Learning and Abilities


Sabria Ali M. Ali
Duhok Polytechnic University

Learning and Abilities

Learning is divided into two types: direct (intentional) learning and indirect learning.

A. Direct learning: refers to the type of learning that comes through people (such as a father, mother, teacher, instructor, etc.). It is an educational method known as Direct Learning, which relies on direct and synchronous interaction between the teacher and the learner.

Characteristics of Direct Learning:

  1. It takes place face-to-face between the teacher and students in the same place and time.
  2. It allows for immediate interaction and direct feedback.
  3. It enables the teacher to adjust their teaching approach instantly based on students' responses.

Advantages of Direct Learning:

  1. Builds strong social relationships among students and between students and the teacher.
  2. Facilitates easy questioning and immediate answers.
  3. Develops communication and teamwork skills.
  4. Allows for the use of a variety of interactive educational activities.

B. Indirect Learning: it refers to learning that results from the environment and nature, encompassing multiple dimensions and important characteristics. It is a natural model that occurs without the need for direct and synchronous interaction between the teacher and the learner. This type of learning relies on various educational media, allowing learners to study independently at their own pace.

Characteristics of Indirect Learning:

  1. Flexibility in choosing the time and place of learning.
  2. Dependence on pre-prepared educational materials.
  3. The possibility of self-learning and repetition as needed.
  4. Utilization of digital technologies and multimedia.

Tools and Methods Used:

  • Online educational platforms.
  • Recorded educational videos.
  • Books and printed materials.
  • Interactive educational applications.
  • Various digital resources.

Advantages of This Type of Learning:

  1. Suitable for individuals with special commitments and financial schedules.
  2. Allows learners to control the speed of his learning.
  3. Reduces educational costs.
  4. Can be accessed from anywhere.

Challenges:

  1. Requires self-learning and self-organization skills.
  2. Limited social interaction.
  3. Difficulty in receiving immediate feedback.
  4. May require certain technical skills.

People can learn in different ways, and among the most important methods are:

A- Reflective Learning: Reflective learning is an essential educational approach that relies on an individual contemplating their personal experiences and drawing lessons from them. The key elements of this type of learning are:

  1. Self-observation: The individual monitors and analyzes their experiences, actions, and reactions.
  2. Deep thinking: Reflecting on events and situations and analyzing their causes and consequences.
  3. Lesson extraction: Identifying what has been learned from the experience and how to benefit from it in the future.

Benefits of Reflective Learning:

  • Enhances self-awareness and deep understanding.
  • Helps improve skills and develop performance.
  • Supports better decision-making in the future.
  • Develops problem-solving abilities more effectively.

B- Learning Through Trial and Error: This is one of the most effective methods for acquiring knowledge and skills. Learners rely on practical experience, discovering mistakes, and then adjusting their behavior or approach based on feedback from the experience. This concept is a fundamental principle in psychology.

Advantages of Learning Through Trial and Error:

  1. Enhances deep understanding: When individuals discover mistakes themselves, they learn more profoundly than through rote memorization.
  2. Encourages creativity and innovation: Stimulates thinking and testing new strategies.
  3. Builds self-confidence: Those who learn from their mistakes become more confident in facing challenges.
  4. Improves problem-solving skills: Develops analytical abilities that enable individuals to find new solutions.

Disadvantages of Learning by Trial and Error:

  1. It can be slow: It takes longer compared to guided learning methods.
  2. Frustration: Some people may become frustrated when faced with repeated mistakes.
  3. Potential risks: In some fields, such as medicine or engineering, mistakes can be costly or dangerous.

How to benefit from trial and error learning effectively?

  • Start with experimentation but with a plan: Don't rely on randomness; set clear goals.
  • Record mistakes and learn from them: Keep notes about the mistakes you've made and what you've learned from them.
  • Seek feedback: Others can help speed up your learning process by providing constructive feedback.
  • Don't fear failure: Consider failure as part of the learning journey, not the end of the road.

C- Insightful Learning: Insightful learning (Learning by Insight) is a form of learning that occurs when an individual suddenly understands or solves a problem directly, without going through repeated trial and error. German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler studied this type of learning through his famous experiments with chimpanzees.

