What is learning?

Learning is the journey we take through life, it’s the road we follow and the objects we pick up as we progress along it. It never stops as we travel and we all find our own ways to learn. We chose what we want to hold on to and what lessons we wish to keep. Our mind also plays a part as we lose some lessons along the way. 

So what actually is learning?

Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.(Wikipedia 2011)

Has the understanding of learning changed over the years? 

A visit back to 1983 saw (Curry 1983) put it rather eloquently as he explains the term ‘Learning’.

The term will refer to intended learning in contrast to unintended learning. Intended learning is both a process and a product. The process is adaptive, future focussed, and holistic, affecting an individual’s cognitive, affective, social, and moral volitional skills. The product is observable in the improved ability of the individual to adapt to environmental stimuli. (Curry 1983)

However surely it can be summed up a more succinct manner, ‘relatively permanent change in behavior that results from practise.’(Atkinson et al 1993) or ‘Process by which experience or practice results in a relatively permanent change in behaviour or potential behaviour’ (Hamilton.K 2003).

It would seem to be all about behaviour and positive changes in that behaviour. What is clear is that there is no clear definition of learning and the debate will no doubt continue.

Has the meaning of learning changed over the years?

With the introduction of modern classroom innovations, blogs wikis and electronic media it surely has. All learning invariably requires some form of interaction and possibly some feedback but whereas the media being used to disseminate the learning may have changed the process of learning has not. We now talk of social learning as if it is new, it’s always been part of the learning. Whereas the social website may now open up opportunities to talk to hundreds of fellow learners the playground / workplace offered the same facility with a smaller group This has been an opportunity for learners long before computer assisted media ever came along.

What is slightly more obvious though is the emphasis is more on the learner than the learning, as educators strive to meet the aspirations of ‘Netgens’ and the modern student, trying to fuel interest without resorting to traditional didactic methods of learning too often.

Experiential and collaborative learning play their part in fact according to Bruffee (1998) if educators continue to teach in the stand-up-and-tell-'em way,  students will miss the opportunity to learn mature, effective interdependence—which Bruffee maintains, is the most important lesson we should expect students to learn.

So it is safe to say that learning is about change in behaviour which more or less sticks and is the product of interaction within the learner’s  environment and within the learner’s lifespan.

This is more or less the point that Atherton (2011) makes although I am not so sure on the use of organisms as he puts it. As for the educator well we don’t have exclusivity to learning there are many avenues in which learning appears.

References

Atherton J S (2011) Learning and Teaching; What is learning? [On-line: UK] retrieved 27 February 2011 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/whatlearn.htm

Bruffee (1998) Collaborative learning: ‘Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of knowledge’, Publisher, The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Curry L (1983) ‘An Organisation of Learning Styles Theory and Constructs’, [online] Available from http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED235185.pdf  (Accessed 27 February 2011).

Hamilton.K (2003)’Learning Definitions’ [Online ] Available from: http://webhome.idirect.com/~kehamilt/psydef5.html

Accessed 25 February 2011.

Wikipedia (n.d) ‘ the free encyclopedia’ [online]  Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning (Accessed February 2011).