Learning

Dr. Jayesh Patidar
www.drjayeshpatidar.blogspot.com

Introduction
 One of the most important characteristics of
human beings is their capacity to learn.
 An individual starts learning immediately after his
birth.
 Our personality, our habits, skills, knowledge,
attitude and interest is largely the result of
learning.
 All our adaptive as well as maladaptive, and
cognitive as well as affective behavior formed by
learning process.
 These are the vital important in helping the
individual to adapt to his environment.
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Definitions
 The term learning covers every modification in
behavior to meet environmental requirements.
(OR)
 Learning is the acquisition of habits, knowledge
and attitudes. It involves new way of doing things
and it operates on an individual’s attempt to
overcome the obstacles or to adjust the new
situations. it represent progressive changes in
behavior. It enable him to satisfy interests to attain
goal.

Nature of learning
 Learning is a process.
 It involves all those experiences and training of
an individual which helps to change his
behavior.
 Learning prepares the individual to adjust and
adopt in the situations.
 All the learning is purposeful and goal-oriented.
 Learning is universal and continuous.
 It is a continuous and never-ending process that
goes from womb to tomb.

LEARNING PROCESS
 STEPS IN LEARNING PROCESS
 Learning process is carried over through various
steps according to HP Smith.
 A motive or drive
 An attractive goal
 And a block to the attainment of the goal.

 Motive :
 Motive are the dynamic force that compel the
individual to act.
 The direction of the motive depends upon the
relative strength of motives.
 Unsatisfied motives or needs compel the
individual to satisfy them, which initiate the
learners to learn something.

 An attractive goal:
 For the satisfaction of the needs the individual sets definite goals
for achievement.
 The setting of the goal helps in making the learning purposeful
and interesting.
 A block to the attainment of the goal:
○ If the individual faces no difficulty in attending the goal,
he will not change his present behavior, this means
there is no necessity to learn.
○ If block or barrier obstruct the individual to reach a
goal then the individual will try to change his behavior.
○ Means something to change his behavior to reach goal.

 Some other steps involved in learning are
 Reinforcement
 Integration
 And learning situation.
 Reinforcement:
 If the responses is successful in action and satisfied the
needs, on the subsequent occasions the individual will
tend to repeat it.
 Integration: (Addition)
 The individual integrate the successful responses with
individual previous learning, so that it becomes a part
of new functional whole.

 learning situation:
 Learning situation provides opportunity for
learning. The quality speed and effectiveness of
learning depends much upon the kind of
learning situation and environments available to
the learners.

Learning process in different steps
 Perception learning:
 Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch are considered as
the five gateway of knowledge. All the knowledge is based
on the sense of perception.
 Conceptual learning:
 The learning implies that the individual start to think in
an abstract terms.
 Association learning:
 The individual has some mental pictures of his previous
observations. He try to link up his new association with
his previous mental picture and he learns.

 Appreciation learning:
 The feeling make the individual to learn more.
 Attitudinal learning:
 These attitudes confirmed as the individual
acquires more and more knowledge.

Factors influencing learning
 Learning is a process of bringing relatively
permanent changes in behavior of the
learner through the experience.
 Learning process is centered on three
elements.
 Factors associated with the learners.
 Factors associated with the type of learning
 Factors associated with the men and material.

Factors associated with the learners
 Learner’s physical health
 Learners mental health
 Basic potential of the learner
 The level of motivation
 Goal of life
 Readiness and will power
 Maturation
 Age
 Emotions
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Law of learning
 Law of readiness (Person ready to learn)
 Law of effect (Stressful situation)
 Law of exercise (practice number of time)
 Law of disuse (which is not practiced become decays
 Law of primacy (interested novels)
 Law of purpose (work towards goal)
 Law of association

Theories of learning
Behaviourism

Behaviourism
 All things should be looked at from the
perspective of behaviour.
 And it doesn’t matter what is going on in
the mind, it just matters what the
behaviour
 So there is no difference in the behaviourist
mind between external behaviour and
internal thoughts.