Characteristics of Insightful Learning:

  1. It occurs suddenly and immediately.
  2. It relies on a deep understanding of the situation and recognizing the relationships between its elements.
  3. It can be applied to similar new situations.
  4. It requires high cognitive abilities like thinking and analysis.

For example: When a person faces a complex math problem and struggles to solve it, then suddenly realizes the relationship between the data and finds the solution—this is considered insightful learning. This type of learning is crucial for solving complex problems because it goes beyond superficial learning to a deeper understanding of situations and phenomena.

Regardless of the types and methods of learning, the general goal is to develop the learner's intellectual, physical, and psychological abilities. In the educational field, the goal becomes the balanced development of these abilities. Therefore, human behavior is classified into three categories:

  1. Behavior related to thinking.
  2. Behavior related to feeling.
  3. Behavior related to action.

1- Cognition-Related Behavior: It is a behavior pattern that relies on higher mental processes, not just simple reactions.

Key Characteristics:

  1. It is characterized by intentionality and conscious planning.
  2. It involves processing and analyzing information.
  3. It aims to solve problems in an organized manner.
  4. It is influenced by past experiences and accumulated knowledge.

Examples of this behavior:

  1. A student plans their study schedule based on their assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
  2. An engineer analyzes a technical problem and devises systematic steps to solve it.
  3. A manager makes strategic decisions after studying the available data and information.

Influencing factors:

  1. The level of intelligence and cognitive abilities.
  2. Past experiences and learning.
  3. The emotional and psychological state.
  4. The surrounding environment and social context.

2- Affective Behavior: It is a behavior pattern directly related to an individual's feelings, emotions, and psychological state, and includes:

  1. Expression of emotions: such as facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, and spoken words.
  2. Emotional responses to situations: such as joy and happiness in pleasant situations, sadness and pain in difficult situations, anger when faced with frustration, and fear in threatening situations.
    Therefore, this behavior is very important in social communication, building personal relationships, adapting to different situations, and overall mental health.

3- Work-Related Behavior:
Work-related behavior refers to the actions and behaviors displayed by an employee while performing their job duties. This includes:

  1. How the employee interacts with colleagues and supervisors?
  2. Their commitment to work schedules and task completion.
  3. Their approach to handling challenges and pressures.
  4. The level of professionalism and technical skills.
    Human resource experts focus on work-related behavior because it affects productivity, the work environment, and the overall culture of the organization.

Learning Domain: Based on this, the learning activities have been classified into three areas or domains:

  1. Cognitive Domain
  2. Affective Domain
  3. Psychomotor Domain

Each of these areas is further classified into several categories (levels) that start from the simplest level of learning and progress to the most complex level.

  1. Cognitive Domain:

This domain includes learning activities related to the intellectual aspect. It begins with the simplest level of knowledge, such as recognizing facts and principles, and progresses to more complex levels like understanding, applying, and finally evaluating. Below is an explanation of the main categories within this area.

Main Categories in the Cognitive Domain:

  1. Knowledge:
    Defined as the process of recalling previously learned information. This includes all the information stored in memory, and knowledge represents the simplest outcome of learning in the cognitive area
  2. Comprehension:
    The ability to understand the meaning of things. This understanding can be demonstrated, for example, through explanation or summarizing that meaning. Learning outcomes representing comprehension lie slightly higher than those representing knowledge.
  3. Application:
    The ability to apply or use the things learned in new situations. This includes applying rules, laws, principles, theories, etc. Learning outcomes in this category require a higher level of understanding than those under comprehension.
  4. Analysis:
    The ability to break down material into its components for the purpose of understanding its structure. This includes identifying those parts, analyzing the relationships between them, and understanding the foundations that govern those relationships. Learning outcomes here require a higher intellectual level than those under comprehension and application.
  5. Synthesis:
    The ability to combine different parts to form a compound or new material. Learning outcomes in this category focus on an individual’s creative behavior.
  6. Evaluation:
    The ability to judge the value of a specific material (e.g., sentence, poem, research, etc.). This judgment must be based on clear and specific criteria. Learning outcomes in this category represent the highest level in the cognitive area as they contain elements from all other categories, in addition to the subjective element.
  7. Affective Domain:

This domain is related to emotions, reactions, attitudes, and desires, such as the student’s desire to learn, follow safety rules, or respect others, etc. The categories within this domain begin with receiving as the simplest level and end with distinguishing by value as the highest level.

