This document discusses learning and various theories of learning. It defines learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs through experience. It outlines several characteristics of learning, including that it is a change in behavior as a result of experience. It also discusses the importance of learning for adapting to new environments. The document then covers various learning theories, including Thorndike's connectionism, Pavlov's classical conditioning, and Skinner's operant conditioning. It also discusses Gestalt field theories, Hull's drive reduction theory, and Tolman's sign learning theory. Finally, it touches on metacognition and the importance of helping students self-regulate their learning.

1. LEARNING
BY
A.Punitha

2. DEFINITION
A relatively permanent change in behaviour ,
which occurs as a result of activity, training,
practice or experience.
learning is the acquisition of habits,
knowledge and attitudes.
- Crow and Crow

3. characteristics
• A Change in Behavior as a Result of Experience
• Examples of Learned Behaviors
• Non-Examples (Unlearned Behaviors)
• Intentional Learning
• Unintentional Learning
• Behavioral Theories of Learning Emphasize
Observable Behavior

4. importance
• Firstly, learning is essential to all organisms and
without learning, a living soul is of no use
• To understand basic necessities of life
• To adapt to a new environment
• respond to dangers and react
• provide you with deeper knowledge of a subject
• helps in becoming more efficient and helps attain
great positions

5. characteristics
• A Change in Behavior as a Result of Experience
• Examples of Learned Behaviors
• Non-Examples (Unlearned Behaviors)
• Intentional Learning
• Unintentional Learning
• Behavioral Theories of Learning Emphasize
Observable Behavior

6. Transfer of learning
• Transfer of training may be defined as the
application or carry over of knowledge , skills,
habits, attitudes etc. acquired in one situation
to some other situation for which they were
not specially learnt.

7. Types of learning
• Positive transfer
• Negative learning
• Zero Transfer
Previous
learning New learning
Previous
learning
New learning
Previous
learning
New learning
help
interfere
help
interfere

8. Suggestions for transfer
• Have clear- cut objectives
• Emphasize relationships
• Use the project method
• Overview of the lesson
• Sequence of learning
• Regular knowledge/ feedback
• Discussion method of teaching
• SQ3R
• Reduce interference
• Transfer of affect
• Encourage creative solutions to problems

9. Learning theories
Association theories
Thorndike’s
connectioni
sm
Pavlov’s
Classical
conditioning
Skinner’s
Operant
conditioning
Field theories
Gestalt
Theory of
kohler
Topological
Theory of
kurt lewin
Tolman sign
theory
Hull’s Drive
Reduction
Guthrie’s
Contiguity
theory

10. Thorndike’s Trial and Error learning
• Neural connection – Stimuli and Responses
• When a stimulus is presented, the organism picks
a responses and connect.
• Stamped in
Characteristics
• Motive
• Varied responses
• Elimination of the irrelevant responses
• Progressive integration

11. • Law of readiness
When any conducting unit is ready to conduct , to
allow it do so is satisfying, not to allow it to do so
is annoying. when any conducting unit is not
ready to conduct , for it to conduct is annoying.
• Law of exercise
When a modifiable connection is made between
a stimulus and responses, other things being
equal, that connection’s strength increase if it is
repeated a number of times

12. • Law of effect
When a modifiable connection is made
between a stimulus and a Reponses and is
followed up by satisfying state of affairs, its
strength increases .when followed by
dissatisfying state of affairs, its strength
decreases

14. Pavlov: Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned
Stimulus
Unconditioned
Response
Conditioned
Response
Neutral Stimulus
Conditioned Stimulus

15. • Laws of causation
CS
UCS
CS
UCS
CS
UCS
CS
UCS
Simultaneous conditioning Delayed conditioning
Trace conditioning
Backward conditioning

16. • Law of experimental extinction
if the CR is elicited without reinforcement by the
presentation of the UCS, then the CR gets
weakened and finally disappears.
Law of Generalization
Once the C.R is established, it may be elicited by
any stimulus similar to the original CS.
Law of discrimination
A selective CR can be established by selective
reinforcement.

