Understand what is learning.

After completing this chapter. you should be able to:
Understand what is learning.
Classify the learned capabilities.
Understand the various theories of Learning.
Learning is the basic objective of all the training
and development activities.
Learning may be defined as
the process of acquiring, assimilating, and
internalizing cognitive, motor or behavioral inputs for
their effective and varied use when required, leading to
an enhanced capability for further self-monitored
learning.
Learning can and should be a
lifelong process.
We can learn from everything
the mind perceives at any
age.
Our brains build and strengthen neural pathways
no matter where we are, and what the subject or the
context is.
The capabilities that human beings can learn are
classified into five types:
Verbal information
Intellectual skills
Motor skills
Attitudes
Cognitive strategies
Verbal information refers to knowing the facts
about a subject matter.
An important feature of verbal information is that
it is reproduced by the learner in the same way it
was originally received by him
Intellectual skills are also known as procedural
knowledge which is aimed at addressing ‘how’
aspects of learning of a phenomenon.
In this category, the capabilities of an individual
can be customized to suit the requirement of the
situation.
Motor skills are the capabilities which necessitate
the physical movement of individuals or their body
parts for learning and performance.
They may also involve co-ordination with the
sensory organs and other limbs.
Attitudes are evaluative judgments by individuals
about particular objects, people or events, favorable
or unfavorable, formed fundamentally on the basis
of one’s own feelings, beliefs and practices.
Attitudes are learned and not innate, it is necessary
to have a positive attitude to be successful.
Attitudes are not visible unless they are expressed
in the form of behavior.
Cognitive strategies can also be termed as strategic
knowledge.
Cognitive strategies play a supervisory or
coordinative role for the effective development and
use of other capabilities in the individual.
Cognitive strategies may involve creativity and
algorithm to find solutions in an unstructured
situation for which readymade solutions are not
known.
During the 1950’s, a team of educational
psychologists were led by Benjamin Bloom in the
analysis of learning behaviors.
The results of this team’s research produced what is
known today in the field of education, as Bloom’s
Taxonomy.
This hierarchy of learning behaviors was
categorized into three interrelated and overlapping
learning domains —
cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude), and
psychomotor (skills).
The cognitive domain:
The Cognitive Learning Domain is exhibited by a
person’s intellectual abilities.
Cognitive learning behaviors are characterized by
observable and unobservable skills such as
comprehending information, organizing ideas, and
evaluation information and actions.
The affective domain
The Affective Learning Domain addresses a learner’s
emotions towards learning experiences.
A learner’s attitudes, interest, attention, awareness,
and values are demonstrated by affective behaviors.
The psychomotor domain
The psychomotor domain refers to the use of basic
motor skills, coordination and physical movement.
This domain was not developed by Blooms research
group but it was developed by Simpson to support
Bloom’s domain
David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
Having developed the model over many years prior,
David Kolb published his learning styles model in
1984. The model gave rise to related terms such as
Kolb’s experiential learning theory (ELT) and Kolb’s
learning styles inventory (LSI).
ELT are today acknowledged by academics, teachers,
managers and trainers as fundamental concepts which
help in understanding and explaining human learning
behavior, and towards helping others to learn.
David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
The development stages that Kolb identified are:
o 1. Acquisition - birth to adolescence - development of
basic abilities and ‘cognitive structures’
o 2. Specialization - schooling, early work and personal
experiences of adulthood - the development of a particular
‘specialized learning style’ shaped by ‘social, educational,
and organizational socialization’
o 3. Integration-mid-career through to later life - expression
of non-dominant learning style in work and personal life.
David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
Whatever influences the choice of style, the learning
style preference itself is actually the product of two
pairs of variables, or two separate ‘choices’ that we
make, which Kolb presented as lines of axis, each with
‘conflicting’ modes at either end:
o Concrete Experience - CE (feeling) ----- V ----- Abstract
Conceptualization - AC (thinking)
o Active Experimentation - AE (doing) ----- V ----- Reflective
Observation - RO (watching)
David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
Our learning style is a product of these two choice
decisions:
o 1. How to approach a task - i.e.., ‘grasping experience’ preferring to (a) watch or (b) do, and
o 2. Our emotional response to the experience - i.e.,
‘transforming experience’ - preferring to (a) think or (b)
feel.
David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
It’s often easier to see the construction of Kolb’s
Learning styles in terms of a two-by-two matrix. The
diagram also highlights Kolb’s technology for the four
learning styles; diverging, assimilating, converging
and accommodating:
Below are brief
descriptions of the four
Kolb learning styles:
viewpoints.
