Ch.1: Intro to Learning

Question 1

What are the three categories that make up learning?

Answer 1

The three categories that make up learning are experience, learning and change in behaviour. You need some sort of experience that is connected to a stimulus/event, which will induce a relatively permanent change (this is learning) with the potential to exhibit a particular behaviour.

Question 2

Only 10% of the brain is actually used. Is this statement true or false? Explain.

Answer 2

This statement is false. This is often what we call a misconception. Misconceptions can interfere with learning.

Question 3

What is another name for implicit/naive psychology?

Answer 3

Another name for implicit/naive psychology is Bubba (grandmother) psychology. This is an intuitive sort of folk psychology.

Question 4

What was the study conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer?

Answer 4

They conducted a study to see whether students who used laptops or students who wrote out their notes learned more. This study began after the increase in students using laptops in school. The results showed that students who wrote notes, learn better. This may be because students who typed tend to write out a whole transcription, meanwhile students who wrote their notes tend to summarize their notes.

Question 5

What is the misconception of the Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) study?

Answer 5

The misconception is that it is not that students who write their notes learn more necessarily, but it is about the idea that because they are writing notes they cannot write as fast and end up having to summarize the notes which is a better learning strategy than typing out a transcription.

Question 6

What was the main question that began the search for defining learning?

Answer 6

Is truth and knowledge to be found within us or is it to be found outside of ourselves by using our senses? It began as a conflict between rationalism and empiricism respectively.

Question 7

What was the difference between the way Plato and Aristotle defined learning?

Answer 7

Plato believed in rationalism - the idea that truth and knowledge came from within us, through self-reflection. Aristotle believed in empiricism - the idea that we need to use our senses to discover truth and knowledge in the outside world.

Question 8

What is the dialectic method?

Answer 8

Socrates developed the dialectic method of discovering truth through conversations with fellow citizens.

Question 9

Which two philosophists is the idea of thinking credited to?

Answer 9

Socrates and Plato receive the credit for developing thinking, as their discoveries aid as tools for thinking (self-reflection & true conversations).

Question 10

How did the Romans’ belief of learning differ from the Greeks belief of learning?

Answer 10

Romans’ did believe that reflection and experiences were an important aspect of learning but they also believed that it was necessary to build functional roads. They believed education should benefit society.

Question 11

How did the Romans present the idea of learning?

Answer 11

Roman’s incorporated religion into education. This meant that their aspects of education was filled with memorization and recitation (for scriptures) and the learning of trades by apprenticeship.

Question 12

What brought back the Greeks’ belief?

Answer 12

The Renaissance brought back the Greek’s belief. The focus was on that education should include learning of math, science, music, arts, etc.

Question 13

How did the Renaissance come to be? How were we able to split religion and education?

Answer 13

We began to step away from religion - i.e. the idea of memorization and recitation, and began to question, inquire and challenge the norms. The split between religion and education stemmed from the religious belief that the idea of absolute truth was held in authority of a single person - that is the norm that separated religion from education.

Question 14

Provide two examples of people going against the idea of absolute truth.

Answer 14

Copenricus believed that the Sun was in the center of the solar system, not the Earth. Martin Luther questioned the teachings of the church.

Question 15

Who tried to revive Platonic’s concept of innate knowledge?

Answer 15

Rene Descartes tried to revive Platonic’s idea of innate knowledge. He agreed that we do have some knowledge prior to experience, BUT he said there is also knowledge that we learn from experiences. Descartes stood in the middle of religion and science in order to merge them together to explain human behaviour. He believed that the human body was like a machine, and in that machine is our soul located in the pineal gland which allows learning to occur. He believed that the mind and body are connected (the mind is the soul).

Question 16

What did John Locke believe?

Answer 16

Locke revived Aristotle’s theory of empiricism. He believed that it was up to the educators to shape the experience of a child as their mind is a blank slate. His belief was that education should structure experiences for students and that an important element of education was experience.

Question 17

Who opposed John Locke? What was the controversy?

Answer 17

Many thinkers opposed Locke’s idea of structuring the experiences a child should go through. In particular, Rousseau believed that children should experience free play - they should be given the chance to discover their own interests and form their own experiences.

Question 18

What was Rousseau’s novel about?

Answer 18

Rousseau’s novel, Emile, was about a hero who learns about life through his experiences. It emphasizes the idea of child-centered psychology - focusing more on the experience the child is having and let them make their own experiences, while reducing control and instructions for better intellectual growth and confidence.

Question 19

Who introduced the idea of cognition?

Answer 19

Immanuel Kant introduced this idea of cognition. He refined and modernized Plato’s rationalist theory. He claimed that the neural system is getting set up before birth so the cognitive part will happen after birth.

Question 20

Who first tied the idea of a scientific approach to learning?

Answer 20

This was done by Thorndike - wanted to bring a scientific approach to the understanding of learning. He did this through experimenting on animals - i.e. cat in a puzzle box.

Question 21

What role did B.F. Skinner play in learning?

Answer 21

He worked on using a scientific approach to learning. He wanted to figure out a way to measure learning - response rate. He wanted to keep structure in the curriculum so that way we could easily measure it.

Question 22

What is desirable difficulty?

Answer 22

Desirable difficulty is the idea that in order to develop and learn more, we need to allow some difficulty for students. This concept was derived by Jean Piaget who was the first to believe that learning is a cognitive developmental process.

Question 23

One theorist added the notion of cultural and social cognition to Piaget’s idea of desirable difficulty. What does this mean and who came up with it?

Answer 23

Vygotsky included the notion of cultural and social cognition because he believed that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions.

Question 24

What is the “Zone of Proximal Development” that Vygotsky introduced?

Answer 24

Zone of proximal development follows the idea that we need someone to help us learn, and that how much we learn is dependent on how close we are to that person

Question 25

Overall, what resulted in making up the progressive learning theory?

Answer 25

Piaget’s ideas about child development, along with Vygotsky’s notion of cultural and social cognition, and as well as the old ideas that laid emphasis on experience, self-reflection and thinking as a basis of learning.

Question 26

Who agreed with Rousseau?

Answer 26

John Dewey agreed with Rousseau’s idea of education not being separate from life itself. Education should be child-centered, and be led by a well-trained teacher. He also believed to start conversation, teachers must drop their hierarchy and speak to students.

Question 27

Who introduced the liberated concept of early childhood education?

Answer 27

Maria Montessori introduced it. She believed in free expression, and believed that social interaction and cultural cognition is important but not as important as the teachers as they are the ones who craft the student’s experience together.