people in a wide variety of contexts. Learning means the process of acquiring the ability to respond adequately to situation which mayor may not have been previously Encountered. _ Learning is a process that depends on experience and leads to long term changes in behavior potential
relatively permanent change in an
individual's behavior or behavior potential (or capability) as a result of experience or practice _EFINITION Learning is the process by which new behaviors are acquired. It is generally agreed that learning involves changes in behaviors, practicing new behaviors, and establishing permanency in the change. NATURE OF LEARNING ' Learning involves a change in behavior. ' The behavioral change must be relatively permanent. ' The behavioral change must be based on some form of practice or experience. ' The practice or experience must be reinforced in order for learning to occur p pp
If teaching is defined in terms of learning, i.e. as the attempt to promote it, then successful teaching must be grounded, implicitly or explicitly, in the processes of effective learning. This includes adaptation to ways learners vary in their styles and resources as regards any particular learning task or phase. Thus understanding teaching partly requires us to understand learning and learners. Putting this formally, whatever its source, teaching will embody a psychology of learning. Although everyday culture provides elements of a view of learning which has much to do with traditional pedagogy there is also a need to examine what academic and professional psychology offer by the way of systematic findings. Given that this relatively young discipline contains a number of branches all having some relevance to learning, any use of psychological research and theory must be intelligently critical and eclectic In the following subsection, therefore, insights into the nature of human knowledge, skill and learning are considered, drawing largely from cognitive process psychology. Next, attention turns to motivational issues, utilising counselling and social psychology. We then briefly consider the importance of individual differences in learning-related qualities before linking the emerging themes to the active learning emphasis of the Flexible Learning approach.