Assimilating (Watching
And Thinking - AC/RO)
o This is for a concise, logical
approach. Ideas and
concepts are more important
o These people are able to
than people. These people
look at things from
require good clear
different perspectives,
explanation rather than
sensitive, prefer to watch
practical opportunity. They
rather than do, tending to
excel at understanding widegather information and
ranging information and
use imagination to solve
organizing it a clear logical
problems, best at viewing
format.
concrete situations
several different
Diverging (Feeling And
Watching - CE/RO)
Below are brief
descriptions of the four
Kolb learning styles:
and interpersonal aspects.
Accommodating (Doing
And Feeling - CE/AE)
o The Accommodating learning
style is ‘hands-on’, and relies
on intuition rather than logic.
o People with a converging
These people use other
learning style can solve
people’s analysis, and prefer
problems and will use
to take a practical,
their learning to find
experiential approach. They
solutions to practical
are attracted to new
issues. They prefer
challenges and experiences,
technical tasks, and are
and to carrying out plans.
less concerned with people
Converging (Doing And
Thinking - AC/AE)
Andragogy for adult learning
Andragogy, meaning adults teaching other adults,
provides a different role for the trainers.
Here the trainer serves more as a facilitator or catalyst
for the learners’ activities.
An advantage of andragogy is that learners’ motivation
is enhanced through greater responsibility for, and
involvement in learning.
But andragogy methods are often situation-dependent
and cannot be applied to codify or standardize
information for mass use.
Andragogy for adult learning
Becoming an effective trainer involves understanding
how adults learn best.
Adults have many responsibilities that they’ must
balance against the demands of learning.
Because of these responsibilities. adults have harriers
against participating in learning.
Some of these barriers include lack of time, money,
confidence, interest, information about opportunities to
learn, scheduling problems, mid problems with child
care and transportation.
Andragogy for adult learning
According to Malcolm Knowles, referred to as the
father of adult education, andragogy is an emerging
technology for adult learning.
Assumptions of andragogy are as under:
1. The learner’s need to know
2. The learner’s self-concept
3. The role of the Learner’s experience
4. A Trainee’s readiness to learn
5. The trainees’ orientation to learning
6. Trainee’s motivation to learn
Facilitation Theory
Facilitation theory or humanistic theory was advocated
by Carl Rogers.
Carl Rogers is best known as an American psychologist
and has made significant contributions to the field of
adult education.
Rogers maintained that all human beings have a
natural desire to learn.
Facilitation Theory
He defined two categories of learning:
o Meaningless or cognitive learning.
o Experiential applied knowledge which addresses the
needs and wants of the learner
According to Rogers, the role of the teacher is to
facilitate experiential learning by
o Setting a positive climate for learning.
o Clarifying the purposes to the learner.
o Organizing and making available learning resources
o Balancing intellectual & emotional components of
learning
Facilitation Theory
According to this theory, facilitative teachers are:
o Less protective of their constructs and beliefs than other
teachers.
o More able to listen to learners, especially to their feelings.
o Inclined to pay as much attention to their relationship
with learners as to the content of the course.
o Apt to accept feedback, both positive and negative, and to
use it as constructive insight into themselves and their
behavior.
Synergogy For Team Learning
Synergogy is a systematic approach to learning in
which the members of small teams learn from one
another through structured interactions and nondirective intervention.
Challenge and stimulation are created through social
situation under which real as well as felt needs for
learning can be satisfied.
The instructor or learning administrator provides
educational materials from which knowledge or
insights can be acquired and create designs-instruction
for team action-that stimulate learning.
Synergogy For Team Learning
Synergogy differs from other learner-centered
methodologies in three basic principles that promote
educational success.
o First, synergogy offers meaningful direction to learners in
the form of learning designs and learning instruments.
o Secondly, synergogy relies on teamwork rather than
individual or group work to enhance learners’
involvement and participation.
o The third principle essential to synergogic method is that
of synergy-the concept that under certain conditions the
whole can be more than the sum of its parts.
Transformative
Learning
Transformative learning
is basically the kind of
learning a person
engages in as he/she
makes meaning of
his/her life.
It has become a very
popular topic in adult
education because it does
not just involve classroom
learning — it involves
learning about one’s lite.
One of’ the best-known
experts in this area is a
scholar named Jack
Mezirow, who began
researching on this topic
in the 1970s.
Transformative Learning
He came up with a set of phases that people go through
when they experience transformation and those steps
are:
o Experiencing a disorienting dilemma
o Self examination and critical assessment of assumptions
o Recognizing that others have gone through a similar
process
o Exploring options
o Formulating a plan of action
o Reintegration.
Transformative Learning
Transformative
learning
involves three
kinds of
reflections as
under:
Content Reflection
Process Reflection
Premise Reflection