Community Learning Development Resource 200 – 02
DEFINITIONS OF LEARNING
- Learning [verb] – when you are learning, what are you are doing?
Acquiring, attaining, becoming able, committing to memory,
memorising, ascertaining, detecting, discovering, understanding, hearing
- Learning [noun] – when you are learning, what are you gaining?
Acquirements, attainments, education, erudition, knowledge, skills, understanding, schooling, tuition, wisdom, awareness, confidence, abilities, capability, capacity
- Learning = a permanent change in our behaviour (what we are, how we think and what we can do)
Learning has happened when people can demonstrate that they know something they didn’t know before [insight and realisation as well as facts] and/or when they can do something they couldn’t do before [skills]
- Learning = thinking + understanding + remembering + using
Educational theorists have described different ways in which individuals make sense of the world which leads each of us to approach learning differently. This is not to say that the physical or chemical processes of learning differ from person to person. Each individual uses the same processes even when these may function differently, for example, short – long-term memory, spatial and temporal awareness or the capacity to concentrate. But these theorists argue that each individual has a tendency to learn best in a certain way, using a particular set of tools or processes.
- Learning is for the individual
We often experience learning within groups but the learning that goes with us and changes us, is individual. We learn as individuals – no-one else can learn anything on our behalf. The best teaching and learning experiences enable individuals to learn to the best of their own individual abilities, and to choose to further develop those abilities for their benefit and the benefit of other.