Types Of Learning

Learning is all about gaining knowledge, skills and values. It involves the correct procedure of synthesizing the various strands of information available. Everyone, right from humans to animals, and sometimes even machines, possess the ability to learn. In the case of humans, learning forms a part of an individual’s personal development and training, along with his education process. Aided by personal motivation, the process and aim of learning is mostly goal-oriented. Studies like neuro-psychology, educational psychology, pedagogy and learning theory deal with how the process of learning takes place. Learning is not necessarily a conscious process, but may occur through one’s subconscious self. This article entails few methods of learning specifically dealing with the human self.

 

In this form of learning, any information, knowledge, idea or skill is imparted to others through purposeful demonstration, guidance and conscious telling. This is the most traditional and predominant form of learning and accounts for a major portion of a person’s total learning in a lifetime.  

 

This form of learning is solely dependent on the learner. In this method, relevant knowledge is acquired by an individual through exploration, experimentation, self-instruction, inquiry and curiosity to know more. Acquisition method even accounts for a chief percentage of an individual’s total learning process. 

 

The method of learning associated with our subconscious mind is known as accretion. Learning the language we speak in, our cultural norms, habits, prejudices, social rules and behavior are all taken care of, by this method. Although we are not aware of the processes involved in this method, it accounts for a massive percentage of our entire learning in a lifetime.  

 

This process of learning is all about creating a definite pattern and structure as well as constructing a new set of ideas that previously did not exist. It mainly results from thought evoking reflection, deep insight, intuition and creativity of the brain. The method is extremely important for its role in inspiration and originality. However, in the existing educational practices, it accounts for just around one or two percent of knowledge. 

 

Observation or imitation is one of the most characteristic methods of learning in humans. Repeating an observed behavior accounts for a large proportion of an individual’s total learning in his/her lifetime. In general, a person can imitate three types of information, namely, the goal of the demonstrator, his actions as well as the environmental outcomes. For instance, an infant while imitating his mother will soon learn to adjust to his surrounding culture. 

A person gains a lot of valuable information through his day-to-day experiences, which forms a significant part in his learning graph. This method is known as informal learning. For instance, a person is walking on the road, without paying attention to where he is going, falls in a pit. Next time onwards he would be vigilant enough while walking.

 

This form of learning simply focuses on memorizing a certain piece of information, without making an attempt to understand its meaning. This leads to the recalling of the matter by the learner in the same way it was read or heard. Practiced in diverse areas, this method involves learning through repetition. It may be criticized by few schools of thought, but rote learning becomes a necessity in some situations. 

 

e-Learning is an upcoming method of learning which is all about internet-based computer enhanced learning. In this type, a person learns by browsing the web. A further diffused form of e-learning is mobile learning which uses different mobile telecommunication equipments such as cellular phones to dissipate information.

 

A learner’s interaction with the e-learning environment is known as augmented learning. Through this method, the context-driven instruction can be strategically constructed according to the learner’s natural environment, by adapting to the specific needs of the individuals. The augmented digital content include text, images, video and audio and by personalizing the set information. Augmented learning has been seen to improve the learning performance for a lifetime.