Skills- enhancement- course- Unit- 1 ( How Learning Takes Place ) Reflective Learning- Semester-IV

Skills- enhancement- course- Unit- 1 ( How Learning Takes Place ) Reflective Learning Semester-IV B.A-Subject- Sol / Regular / Ncweb / Others

LESSON 1: How Learning Takes Place: Thinking in Context, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking and Reflective Thinking

Q. What do you understand by learning?

Concept of Learning In simple language, we define learning as a change in a person’s behavior or knowledge due to some kind of experience.

According to Robert Gagne (1965) defines learning as “A change in human disposition or capability that persists over a while and is not simply ascribe to processes of growth”.
According to Encyclopedia of Britannica defines learning as follows: “Learning, the alteration of behavior as a result of individual experience. When an organism can perceive and change its behavior, it is said to learn.”

Q. What are the some characteristics of learning?

Learning is an active process.
Learning builds on prior knowledge.
It requires the motivation and cognitive engagement of the learners.
Learning is affected by some context.
As we can see learning is not only to memorize something or to think about something.
It is far more than that. It involves the whole personality of the learner- senses, feelings, beliefs, values etc. If we have the will to learn, we have learned.

Q. What do you understand by critical thinking?

Learning and Critical Thinking ‘Critical thinking’ is one of the widely discussed concepts in educational discourse these days.
John Dewey (1910) restricted it to constructive thinking on the basis of his
own experiments and observation

Q. Write the Characteristics of a Critical Thinker.

It takes time, practice and patience to become a critical thinker. A critical thinker usually has these qualities :-

A critical thinker raises questions and formulates any problem very clearly and precisely.
Gathers relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it and make well reasoned solutions.
Use their reasoning skill to analyze and evaluate.
Think and reflect within the context of the problem.
Communicate effectively with others and plan strategically to find out the solutions.
Generate innovative solutions. To be able to become a critical thinker, a learner has to identify the problem and gathered relevant information about it.

Q. What is the four stages of the creative thinking?

British psychologist Graham Wallas outlined a theory of creative process in 1920 in his book ‘The Art of Thought’. It involves four stages of the creative process :-

1. Preparation: In this stage thinker/learner identify the problem and gathering relevant information and material which is necessary to find new solutions.

2. Incubation: During this period, the ideas and information gathered in the preparation stage interfering with a solution.

3 illumination. :- This sudden ‘Eureka’ of a solution is known as illumination.

4. Verification: Now the solution is found. It is necessary to verify that the solution is right or not. The last stage of evaluation is called verification.

Q. What are the Advantage of reflection on learning ?

Examine what you have learned and how you have learned it.
Demonstrate how your thinking grows and develops over time.
Assist with making connections between what you already know and what you are learning.
Help you learn from mistakes by identifying how you would do things differently next time.
Encourage you to become a reflective practitioner in your future career. Reflective thinking is an excellent tool for identifying the strength and weaknesses of a person.

Q. What is the Process of Reflective Thinking?

Here we refer to Gibbs reflective cycle :-

1. Description: What happened? When it occurred and what was the outcome?

2. Feelings: Discuss your feelings and thoughts about the experience.

3. Evaluation: How did things go? Focus on the positive and negative even if it was primarily one or the other.

4. Analysis: This is where you make sense of what happened, using the theory and wider context to develop understanding.

5. Conclusion: What have you learnt? What can you now do better? Could/should you have done anything differently?

6. Action Plan: Action plans to sum up anything you need to know and do to improve for next time.

Q. Some important tips .

1. Learning : The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill

2. Classical conditioning : Association of automatic responses with new stimuli.

3. Operant conditioning : Operant Conditioning is a learning in which voluntary behavior is strengthened or weakened by consequences or antecedents.

4. Cognitive psychology : Like a computer, we are also an information processor who absorbs knowledge, do cognitive operations on it and keep it in our memory.

5. Vicarious learning : Learning by observation.

6. Enactive learning : Learning by doing and experiencing the consequences of your doing.

7. Thinking in context : Cognitive habit of examining the behavioral root cause of any individual, any event, any other influential factor.

8. Creative thinking : Ability to form something new.

9. Reflective thinking : Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge.