Understanding Learning essays

Understanding Learning essays On my journey to a better understanding of how learning theories have shown themselves in my life, I realized that I have had more experience with them than I had first thought. I dont see myself as being changed dramatically by any one learning experience, but I do realize that my desire to learn has increased as I have been introduced to a variety of teaching methods. In short, I could not pick one theory that I could relate most of my learning experiences to. Therefore, as I looked through our textbook, I tried to remember if and how any of these theories played a role in my educational development so far. As we have studied, most learning theories can be placed into one of two groups: cognitive learning and association learning. The cognitive learning view states that learning is based on a restructuring of perceptions and thoughts occurring within the organism. This restructuring allows us to perceive new relationships, solve new problems, and gain understanding of a subject area. Cognitive learning theorists stress the reorganization of ones perceptions in order to achieve understanding. (Sprinthall, Sprinthall, and Oja; Educational Psychology- A developmental Approach 1998) One of these cognitive-learning theorists is Wolfgang Kohler. Kohler performed many experiments with chimps during World War I. Kohler constructed a variety of problems for the chimps, each of which involved obtaining food that was not directly accessible. In the simplest task, food was put on the other side of a barrier. Dogs and cats in previous experiments had faced the barrier in order to reach the food, rather than moving away from the goal to go around the barrier. The chimps, however, presented with an apparently similar situation, set off immediately on the roundabout route to the Over the last few years my husband and I, for lack of anything ...