El aprendizaje. Algunas técnicas que lo facilitan PDF

# El aprendizaje. Algunas técnicas que lo facilitan ## 1. Introducción - In the previous unit, we have seen the concepts of personal autonomy skills and social skills and the importance of their acquisition for people. - We have also seen the classification of functioning and disability, the new w...

# El aprendizaje. Algunas técnicas que lo facilitan ## 1. Introducción - In the previous unit, we have seen the concepts of personal autonomy skills and social skills and the importance of their acquisition for people. - We have also seen the classification of functioning and disability, the new way of understanding the latter, with a universal vision of it and giving importance to the environments in which we live. ## 2. Approaching the concept of learning - When talking about learning and, above all, when trying to establish a definition of it, we find ourselves with the difficulty that this definition would not be subscribed to by all the psychological currents. - That is why we find it interesting to provide you with definitions of the concept of learning by representative authors of different psychological currents, with the aim of approaching the concept from different perspectives. ## 3. Definition of learning by several authors - "Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior, due to experience, which cannot be explained by a transient state of the organism, by maturity or by innate response tendencies" (Klein, 1994). - "Mental activity by which knowledge and skill, habits, attitudes and ideals are acquired, retained and used, resulting in a progressive adaptation and modification of behavior" (W.A. Kelly). - "More or less permanent changes in behavior that are obtained as a result of practice" (Kimble). - "A change in the disposition or capacity of people that can be retained and is not simply attributable to the growth process" (Gagné). - "Modification of the ability to perform a task as a result of interaction with the environment" (M. Blancheteau). - "Subjective processes of capturing, incorporating, retaining and using the information that the individual receives in their continuous exchange with the environment" (Pérez Gómez). - "A process that, rather than modifying the course of development, can establish and nourish its previously constituted direction, favouring anticipations of certain stages thanks to appropriate stimuli, therefore learning is partly a consequence of development" (Piaget). - "The individual comes to learn a behavior through a reorganization of the perceptual field" (Kohler). - "Learning is the series of modifications in the probability with which modes of behavior arise with respect to a given situation, provided that there has been some previous encounter with this situation or with a similar one" (Hofstätter). - "A process by virtue of which an activity originates or changes through the reaction to a situation encountered, provided that the characteristics of the change recorded in the activity cannot be explained on the basis of innate response tendencies, maturation or transient states of the organism (for example: fatigue, drugs, among others)" (Hilgard). - Despite the differences that can be seen between the above definitions, it is also true that we could establish characteristics of learning that would be assumed by all psychological conceptions from their way of understanding learning. - All people are capable of learning, however, there are individual differences, both in the way of learning and in the time they need to do so. (Aspects to be taken into account by the professionals of Social Integration to adapt their actions to the characteristics of each user.) - The ability to learn presupposes developing adaptive behaviors to an environment that is constantly changing. - This function will be basic for the acquisition of personal autonomy and social skills. - Learning involves a change in the ability to develop new behaviors, although this does not always mean a change in observable behavior. - In many cases, we are not aware of what we learn, many concepts, behaviors, even some emotions, are learned unintentionally, without the intervention of either motivation or conviction to carry out this learning. ## 4. Paradigms of learning and their techniques - Before continuing, it will be convenient for us to have an idea of what we understand by paradigm. - When we talk about paradigm we are referring to a set of assumptions shared by a scientific community, assumptions that allow them to investigate and provide answers to a given problem from a series of common criteria. - Guba and Lincoln understand that a paradigm is like a set of beliefs, assumptions to guide our activities and that cannot be proven or refuted, but that in any case represent the positions that we are willing to adopt and defend. - Castañeda (1987) defines learning theory as: "a point of view on what it means to learn. - It is a rational, coherent, scientific and philosophically grounded explanation about what should be understood by learning, the conditions in which it manifests itself and the forms it takes; that is, what it consists of, how it occurs and what it leads to." - Based on the above, it must be pointed out that a single theory is not capable of providing answers to all questions about learning, on the other hand, we must be careful with certain theories that are presented as "the only possible approach" to the subject. - It is frequent to hear certain speeches that try to convince that the theory of learning "x" is the best of all, the most convenient, or the most suitable. - Having made this proviso, we will focus on the presentation of the major models that, without being the only ones, are the most relevant to the knowledge of our module. ## 4.1. Behaviorist model - Behaviorism arose as a psychological theory, which would later be used in educational contexts. - The behaviorist model rejects introspection, establishing behavior as the sole aim of research. - Its founder was J. B. Watson, in the early decades of the 20th century, and according to Watson himself, if psychology wanted to be considered a science, it had to focus its study on what was observable, and not on consciousness or mental processes. - Watson's work was based on the works of Ivan Pavlov and Thorndike. - Currently, behaviorism is associated with B.F. Skinner, who verified Watson's theories in the laboratory. - Skinner developed the theory of "operant conditioning" which we will explain later. - In general, we can say that all behaviorist currents accept the following principles: - Behavior is their object of study, and both the stimulus, the response, the organism and the situation, are determinants of it. - The main cause of behavior is the concrete experience of the person and not genetic or other factors. - Psychology has to be a science that allows us to anticipate and modify behavior. ### 4.1.1. Types of learning #### A. Classical Conditioning (Pavlov and Watson) - Classical conditioning (Pavlov, 1968) occurs through the association between what we call unconditioned stimulus, which causes a certain response, (actually it is a reflex installed in the organism) and a neutral stimulus that by itself is not capable of causing the aforementioned response, but that, by being associated with the unconditioned stimulus repeatedly, in temporal contiguity, is capable of causing the same response as that produced by the unconditioned stimulus. - We can see then, that Classical Conditioning is based on the association between stimuli, that is why, this type of Conditioning, is also called Learning by Association. - Pavlov's experiments with dogs will help us to understand classical conditioning. - Whenever food is put in the mouths of hungry dogs, they salivate. - Pavlov made a bell ring just before feeding the dogs, so that, after repeating it several times, they found that the dogs began to salivate as soon as the bell rang, without the food appearing. - That is, the dog salivated at the mere presence of the stimulus that always appeared before the food.