Activity 1.3: What is Learning?

Learning is the inevitable acquisition of knowledge by all people at all times that results in changes in the way people perceive and interact with everything around them.  The principles I found most intriguing are as follows:

Principle 2: Learning is inevitable, essential, and ubiquitous
     How awesome is this principle?  I find it so eye-opening to know that even if we try not to learn, we still learn.  Being alive is learning!  Also, this isn’t just true for humans.  Upon reading this principle, I automatically thought about the Learning Psychology class I took as an undergraduate; one of our requirements was to use the Sniffy computer program.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, Sniffy is a virtual experiment in which the user must teach Sniffy, the mouse, to push the lever by rewarding him with food.  At first, Sniffy would try anything to get his food, because it was essential that he eat.  Eventually (inevitably!), he learned to press the lever, and then would do it constantly. 

Principle 3: Learning can be resisted
     Oh, but it can.  Again, when I was an undergraduate, I took a summer class that allowed me to travel to Roatan, an island off of Honduras, to study dolphins at a training facility for the three week May term.  As part of the class, we conducted a study (or, tried- we had a lot of conflicting factors) on how dolphins use their echolocation in order to find food.  At one end of the enclosure, a trainer held up an object (i.e., a wooden spoon) for the dolphin to study, and at the other end, two-three people held items (i.e., another wooden spoon, a brush, etc) in the water.  The dolphin was to echo-locate onto the item held by the trainer, and then swim across the tank to find the same item underwater.  One dolphin, Ron, never wanted to do this activity.  And he would do anything to avoid it; he’d swim around, he’d talk to the other dolphins through the net, he’d even try to engage other trainers standing around.  He resisted, big time.  And, as frustrating as it was, it is a good example of resistance of learning.

Principle 4: Learning might be disadvantageous
     I immediately thought about John B. Watson's Little Albert study as I read this principle.  Little Albert was taught to fear a white rabbit by a loud gong sounding as he touched the rabbit through classical conditioning.  Eventually, he generalized to fear other white fluffy things.  As disadvantageous as that was, he was removed from the study before Watson could desensitize him from the fear.  This means, it was even more disadvantageous, because Little Albert presumably carried that fear with him for the rest of his life.

 Principle 8: Learning is different at different points in time

     This principle is one that I will always strive to remember in my practice as a school psychologist.  Often, younger children are referred for special education because they are not meeting grade level expectations.  However, the people doing the referring are only thinking about how much progress the child is yet to make.  They often overlook this idea that not all kids are going to learn at the same rate, and/or at the same time. 

 Principle 9: Learning is Interactional

As I may have mentioned before, after school on some days I sit for a five-month-old baby.  His name is James, and he is the most fascinating child; everything seems new to him.  I have never watched an infant before, so this experience makes me laugh all the time!  The way James learns is absolutely interactional.  He interacts with everything; his family, me, the dog, the floor, his jumpy seat- the interactions are endless.  And, he is learning from them.  Banging on that red button in the jumpy chair will turn on the music.  Crying will make Mommy pick me up.  The list goes on.  This may make me a super nerd, but I just find it so fascinating!