1. Learning and Knowledge Acquisition

2. The Nature of Learning
Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour or human capabilities resulting from processing new knowledge, practice or experience
Such capabilities relate to all types of skills: cognitive/motor skills, attitudes and verbal information (Gagne & Medsker)
Learning results in the assimilation of group ‘norms’
Learning is a mode of adaptation to change, it can be formal, non-formal, informal or incidental
Incidental learning results in tacit knowledge; the other processes result in explicit knowledge

3. Classical Learning Theories
These include:
The behavioural approach
The cognitive approach
The social-learning approach

4. Learning: Using all we know
Behavioral
consequences and practice
Cognitive (individual constructivist)
attention, memory, knowledge, organization, elaboration, effort
Constructivist (social constructivist)
discourse, authenticity, community, identity
Understand, remember, apply (practice)
Behavioral--power of consequences; Why are you here? Have you ever found yourself wearing an out fit more often because of the compliments? Would you continue to work at a job if you were not paid, you disliked the people, and the work made you feel stupid/ Is that what school is like for some kids?
But leaning is more than consequences and practice. Prom dress, joke, phone number or you keep looking up.COGNITIVE--THE INDIVIDUAL
Attention (to that phone number)
CONSTRUCTIVIST --THE GROUP.

5. Behavioural Approach
The behavioural approach perceives learning as little more than a chain of conditioned (learned) reflexes encouraged or inhibited by positive and negative reinforcement
The two best-known behavioural theorists are Ivan Pavlov and B.F.Skinner
They explained learning as an interaction with the environment
Pavlov ( ) was famous for his experiment with dogs and his studies of conditioning. He is described as the 'father of behaviourism'
Skinner ( ) devised the theory of ‘operant conditioning’, which placed reliance on behavioural reinforcement stimuli (negative or positive)

6. Figure 8.1 - Classic or Pavlovian Conditioning

7. Figure 8.2 - Examples of Positive and Negative Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a means of inducing motivational states in organizations.
Rewards are a form of positive reinforcement

8. But Practice without feedback is useless.
Consequences are a form of feedback--Target
2. Cognitive tools are remarkable--but limited:
The cognitive tools we have to work with are remarkable, but some capacities are limited.
How so remarkable? We are equipped to register a huge amount of information--very briefly--pencil, pinch. A copy of the image, touch is there for .5 to 2 seconds after it leaves.

9. Cognitive Approach
This approach concerns learning through feedback: cognitive theorists believe that how individuals perceive, evaluate feedback, represent, store and use information plays an important role in learning
The key theorists of this approach were Max Wertheimer ( ), Wolfgang Kohler ( ) and Kurt Lewin ( )
Wertheimer and Kohler were gestalt theorists looking to the overall shape of pattern of consciousness
Kohler developed a theory called insightful learning through his experiments on chimpanzees; he argued stimulus response learning did not have to be gradual and incremental
Cognitive theorists concentrated on the ‘black box’ of the mind, whereas behavioural theories thought the internal contents of the mind were not measurable and so looked outwards, to the environment
Recent approaches have refined Kohler’s and have lent support to the idea of a ‘trial and error’ component in learning (Bernstein)

10. Table 8.1 - Approaches to Learning Theory
Comparing the behaviourist and cognitive approaches

11. Social Learning Approach (1)
Social-learning (S-L) theorists believe that people develop through observational learning
The theory operates on the basis of symbolic representations; individuals learn by observing others directly or indirectly...
Bandura (1977) argued that learning involved four inter-related processes:
Attention
Memory
Motor skills
Motivation.
Close attention to a model leads to self-efficacy (confidence to learn fresh skills)