Created by Shannon Lutz
April 17, 2019
According to How People Learn, learning involves an individual constructing new knowledge and understanding of something based on prior knowledge, beliefs, and their environment (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 10). Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life as schemas are developed to help with adaptation, accommodation, and equilibration that help an individual build, change, and create a framework for understanding the world around them (Kerry, 2019). Schemas grow as information is received and organized to create expertise in a particular domain.
As adults, people have the desire to become experts in a domain where their knowledge transitions from a collection of facts to an organized system of information that impacts decision-making (Bransford et al., 2000). This conditionalized knowledge allows an individual to retrieve this information, select what is needed, and determine the best solution to a problem. During this process, experts recognize patterns faster because they notice similarities within the information. By gaining more knowledge, skills, and expertise in a domain, individuals become experts who can decontextualize information effortlessly. Depending on organization and interpretation of information, problem-solving will come easier and expertise will be established.
As expertise is established, an individual develops a behavior or skill with some degree of fluency or automaticity. As this behavior or skill is repeated over time, cognitive effort to remember what a skill entails and how it is done weakens and the individual automatically makes a connection. How People Learn (2000) also pointed out that experts will approach new situations flexibly and continue to learn throughout their lifetimes. In addition to what is learned throughout life, individuals use metacognition to continually question expertise and grow in their understanding. Through motivation and responsibility for their own learning, individuals can move forward in learning and continuously seek ways to improve their knowledge or skills to do something more efficiently or better.
How People Learn (2000) discussed the importance of providing enough time to learn, practice, and to process information. The learning process cannot be rushed and students should be engaged in order to connect the information outside of school. The Social Learning Theory focuses on how cognitive factors play into our learning process. Bandura described the four mediational processes involved: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. These thought processes are considered and affect how a behavior is to be imitated or not (McLeod, 2016).
Several factors can hinder a student’s learning. Textbooks are filled with facts that students are expected to memorize, and tests are assessing the learners’ ability to remember the facts which resides in memory rather than understanding (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 8-9). Although memorization is required in life, such as knowing your phone number or passwords, it is not necessarily helpful in learning. If an individual only learns through memorizing the facts to get through a lesson, he or she is not benefiting from the learning experience and loses the use of discovery and exploration in real conceptual learning. This often hinders one’s ability to think and solve problems using the information presented.
An educator can also hinder learning by not assessing and observing his or her students. As was discovered in the study with Benny, the teacher did not fulfill her responsibility in the child’s understanding of converting fractions into decimals. As a result, Benny learned math incorrectly and passed just so he could move onto the next lesson(s) (Erlwinger, 1973). However, the teacher cannot be fully blamed in Benny’s scenario. If an individual does not take full responsibility for his or her own learning, this can hinder the learning process. Responsibility can be accomplished through doing homework, participating in discussions, and applying knowledge into practice.
Reinforcement is critical to learning, changing, and acquiring a behavior and increases the probability that a habit will follow. Reinforcement of a behavior involves the presentation or removal of a stimulus through the use of positive and negative reinforcement (or punishment); then the behavior can become habitual. An individual can cognitively repeat a behavior, along with a combination of negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement, until a desired habit is developed. In the Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg discussed that “habits can be changed if there is an understanding of how they work” (2012). First, there is a cue or trigger that tells the brain to go into automatic mode and which behavior to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps the brain figure out if a particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this repeated loop of cue, routine, and reward becomes automatic, and the cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges forming a habit (Duhigg, 2012). Learning is crucial to the development of oneself, and to a greater extent, to humanity. In learning about how humans turn information into knowledge, instructors are better equipped to develop a course of action that will provide the individual with the tools required to apply their knowledge in a real world context.
References
Bransford, J. L., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind,
experience, and school (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Cherry, K., (2019). The role of schema in psychology. Retrieved from
Duhigg, C., (2012). The power of habit. New York, NY: Random House.
Erlwanger, S. H. (1973). Benny’s conception of rules and answers in IPI mathematics. Journal of
Children’s Mathematical Behavior, 1(2), 7–26.Persky, A., & Robinson, J. (2017, Nov). Moving from Novice to Expertise and Its Implications for Instruction. Retrieved from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738945/
McLeod, S. (2016). Bandura - Social Learning Theory. Retrieved from Simply Psychology:
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