17. • Law of higher order conditioning
The pairing of a neutral stimulus with a UCS
results not only in its becoming a conditioned
stimulus for the response.
• Reinforcement
Which a desired response when emitted is
strengthened by presenting a reinforce and
thereby increasing the frequency of occurance
of that particular response.

18. Classical Conditioning Theory
Example:
• Child is harassed at school
• Child feels bad when harassed
• Child associates being harassed
and school
• Child begins to feel bad when she
thinks of school

19. B.F. Skinner operant conditioning

21. Skinner: Operant Conditioning
Stimulus Reinforcement
Response

22. Learning by insight
• Insight is the mental process by which new
and revealing combinations of data are
suddenly perceived.
• Kohler’s classical experiment on insight
learning.

23. Hull’s Reinforcement theory
• Needs are ‘ physiological or environmental
imbalance that give rise to drives ‘.
• “Drive “ refers to a state of “tension” and
activity that is aroused by a need.
• Motive and drive are sometimes
interchangeably used.
• Both refers to ‘ goal directed behaviour’.

24. Hull’s Drive Theory
• Drive – an intense internal force that
motivates behavior.
• Learning is the result of several factors that
determine the likelihood of a specific behavior
occurring:
– Drive, D
– Incentive motivation (reward), K
– Habit strength (prior experience), H
– Inhibition (due to absence of reward), I

25. Hull’s Model

26. Unconditioned Sources of Drive
• Events that threaten survival activate internal
drive states.
– Hunger, thirst, sex)
• Behavior is designed to restore biological
systems to normal.
– Adjustments can be internal or external (burning
stored fat or eating).
• Hull acknowledged that drives can exist
without deprivation.

27. Non-Survival Drives also Exist
• Electric shock is aversive but does not
threaten survival, yet is strongly motivating.
• Saccharin provides no nutrition or calories and
does not satisfy hunger but is highly
motivating.
• Animals and people will work for stimulation,
which is not drive-reducing.

28. Acquired (Conditioned) Drives
• An acquired drive is a conditioned (learned)
drive.
• Classical conditioning results in drives that
arise because the CS elicits them.
– NOT because of an internal deprivation state
(hunger, thirst).
– Craving for beer or hotdogs at the ballpark.

29. Drive Reduction is Reinforcing
• Specific behaviors occurs in specific contexts
because of habit strength.
• Habits are formed when a behavior is
reinforced by drive reduction.
• Example:
– Hunger is reduced by eating a hot dog at the
ballpark.
– The association between hot dog stand and eating
a hot dog is strengthened.

30. Unsuccessful Behavior
• When a behavior does not cause drive
reduction, it will be temporarily inhibited.
• If it continues to be unsuccessful, conditioned
inhibition occurs.
• This reduces the strength of a habit.
• The behavior that is performed is the one with
the greatest habit strength in a hierarchy.

31. Incentive Motivation
• The size of a reward matters.
• Crespi found that changing the reward size
greatly affects behavior.
• Environmental stimuli associated with a
reward acquire the ability to motivate
behavior (CS again).

32. Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism
• Behavior is not an automatic response to the
environment but has direction and purpose.
– Goal oriented.
– Expectations are what will happen.
• The environment conveys goal-relevant
information.
– Signs point to reward or punishment.
• Behavior is not always conscious.

33. Motivations
• Deprivation causes motives to transfer to
stimuli in the environment.
– Cathexis – transference process.
– Can be positive or negative.
• Equivalence belief principle – people treat
secondary reinforcers as if they were primary.

34. Is Reward Necessary?
• According to Tolman, understanding can
develop without reward.
• Reward motivates performance (display of
understanding in a situation).
– Presence of reward motivates a child to display
previous learning.

35. Problems with Tolman’s View
• Experiments supporting Tolman’s ideas had
inconsistent results.
• Tolman’s findings caused Hull to change his
theories.
– Anticipatory goal responses are similar to Tolman’s
concept of expectation.
• Only when Hull’s view of drive became
problematic did people accept Tolman’s
cognitive approach.

