Week 5 - What is learning?

What is learning? Well that really is a hard thing to narrow down. For me, learning is accumulating new knowledge and skills that will hopefully be of use to you in the future. I’ve been watching my 4 month old daughter with real fascination, as she learns new things every day. For her, learning is a trial and error experience. She’s never blown a raspberry before, but hey what do you know, if your poke your tongue out and blow, you can make a funny sound. It’s fascinating as some days she can’t get it working, even though the day before she managed.

I think people learn physical skills by watching, then attempting, followed by analysing and assessing what they have learnt from the first attempt, so they can then try again and see if the second (and subsequent) attempts leave them with more refined skills. Learning by doing works really well for a lot of people, especially with particular themes.

But not everything can be learnt by doing. Sometimes there needs to be a more academic style of learning. Reading books/essays/internet sources etc. and listening to live or recorded lectures are necessary ways of gaining information. But for me, learning is when this new information sinks in. How can we make sure these new learnings stay present? Analysing and evaluating information by writing essays, having discussions and taking notes can be useful tools to make information stick.

In the case of my daughter blowing raspberries, you can see how learning can happen organically too. In the two previous paragraphs I have talked about learning from someone instructing the learner. It can also happen more naturally by trial and error – when you accidentally burn your hand, you don’t do it again. This happens on a daily basis, it’s this practical learning that is the hardest to quantify.