June 08, 2017 4:30 6:00pm MTH (Facilitating Learning) 3rd yr.

College BTTE

Educators in the 21st century have realized that for students to be successful they need to be a lifelong
learner. Likewise, to create an environment in which student will learn is a great task for teachers. But
the question is, what does it mean to learn something?

Learning to some is a biological response to external stimuli. To others, learning means constructing a
personal interpretation of reality.

It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning
occurs outside the classroom, and people continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything
we do,

Nature of Learning

Many educators attempted to define learning.

One writer defines learning as an intelligent adaptation to changing conditions.

Another authority defines learning as the process of acquiring knowledge.

But the best definition which puts emphasis on the students ability to perform as the result of learning.

Ornstein (1990) defines learning as a reflective process whereby the learner either develops new
insights and understanding or changes or restructures his or her mental processes.

Lardizabal (1991) opines that learning is an integrated, ongoing process occurring within the individual,
enabling him to meet specific aims, fulfill his needs and interest, and cope with the learning process.
This process involves unfreezing, problem diagnosis, goal setting, new behavior, and refreezing.

Slavin (1995) defines learning as a change in an individual caused by experience. Changes caused by
development (such as growing taller) are not instances of learning. Neither are characteristics of
individuals that are present at birth (such as reflexes and responses to hunger and pain)

Calderon (1998) defines learning as the acquisition through maturation and experience of new and
more knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable the learner to make better and more adequate
reactions, responses, and adjustments to new situations.

Learning is also a process by which behavior is either modified or changed through experience or
training. In this sense, learning refers not only to an outcome that is manifestly observable (e.g., learning
to ride a bike, to multiply fractions, to recite a poem), but also to attitudes, feelings and processes that
may not be obvious.

In summary, all definitions of learning point to three important concepts: change, behavior, and
experience.

Views on How Learning Occurs

Learning theories generally fall into two major groups: behavioristic theories and cognitive theories.
Both sides agree that learning is a result of experience, but they disagree on 1.) How learning occurs
2.)How to best establish the conditions that maximize learning in the first place

The behaviorist theories contend that habits or specific ways of thinking or behaving are learned while
cognitive theories state that cognitive structures or more general ways of thinking are learned. For
example, when going home from school, we probably activate specific ways of thinking and behaving so
as to get home as quickly as possible. The behaviorist would say that our need for rest (stimulus) caused
us to go home (response) in order that we might be able to sleep (reinforcement). However, from a
cognitive theorists point of view, we find our way home because what is learned are facts that enable
us to deduce the best and quickest route to get there. Thus, if we can locate our house from one starting
point, we can find it from another because we know where the house is.