36. Kurt Lewin
• Born Sept 9, 1890
• Died Feb 12, 1947
• Born in Mogilno, Poland
• Psychologist
• "founder of social
psychology“
• Worked closely with the
Gestalt psychologists

37. Force field Analysis
• provides a framework for
looking at the factors (forces)
that influence a situation,
originally social situations.
• Lewin believed the "field" to
be a Gestalt psychological
environment existing in an
individual's (or in the collective
group) mind at a certain point
in time that can be
mathematically described in a
topological constellation of
constructs.

38. Action Research
• first coined the term “action
research” in about 1944. In his
1946 paper “Action Research
and Minority Problems” he
described action research as
“a comparative research on
the conditions and effects of
various forms of social action
and research leading to social
action” that uses “a spiral of
steps, each of which is
composed of a circle of
planning, action, and fact-
finding about the result of the
action”.

39. Instructional Design
• Active Learning
– Instruction must be planned with a clear vision of what the students will do with
the content presented. It is critical that students interact with the instructional
content and that activities be developed to promote and support open-ended, self-
directed learning. Content should never be delivered for memorization, but instead
for use as a tool in planned and sequenced activities.
• A Cohesive Approach
– Lewin wrote that a piecemeal approach to guiding learners to accept new ideas,
attitudes, and behaviors is ineffective. Instead, a cohesive approach must be
utilized to support changes in cognition, affect, and behavior.
• Impact of the Social Environment
– Lewin theorized that before changes in ideas, attitudes, and behavior will occur,
modifications in a learner's perception of self and his/her social environment are
essential. He also argued that it is easier to create change in a social context than
individually.

40. Robert M Gane’s Hierarchical learning
• Reinforcement are inadequate in various
application .
• “Hierarchy of learning”
• 8 types of learning
• Each types of learning begins with a different
capability for performance.

41. Problem solving
Rules
concepts
Multiple Discrimination
Verbal Association Motor chaining
Stimulus - Response
Signal learning

42. Factors influencing learning
• Learner’s physical and mental health
• The basic potential of the learner
• The level of aspiration and achievement
motivation

43. Factor Associated with the Type of
Learning Experience
• Nature of learning experience.
• Methodology of learning.
– Linking the recent learnings with those of the past.
– Correlating learning in one area with that of
another.
– Utilization of maximum number of sense.
– Revision and practice.
– Provision of proper feedback and reinforcement.
– The selection of the suitable learning methods and
teaching.

44. Transfer of training and its theories
• Theory of Mental discipline ( faculty Theory)
• Mind is composed of so many independent faculties
e.g. memory, attention, imagination, reasoning and
judgment.
• Faculties are seems to be muscles of the mind and
like muscles of the body.
• William James emphasized that memory was not
affected by training as claimed by the faculty theory.
•

45. Apperception Theory of Transfer
• Apperception may be defined as a process of
relating new ideas or mental states to a store of
old ones.
• The storage of old ideas and experiences is called
apperceptive mass.
• Experiences help them have a huge build-up of
apperceptive mass in their sub-conscious mind.
• It focus the accumulated ideas and experiences.
• New experiences are always gained and
interpreted in the light of this transfer.

46. Theory of Identical Elements
• The chief propounder of the theory was
Thorndike.
• Later Woodwoth used the word
‘components’ in place of elements.
• It is also called Theory of identical
components.
• The transfer from one situation to another is
possible to the extent that there are common
or identical elements in the situations.

47. Theory of Generalization
• It has been put forth by Charles Judd.
• It lays stress on the generalization of
specific experience and formulation of
some rules or principles so that the
transfer of learning or training from one
situation to another easily.

48. Transposition Theory of Transfer
• It was propagated by Gestalt field psychologists.
• They emphasized the role of insight in the
mechanism of transfer of learning.
• Transposition.
Developing insight into the use of concepts and
generalization in one situation and employing it
in other situation .
its base or medium for the transfer of learning .

