Question:
What is learning?
Answer1:
A couple of quotes from Dennis Littky's book,THE BIG PICTURE:
'Learning is personal."
"Learning is about learning how to think."
"Learning is not about memorizing. Learning is about being mindful." [Ellen Lager books-MINDFULNESS and THE POWER OF MINFDFUL LEARNING]
"They say knowledge is power.We say the use of knowledge is power."
Answer2:
The best definition I have come across is "Learning is acquiring new behaviors." It sounds a bit behaviorist, but it doesn't have to be read that way.
Answer3:
Behaviorists also include new forms of stimulus control over current behavior, and changes in probability or rate of behavior.
Question 2:
ABOUT THAT WAY OF LEARNING ITS HOW CHILDREN LEARN , BEHAVORIST WAY RIGHT?
Answer1:
Michael Lamport Commons wrote, "Behaviorists also include new forms of stimulus control over current behavior, and changes in probability or rate of behavior."
Answer2:
Although Jeannette Gallagher will disagree with me, there really is no difference in learning from a Piagetian and Operant Behavioral perspective. Both see learning in terms of an individual's active interaction with the environment. It is bi-directional. People in education tend to see learning in terms of curriculum, where as Piagetians and Operant people see it more in terms of pedagogy. Both see the study as being one of individuals.
The mechanisms are assimilation and accommodation. I have written articles on what those consist of in traditional learning theory terms. Roughly accommodation (stage change) is acquiring a coordination (organization) of elements (lower stage behaviors, discrimination, concepts, etc). The organization is not arbitrary so as to differentiated it from acquiring chains of behavior.
Jacob Gewirtz has specified many kinds of operant learning, starting from behavioral acquisition, and simple discriminations, to concept formation, imitation, modeling, role-playing, rule learning etc. There is a parallel set of terms in the Piagetian world for much of this.
Answer3:
There is only one branch of behavior analysis that has the equivalent to stage change. That is Precision Teaching and Celeration. They make the elements and combinations argument.
Question3:
If we think about the brain functioning, the molecular level, could we say that learning is "to make new synapses or to change synapses or to reorganize synapses"?...
Answer1:
Do we make new samples? Maybe though dendritic growth. But that is slow.
We probably modify proteins within neurons that effect receptors and neural transmitter production.
Answer2:
Wouldn't we say that learning is actually the creation or modification of dendritic paths?
Answer3:
It may be that but it also may be modifications of just proteins, RNA, etc.
Answer4:
While it seems necessary that learning correlates to some kind of neurological change in the brain, does it matter (from a psychological point of view) what that change really is?
What I mean is (at least) two things:-
[A] When a computer "learns", there is an electromagnetic change in its memory that is absolutely definable in terms of circuitry, voltages, capacitance, current, and so on. And so let's imagine that we've identified neurolgical change (human learning) in terms of biochemical changes of a definite kind. But human learning is not the same thing as computer learning. By having identified the exact lectrical/neurological changes that underpin these types of learning, would we have explained "learning" in
either case? In the case of the computer, any "learning" it does is better explained by understanding its software. In the human case, do we know what learning is (before we attempt to find a neurological correlate)?
[B] In the case of computers generally, there have been many different ways in which their architecture is implemented. Certainly, different computers work at different voltages and currents, work with very different circuitry, different chemistries underpinning the different types of chip, and even architectures that differ from the standard vonNeuman. And yet the software as represented by a common programming language (i..e the logic that we are "really" interested in) can be the same throughout. In other words, the electrical structure does not necessarily define or explain the software.
So then it is perfectly possible (I would say, probable) that whatever neurological basis is the real structural change that "implements" learning, we would not have contributed to our actual understanding of learning (as a psychological mechanism) at all. Roll on assimilation & accommodation.
Question5:
Can I ask, learning as distinct from - or in connection with - what? What was the point of the original question? The answer may stop this rush to neurology and RNA, which may well be wholly inappropriate to the original question (which, as Andre's previous computer analogy suggest, may be wholly inappropriate anyway).
Answer1:
It matters. Acquisition curves might change depending on circuitry and underlying mechanism. There is some evidence that different neural transmitters induce slightly different learning curves.
Answer2:
True, that many questions are interesting regardless of why they first occurred.
However, Richard's question is also interesting because it reminds us that the real problem with reductionism is not the seeking of biological (neurological, genetic) explanations, but rather the assumption that biological explanations are the only "true" or "right" explanations.
Of course, we know there are many other types of explanations, the psychological (constructivist) explanation that may look at some kinds of learning using concepts like equilibration, adaptation, etc., the social interaction explanation or the socio-cultural explanation of folks like Bronfenbrenner, or Vygotsky, or Rogoff, who define learning in terms of the social interactions in social or cultural contexts.
It is easy to forget in this sort of discussion that each explanation of what learning is and how we do it, is of course, perfectly valid in some context.
Perhaps the question could rather be "for what purpose?" do we want to understand learning? Maybe, now that I think about it, that is what you meant.
Answer3:
There are explanations at every level and possible connections among all levels. If we have learned anything in evolutionary psychology, it is that.
Answer4:
I have a definite purpose to know what is learning in no matter how and which many levels. I work with school teachers. The school receives children from one year and a half till 18 years old.
Some issues to school:
1) difference between teaching and learning ¨C to teach implies someone that learns/ to learn does not necessarily implies someone that teaches. How to sintonize teachers and learners. A school can be different from the strong existing archetype.
2) Brain studies help to make strange the typical school ways. The division of time, for instance, how the brain reacts to one subject after another in a short time (classes). It makes think about why one subject after another (math, Language, Science). If the interest is arised, why change for another subject and wait until the next class?
3) Teach subjects or concepts or teach pupil to learn concepts and subjects. Very difficult for teachers to understand that a constructivist teacher waits for the construction of the learners, without putting aside his own knowledge. Must feel how and let pupils think and when to provide information. Difficult to understand descentralization.
4) Teach, learn, teach to learn how to learn ¨C school education still believes in subjects rather than in developing thinking capacity.
There are many other issues but this is already too long for this media.
Answer5:
Yes!
And the question as to what is, and what is not, a 'true' or 'right' explanation is not itself a biological question in that its answer is normative [even if as well it has an empirical component]. Biology is, of course, an empirical and causal science, at least in its Darwinian incarnation currently dominant.
Answer6:
Interesting yes - that requires only a kind of intuitive attraction. But not necessarily meaningful or answerable out of all context.
