A topic in Learners' conceptions and thinking
Learning as a change in the behavioural repertoire?
Teachers are very concerned with students' learning, but it may not be actually obvious how to best define learning. Here is one suggestion:
"Learning is considered to be a change in the behavioural repertoire, that is a change in the potential for behaviour…
After learning, some new behaviour becomes possible that was not possible before.
Often in formal education that behaviour is verbal – something represented in speech or writing as an answer to a question. Behaviour reflecting learning could however be diverse: to improvise a fugue on piano, to recite a soliloquy from a classic theatrical play, to list the capital cities of African counties, to solve quadratic equations, to bind correctly in a rugby scrum, to identify the metallic components of salts from flame colours…
Learning is here defined as a potential (for behaviour) because learning that occurs will only actually produce behavioural evidence of that learning if that behaviour is subsequently elicited or otherwise motivated. A student could learn the dates of office of British Prime Ministers for an examination, but the actual questions asked may give no reason to demonstrate this learning. Quite possibly, this hypothetical student might well then go through the rest of her life with no reason to demonstrate this knowledge. In this hypothetical case, learning has taken place but this would never be apparent to an observer."
(Taber, 2018: 3)
Learning, thinking and consciousness
Learning is complicated for teachers by how learning is only partially under conscious control. Pre-conscious factors determine what is noticed and how it is recognised in perceptions. Much of the process of long-term learning takes place out of consciousness over an extended period after a learning activity.
Sources cited:
- Claxton, G. (1997). Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less. London: Fourth Estate.
- Taber, K. S. (2018). Scaffolding learning: principles for effective teaching and the design of classroom resources. In M. Abend (Ed.), Effective Teaching and Learning: Perspectives, strategies and implementation (pp. 1-43). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