49. Theory of Ideals
• It was put forward by W.C.Bagley.
• He asserted that generalization are more likely
to transfer if they are regarded as ideals – of
some values – as desirable.
• It emphasizes that the ideals like love for
wisdom, thirst for knowledge , tolerance for
difference of opinions, spirit of enquiry etc.

50. Metacognition
Helping students to self-regulate

51. What is metacognition?
• “thinking about thinking”
• Knowledge and understanding of what we
know and how we think, including the ability
to regulate our thinking as we work on a task

53. Definitions
• Metacognition - literally “beyond knowing”,
knowing what one knows and doesn’t know -
promoting a student’s ability to self-monitor
levels of understanding and predict how well
(s)he will do on a particular task.
• Self-regulation - students monitoring their
own comprehension and assessing their own
abilities without teacher help.

54. Metacognition
• Most closely associated with a teacher’s
instructional practices.
• The teacher’s metacognitive practices, if done
effectively, can lead to student self-regulation.

55. Elements of Metacognition
• Metamemory
– Knowledge about memory systems and memory
strategies
• Metacomprehension
– Learner‘s awareness about what he/she knows /
does not know

56. Elements of Metacognition
• Self-regulation
– Learner‘s adjustment to errors
– Covers social interaction
• Schema Training
– Helps learner‘s to develop their own cognitive
structures from understanding information and
experiences

57. Skills of Meta-cognition
• Planning: refers to the appropriate selection
of strategies and the correct allocation of
resources that affect task performance.
• Monitoring: refers to one's awareness of
comprehension and task performance
• Evaluating: refers to appraising the final
product of a task and the efficiency at which
the task was performed. This can include re-
evaluating strategies that were used.

58. Metacognitive Strategies
• Blakely & Spence (1990)
– Connecting new information to former knowledge
– Selecting thinking strategies deliberately
– Planning, monitoring and evaluating thinking
processes
 Utilising these strategies a learner can identify a problem, research
alternative solutions, evaluate and decide on a final solution.

59. Metacognitive Strategies
• Macpherson (2002)
– Metacognitive explanation
– Scaffolded instruction
– Cognitive choaching
– Head-to-hands
– Co-operative learning

60. Simple Strategies
 Planning
 Monitoring
 Evaluating
 Resourcing
 Grouping
 Note taking
 Pre-testing
 Complex tasks
 Summarizing
 Deduction/induction
 Concept mapping
 Peer instruction
 Elaboration
 Socratic dialogues
 KWL structures
 Graphical organizers
October 20, 2023 60
Metacognition

61. What are Learning Styles?
• Information enters your brain three main
ways: sight, hearing and touch, which
one you use the most is called your
Learning Style
• Visual Learners learn by sight
• Auditory Learners learn by hearing
• Tactile Learners (kinesthetic) learn by
touch

62. Visual Learners
• Prefer to see information such as pictures,
diagrams, cartoons, demonstrations
• Picture words and concepts they hear as
images
• Easily distracted in lecture with no visual
aids
• Benefit from using charts, maps, notes, and
flash cards when studying

63. Auditory Learners
• Prefer to hear information spoken
• Can absorb a lecture with little effort
• May not need careful notes to learn.
• Often avoid eye contact in order to
concentrate
• May read aloud to themselves
• Like background music when they study

64. Tactile or Kinesthetic Learners
• Prefer touch as their primary mode for taking in
information
• In traditional lecture situations, they should write
out important facts
• Role-playing can help them learn and
remember important ideas
Okay, I
get it
now.

65. Using Knowledge of Your Learning
Style
• Knowing your learning style, both your
strengths and your weaknesses, can help you
study more effectively.

66. • Familiarize yourself with research on Learning Styles
• Organize informal discussion or focus groups to share
understandings/gain additional perspectives
• Analysis of Student Behavior
• Develop & Implement Teaching Strategies
• On-going Assessment
• Commitment: time, resources, administration, faculty
• People are a mix of various styles.
• Just try one unique activity at a time .
Teacher’s role in learning Style