Free Essays on Learning

Learning Styles Throughout our lives, we are faced with many different learning experiences. Some of these experiences have made a better impact than others. We can attribute this to our learning style. A person’s learning style is the method through which they gain information about their environment. Research is going on all over the world to help explain learning styles. As teachers, it is our responsibility to learn about these different learning styles so that we can appeal to every type of learner in our classrooms. Howard Gardner has elaborated on the concept of learning style through what he calls â€Å"multiple intelligence’s† (Gardner 3). Understanding these intelligence’s will help us to design our classrooms and curriculum in a way that will appeal to all of our students. We may even be able to curb negative behavior by reaching students in a different way. If we implement activities that call upon the use of all these â€Å"intelligence’s† (Gard ner 2) we will get the best out of all of our students (Santrock 311). Their grades will improve and they will retain more information for a longer period of time. Learning styles can also help us to determine possible career paths so that we can help to steer children in the right direction. Discovering our own learning styles can potentially maximize our own information processing and teaching techniques. Howard Gardner is a professor at Harvard who has studied the idea of intelligence in a way that links research and personal experience (Traub 1). He began speaking about â€Å"multiple intelligence’s† in 1983. Since then, he has won a MacArthur â€Å"genius† grant, he has written books which have been translated into twenty languages, and he gives about seventy-five speeches a year (Truab 1). His ideas have been backed and popularized by many groups seeking to reform the current educational system. The idea is that we know a child who scores well on tests is smart, but tha... Free Essays on Learning Free Essays on Learning The definition of learning is a change in a person’s behavior due to observation or past experiences. In other words our behavior is altered by what we so others doing and we then change our behaviors to match theirs, in order to fit in with society. We also learn from past experiences, for example when we are young and touch a hot stove, we learn very quickly to be more cautious around stoves. Learning is an essential function we must do in order to adapt and survive in the world. My research project for operant conditioning would involve small children as the test subjects and by using discipline, positive, negative and no reinforcement to convince them to do their homework. The discipline aspect would be tested with the operant being by spanking the child whenever they did not do their homework. The consequence would then of course be the spanking itself. I think that the outcome of this method could result in one of two ways; the child will either do all their work in fear of the spanking or lie about homework to avoid the punishment. Although in most cases this is an effective form of conditioning, it is also psychologically damaging and teaches kids violence. Another form of conditioning, which I believe is much more productive and effective, is positive reinforcement. I would use positive reinforcement and the operant would be that in the sense that if they do all of their homework they would get a treat or reward. The consequence of this type of reinforcement would be to then get the treat or reward, and so the effect on behavior is in turn the child would most likely do their homework in the future. Whereas with negative reinforcement, my operant would be more like if you don’t do your home work, a privilege would be taken away. The consequence then of course would be the privilege being taken away and in turn the effect on behavior would be th... Free Essays on Learning Learning Styles Throughout our lives, we are faced with many different learning experiences. Some of these experiences have made a better impact than others. We can attribute this to our learning style. A person’s learning style is the method through which they gain information about their environment. Research is going on all over the world to help explain learning styles. As teachers, it is our responsibility to learn about these different learning styles so that we can appeal to every type of learner in our classrooms. Howard Gardner has elaborated on the concept of learning style through what he calls â€Å"multiple intelligence’s† (Gardner 3). Understanding these intelligence’s will help us to design our classrooms and curriculum in a way that will appeal to all of our students. We may even be able to curb negative behavior by reaching students in a different way. If we implement activities that call upon the use of all these â€Å"intelligence’s† (Gard ner 2) we will get the best out of all of our students (Santrock 311). Their grades will improve and they will retain more information for a longer period of time. Learning styles can also help us to determine possible career paths so that we can help to steer children in the right direction. Discovering our own learning styles can potentially maximize our own information processing and teaching techniques. Howard Gardner is a professor at Harvard who has studied the idea of intelligence in a way that links research and personal experience (Traub 1). He began speaking about â€Å"multiple intelligence’s† in 1983. Since then, he has won a MacArthur â€Å"genius† grant, he has written books which have been translated into twenty languages, and he gives about seventy-five speeches a year (Truab 1). His ideas have been backed and popularized by many groups seeking to reform the current educational system. The idea is that we know a child who scores well on tests is smart, but tha... Free Essays on Learning Learning Learning is the acquiring of knowledge or the developing of the ability to perform new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, such as being enrolled in Dr. Kaplan’s psychology class, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom. We learn throughout our lives and this 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. Psychologists and other human-service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people’s behaviors. Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use of the principles of learning to influence the behavior of workers, voters, and consumers: advertisers can make a person believe anything given enough time! Learning relates closely to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain. Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place, and how the brain later retrieves knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes because of a person’s experiences. There are many forms of learning, ranging from simple to complex. Simple forms of learning involve a single stimulus. A stimulus is anything perceptible to the senses, such as a sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste. In a form of learning known as classical conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli that occur in sequence, such as lightning followed by thunder. In operant conditioning, people learn by forming an association between a behavior and its consequences (reward or punishment). People and animals can also learn by watching; that is, by watching others perform behaviors. Some complex forms of learning include learning languages, concepts, and motor skills. Habituation, one of the simplest types of learning, is the tendenc... Free Essays on Learning People say, right after graduating high school, you enter the real world. It is a time to mature, grow up, and start making your own decisions. However, I did not take it near as serious as I should have. It’s a critical moment in my life, where the choices I make during the next few years will dramatically affect the rest of my life. Seeing how I didn’t take the first step to the real world serious, I was placed on academic probation at Western Kentucky University. After this, I was not allowed to attend Western the following semester because of my grade point average. The situation that I was in, made me realize, that I need to start looking at higher education from a different perspective. When I first started Western, I was extremely excited. I stayed on top of my academics. I did very well up until the last month of the semester. I had early classes from Monday to Thursday. I started talking myself out of, getting out of my bed every morning. During this time, I would miss three out of four classes a week. My grades started slipping, and by the end of the semester my grade point average wasn’t high enough to go back the following semester. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to college at the time. I was there more for my parents than I was for myself. Later, I started to realize, I had made a big mistake not taking it seriously. I was very confident that things were going to work out for me without any effort. I knew I wanted to do something with my life, I just didn’t know what. Therefore it seemed like, when I was at Western, I was just wasting my time. Not realizing, that even though I didn’t know, what I wanted to do with my life at the time, I should have stayed and continued to work on my general ed requirements. Then I could make a choice on a major. Western wouldn’t let me back in until I sat out for one semester. Since I changed my outlook on hi...