What is Learning?

What is Learning?

The word learning is used routinely in discussions about teaching in higher education, so it’s important to clarify what we are referring to when we talk about learning. Educational researchers agree that learning is much deeper than memorization and information recall. Deep and long-lasting learning involves understanding, relating ideas and making connections between prior and new knowledge, independent and critical thinking and ability to transfer knowledge to new and different contexts.

“A process that leads to change, which occurs as a result of experience and increases the potential of improved performance and future learning.” From How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan Ambrose, et al.

“Acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.” (Listen to an interview with one of the authors.) From Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel

“It has been suggested that the term learning defies precise definition because it is put to multiple uses. Learning is used to refer to (1) the acquisition and mastery of what is already known about something, (2) the extension and clarification of meaning of one’s experience, or (3) an organized, intentional process of testing ideas relevant to problems. In other words, it is used to describe a product, a process, or a function.” –From Learning How to Learn: Applied Theory for Adults by R.M. Smith

“Learning is the relatively permanent change in a person’s knowledge or behavior due to experience. This definition has three components: 1) the duration of the change is long-term rather than short-term; 2) the locus of the change is the content and structure of knowledge in memory or the behavior of the learner; 3) the cause of the change is the learner’s experience in the environment rather than fatigue, motivation, drugs, physical condition or physiologic intervention.” –From Learning in Encyclopedia of Educational Research, Richard E. Mayer

“A change in human disposition or capability that persists over a period of time and is not simply ascribable to processes of growth.” — From The Conditions of Learning by Robert Gagne