Eric Warren

PSY 115a

Integrative Essay

12-1-00

Learning is defined as "acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform new behaviors." It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, and people continue to learn throughout their lives. In his book, How People Learn, John D. Bransford’s writes about the nature and foundations of human learning. Bransford writes that the book reflects on three main points:

Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain. There are many experiences and different environments that help create, maintain, and improve the foundations of human knowledge. Some of these will be discussed in this paper.

From How People Learn, there are four characteristics of learning and transfer. The first one is initial learning such as a previous knowledge of something or the experience you have previous to doing something. This initial knowledge sets the basis for transfer. The second characteristic is not having overly contextualized knowledge. Overly contextualized knowledge can, in fact, reduce transfer; however, abstract representations can aid transfer. The third characteristic is metacognition and knowing that transfer is an active dynamic process rather than a passive end-product. The final characteristic of learning and transfer is transfer shaped by previous learning. This characteristic has implications for instructional design.

Learning starts when a child is first born. Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to manipulate toys, food, and other objects. As part of the learning process, to build the foundation for their knowledge, young children use their senses to learn about the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn interaction with their parents, friends, and other people in their world. As school starts, children learn basic academics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. They also continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors will be rewarded for, and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for interacting with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to adapt to the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.

Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. There are many forms of learning, ranging from simple to complex. Simple forms of learning involve a single stimulus (i.e. Sensitization and Habituation). Teachers often use things that are perceptible to the senses, such as a sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste to teach their students. This method is most effective in getting the children's attention and keeping them interested. There is also another form of learning known as classical conditioning where people learn to associate two stimuli that occur in sequence, such as lightning followed by thunder. This is also a method often used by teachers. The home environment and school really sets the foundations and the initial knowledge in the first characteristic of learning and transfer.

One personal example of this is when I was little I used to watch Sesame Street. A few episodes, they had Spanish numbers from one through ten. I remember they had a song that went with it. I really enjoyed it and had a desire to speak Spanish, as I grew older. In high school when I got the chance to take Spanish I jumped at it. I loved it and because I had already been exposed a little to it, it came easier. Because of my desire and previous knowledge, Spanish came easy to me at first, I did well at it, and I also enjoyed it.

"Transfer is also affected by the context of original learning; people can learn in one context, yet fail to transfer to other contexts...... How tightly learning is tied to contexts depends on how knowledge is acquired. Research has indicated that transfer across contexts is especially difficult when a subject is taught only in a single context rather than in multiple contexts" (62). An example of this is a college student who has a test. This test, as many schools do, emphasizes overly contextualized knowledge where the question is not linked to a concrete context. This is because transfer is related to the degree in which the problem and life shares common elements. Since many of these questions on the test are not abstract and are more creative thinking than real life, it can hurt transfer rather than facilitating it. If it were more abstract, it would engage the student’s brain more, and if they were put into the real word, it would be easier to compare their knowledge of how to solve the problem with the problem in real life. These kinds of test would not be very beneficial to learning so the school might try to change this. Transfer from school to everyday environments and flexible adaptation are the ultimate purposes of learning in school.

The third characteristic of learning and transfer is metacognition. "The ability to recognize the limits of one’s current knowledge, and then take steps to remedy the situation, is extremely important at all ages" (47). Experts often use metacognitive approaches in which they monitor and regulate their own understanding. This is an important model for students to try to follow. This freshman seminar class is very metacognitive conducive. For much of the class we have had to think about what we have learned and thought over the years. This class has brought into light many things that are pushed aside and thought of as common sense. We read books on thought and learning. We then began to analyze and think about how we have learned and where our thought processes have been derived from. Those subjects that were thought to be common sense are not so common sense to us anymore.

The final characteristic of learning and transfer is similar to the first characteristic. Since all learning involves transfer, previous knowledge both help and hinder the understanding of new information. As Bransford writes, counting-based arithmetic can make it difficult to deal with rational numbers or walking upright on a seemingly flat earth. Previous knowledge can get the learner in a habit of accepting things as they are because they happen a certain way a few times. This is why it can be difficult for some people to understand astronomy or physics. One great advantage of previous knowledge is that it is important for understanding and supporting prior knowledge. It is very similar to the Spanish example earlier. Because there was a prior knowledge of Spanish, when I took it in high school I could build on that knowledge and reinforce it.

In closing, Bransford’s book How People Learn, is a great book. It brings a great deal of light on the subject of how people are able to learn and seeing that there are so many factors influencing learning that it would be impossible to come up with one theory to describe all cases of learning in a single, all-purpose theory of learning. The four characteristics of learning and transfer give a brief idea of everything that makes up memory, knowledge, and learning. Our schools are trying to find the best way to maximize this learning for their students. So many schools are paying attention to these four characteristics and trying to help the students maintain, improve, and expound upon their memories and learning and thought processes. The characteristics show that different real life experiences and different environments that help create, maintain, and improve the foundations of human knowledge.