Behaviourists
 Ivan Pavlov
 Edward Lee Thorndike
 John B. Watson
 B.F. Skinner

Behaviourists
 Ivan Pavlov
 John B. Watson
 B.F. Skinner

Classical conditioning

Ivan Pavlov
 Born Sept 14, 1849
 Died Feb 27, 1936
 born in Russia
 physiologist,
psychologist, and
physician
 awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or
Medicine in 1904 for
research on the digestive
system

Educational implication of
classical conditioning theory
 Fear, love towards a particular subject is
created through conditioning.
 A teacher, method of teaching or harsh
treatment of his students, create strong
dislike among them towards subject.
 The theory of classical conditioning
emphasizes that the students should be
exposed to positive stimuli in order to
develop desirable habits, interest and
attitudes in them.

Edward Lee Thorndike
 Born August 31, 1874
 Died August 9, 1949
 Born in Williamsburg,
 Studied animal behaviour
and the learning process
 led to the theory of
connectionism
 Laying the foundation for
modern educational
psychology.

Trial and error theory of learning

Cats in Puzzle Boxes

 Thorndike looked at how cats learned to
escape from puzzle boxes
 The puzzle box experiments were
motivated by Thorndike's dislike for
statements that animals made use of
extraordinary faculties such as insight in
their problem solving.

 Thorndike's instruments in answering this
question were learning curves revealed by
plotting the time it took for an animal to
escape the box each time it was in the box
 if the animals were showing insight, then their
time to escape would suddenly drop to a
negligible period, which would also be shown
in the learning curve as an abrupt drop;
 while animals using a more ordinary method
of trial and error would show gradual curves.

His finding was that cats
consistently showed gradual
learning.

Educational implication of
Thorndike’s theory
 According to him, when the child is ready to learn,
he learns more quickly and effectively. He warns
that the child should not forced to learn.
 And teacher must provide learning environment.
 The task of the teacher is to motivate the students
by arousing interest.
 Learners should be encouraged to perform his task
independently. He must try various solutions to the
problem before arriving at the correct time.

“All we need to know in order to describe
and explain behavior is this: actions
followed by good outcomes are likely to
recur , and actions followed by bad
outcomes are less likely to recur.”
(Skinner, 1953)

B. F. Skinner
Science of behavior: Study of conditioning and
extinction of operants
Dependent variable in the "Skinner box": rate of
response
Law of acquisition
key variable: reinforcement
practice provides opportunities for
additional reinforcement

LAW OF EFFECT
Behavior Better state Increased
of affairs probability of
behavior occurring
again
Behavior Worse state Decreased
of affairs probability of
behavior occurring
again

OPERANT CONDITIONING TECHNIQUES
 POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT = increasing a
behavior by administering a reward
 NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT = increasing a
behavior by removing an aversive stimulus when
a behavior occurs
 PUNISHMENT = decreasing a behavior by
administering an aversive stimulus following a
behavior OR by removing a positive stimulus
 EXTINCTION = decreasing a behavior by not
rewarding it

Theory of insightful learning
(Gestalt psychology)
 Gestalt psychology was found in Germany
in 1912 by max Wertheimer and his
colleagues.
 The word “Gestalt” means Form or shape
or a particular arrangement of elements.

Gesalt Theory
 The Gestalt Theory believes individuals use insight
and their prior experiences to determine their
responses to stimuli. They also use the laws of
Gestalt Theory to try to make sense of, and provide
order to, information in their perception. This
information leaves a trace in memory; traces link
together to form connections of information. The
Gestalt theory is closely related to the present day
cognitive constructivist view of learning. Problem
solving is a good choice of instructional methods
to use to incorporate the beliefs of the Gestalt
theory.

Educational implication of gestalt
theory
 The organization of the syllabus and
planning of the curriculum should give
plenty of opportunity to use the mental
abilities.

Cognitive theory of learning
 According to this theory learning through
imitation.
 Learning through observing the behavior of
others
 Four steps in observational learning
 Paying attention
 Remembering behavior
 Reproducing action
 Being motivated to learn and carry out the
behavior.

Transfer of learning
 Definition:
 Transfer refers to the transfer of knowledge,
training and habits acquired in one situation to
the another situation.

Types of transfer
 Positive transfer
 Negative transfer
 Zero transfer

 Positive transfer:
 When something previously learned benefit
performance or learning in a new situation. Eg: if
one has learned to play tennis and he find it easier
to learn to plat badminton.
 Negative transfer
 When someone previously learnt hinders
performance or learning in a new situation, we call
it negative transfer. Eg: Tamil or Guajarati his
pronunciation of English is affected.
 Zero:
 Previous learning makes no difference at all to the
performance or learning in a new situation. Eg:
learning history may neither help nor hinder the
learning.

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Learning

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