work.

3.      The curricular activities should be according to the child's mental level of maturity. This will ensure readiness as well as arouse curiosity for new things to be learnt.

Law of Exercise

This law implies that learning takes place by exercising i.e., by doing or by actively participating in the performance. We learn what we do and we do not learn what we do not do. This law is also called the law of use and disuse. Law of Use: When a modifiable connection is made between a situation and a response, that connection's strength is increased. This emphasises the need and importance of practice. In other words, practice makes a man perfect.

Law of Disuse:

When a modifiable connection is not made between a situation and a response over a length of time, th2at connection's strength is decreased. This law implies the negative value of lack of practice. Educational Implications:

1. If learnable acts are repeated, they become a habit.

2. Bad habits can be eradicated. It is believed that if the children are made to practice consciously their bad habits, they automatically tend to leave them.

3. Forgetting can be delayed.

4. Skills like typing, shorthand etc. can be developed to the maximum.

5. The teacher must ensure that the act of repetition is carried out with a pleasant effect.

Law of Effect

This law implies that if our efforts are crowned with the success we are further inspired to learn and effective learning takes place on the other hand if our efforts are not crowned with success, not much learning will take place. In other words, we may say that a response, which gives achievement of the goal, will be stamped in while those, which are accompanied by dissatisfaction, will be stamped out.

Educational Implications:

1. Children get to form a good habit, attitude by associating with reward, satisfaction, and praise. 

2. Undesirable attitudes or behaviour can be eradicated by associating them with the unsatisfying desirable condition.

 3. The acts of rewarding and punishing take this law into consideration.

 4. Behaviour problems can be improved by associating them with an annoying state of affairs. 

5. Interest is directly related to this law. Children get interested in things, which bring pleasant

result.

Law of Recency

Recency occurrences are most vivid in our mind. The process of forgetfulness sets in as more and more time is elapsed. We remember these things better, which are comparatively recent. This emphasises the importance of revision. The students should revise so that things are again refreshed in their mind. Revisions should be done after short intervals and also just before the examination. Law of The intensity of Stimulus The stronger the stimulus, the greater the learning. Thus, if the stimulus is strong, the response will be strong. A student, who is more serious about his studies, will make greater progress. The more serious and enthusiastic a student, the greater his achievement.

Theories of Learning

Thorndike's theory of Trial-and-Error Thorndike regarded learning as a mechanical and blind process devoid of intelligent determination. He believed that an animal learns to reach the goal by blind urges. Learning is therefore trial and error process. In the initials trial, there is a large number of errors but as trial are repeated the number of errors is gradually reduced. Finally, there is no error and the result is a success. Thorndike's theory of learning is based on trial and error. Thorndike's theory of learning is the result of his long investigations of fishes, cats, dogs, etc. according to him learning means the establishment of the proper relation between stimulus and response. So, his theory is known as connectionism or the bond theory of learning. Learning he thinks is a mechanical (that all events can be ultimately understood in a mechanical framework) or blind process, which proceeds on through making mistakes and correcting them. Thorndike has numerous animal experiments on learning. But of these his experiments on the cat are classical. He confined a hungry cat in a puzzle box with his food fish placed at a little distance in front of the puzzle box. The hungry cat made varied reactions. All its attempts however proved in vain. But while trying and trying its paws suddenly knocked against the pulley of the puzzle box, which flung open. Then the cat came out of the box and has its food and satisfies its hunger. In every successive trial, the erroneous (mistaken) reaction of the cat decreased in number and the time required by it to open the door and have food was reduced. In the last trial, the cat wasted not a second but shot (try, go) as it were, at the food without making any mistakes. Now it can be said to have learnt to reach its goal. Pavlov's theory of Conditioned Reflex He has explained learning as consisting of condition reflexes. Simple or unconditioned reflex (reaction) means response made to its tongue comes in contact with meat or the child's fear response to a loud sound. Now a bell sounded repeatedly when meat is presented to the dog come to elicit (draw out) the salivary response or a nice toy presented to the child as many times as a loud sound made comes to produce his fear response. Both instances illustrate the conditioned reflex. This represents the view that learning is a number of condition reflexes. This is true not only of the process of animals but also of man as well. The child curiosity to know, for example, can be roused by new objects associated with habitual ones by experiment. For example, the child knows the bird, while it does not as yet know the word “bird”. If the word “bird” were repeated to him as many times as the child sees a bird, he learns this word with ease. Even higher process of learning like the simple explained, are conditioned reflexes. The principle of a child's learning the word bird is the same as that of Newton's learning the force of Gravitation. Gestalt theory of learning or Insight theory of learning Gestalt theory of learning is a new theory of learning. According to Gestalt psychologists learning occurs neither as a result of trial and error nor as a conditioned response to unnatural or conditioned stimuli. It occurs on the other hand by insight into the whole situation to be learned. Learning does not carry gradually or step by step or trial after trial but suddenly by an insight into the learning situation as a whole. Kohler investigated the perceptual or learning process of chimpanzees. He observed that the random attempts at solving their problems suddenly terminated in insight. The chimpanzee exhausted in repeated trials at reaching bananas perhaps discovers a stick laying at hand to reach them. Kohler third experiment is nor startling still. Bananas were hanging high up beyond the reach of the chimpanzee. He vainly tried to get to them with two sticks sported with them aimlessly for some time and all of a sudden fitted one in the whole of another finally dragging the bananas. Insight is a prompt (rapid) and an instantaneous (immediate) process. It does not occur slowly & gradually (step by step). Insight involves a change in the arrangement of objects in the total perceptual field. Thereby the object in-ground becomes the figure of the perceptual field. For example, when the separate sticks unsuitable for reaching the bananas are the figure their relation to each other as related to reaching them is the ground of the field of perception. Insight however reverses this order to what was the ground becomes the figure and what was the figure becomes the ground of perception. It occurs as a flash of lightning and sheds light on the problem as a whole. Insight is similar to the invention. It is a sort of creative consciousness dawning (beginning) upon the mind like an illumination, which has, however, nothing mystic about it.

Methods of Learning

Learning by Trial-and-Error

Learning by Conditioned Reflex

Learning by Insight

Learning by Imitation

Learning by imitation is also called learning by observation. This method is based on the theory that human or animal observe things, imitate and ultimately start to do like that. A lot of examples can be pointed out in the life of human and animals. For instance, chicken imitates hen in picking the seeds. Monkeys are very famous in imitation. The baby monkey imitates its elders in climbing the trees. Human too learns by imitation, as child imitate others in dress, culture, religion etc. Language is also the result of imitation. The child listens to others and makes a sound like them. He tries to pronounce the word as he heard from others. In short language development takes place by imitation.

Important Points (Learning by Imitation) Though learning by imitation is common in the animal and human. But this method is more useful for children and animals.

Imitation is natural quality; every child born with this quality. As it is a natural quality so teachers and parents must be very careful before children as their bad habits may cause some bad effects, destroy their character and harm the children personality. In this method physical, mental health, objectivity and adjustment are needed. Dissatisfactions and anxieties hamper down it. / Children copy only relative and interesting things while they ignore the irrelative matters. This method is very important from an educational point of view. Children imitate their teachers, parents and other elders in language, dress, way of talking etc.