Main Categories in the Affective Domain:

  1. Receiving: This refers to the student's willingness to pay attention to a specific phenomenon or stimulus (class activities, books, music, etc.). Receiving represents the simplest outcome of learning in the affective domain.
  2. Responding: This is the active participation of the student. At this level, the student not only pays attention to a particular phenomenon but also attempts to show certain reactions toward it. Learning outcomes in this category focus on the following aspects:
    • Compliance with response: Reading the required material.
    • Willingness to respond: Voluntary reading beyond what is required.
    • Satisfaction with the response: Reading for leisure.
  1. Valuing: This refers to the value the student assigns to things. This category includes learning outcomes that are generally classified under attitudes and appreciation.
  2. Organizing: This is the process of integrating different values into a cohesive system and resolving any contradictions between them to form a consistent value system. Therefore, the focus here is on comparison, connection, and organization of values. Learning outcomes in this category relate to the concept of value (recognizing each person’s responsibility in improving human relationships) or the organizational environment (creating a practical plan to meet one’s economic and social needs). It is generally connected to one’s philosophy of life.
  3. Characterizing by Value: At this level, the student is distinguished by consistent behavior that becomes a defining feature of their lifestyle. This behavior is controlled by the value system that the student possesses. Learning outcomes in this category are linked to the behaviors that distinguish the student.
  4. Psychomotor Domain:

This domain is related to motor skills, which require the use of hands in coordination with the brain. The hierarchical sequence of the main categories in this domain begins with sensory perception as the simplest level of learning in this domain, and it reaches creativity as the highest level.

A teacher’s knowledge of these domains and their categories will help them understand the nature of activities in each domain and their hierarchical sequence. This understanding can then be used to design teaching goals and structure the lesson content. While this classification may seem acceptable theoretically, it is practically difficult to distinguish and classify most learning activities as it contains elements from multiple domains.

The three areas at once: The use of hands to perform a specific task is a motor skill that is linked in most areas to the intellectual aspect and the extent of the student’s understanding of some of the theoretical principles and rules required to perform that task. Additionally, the student’s understanding and grasp of the teaching material is also related to the student’s desire to learn and their ability to learn.

Description of the main categories in the psychological motor field:

1.Sensory Perception: This represents the first content in the psychological motor field and involves the use of sensory organs to obtain cues that guide or direct motor activity.

  1. Preparation: This refers to the complete readiness to perform a specific task, and this category includes the following:
    1. Mental Preparation: Mental readiness to perform a task.
    2. Separation Preparation: The desire to perform the task.
  2. Directed Response: This concerns the early stages in the process of learning a complex skill. This category includes imitation (repeating an action performed by the teacher), trial and error (acquiring the appropriate response).
  3. Mechanics: This refers to performing a learned task multiple times until it becomes habitual and is done with a degree of confidence and precision. The outcomes at this level are primarily related to execution skills.
  4. Complex Observable Response: This type of response relates to the proficient performance of activities that involve complex movements. These movements are performed with a high level of confidence and automatically.
  5. Adaptation: Adaptation concerns skills that have developed to the point where a person can make adjustments to the movements used to perform those skills, in order to fit the demands of reality.
  6. Creativity: This refers to creating new movement patterns that fit a specific reality or particular problem. Learning outcomes at this level focus on creativity based on highly developed skills.

Memory:
The process of storing information in a learner's memory, retaining it, and then recalling it at the appropriate time is a complex one. There are many factors that directly affect memory and are also linked to the process of teaching and learning. The following table provides a summarized overview of these factors, how they influence memory, and what a teacher should do in response to each of these factors.

Saturation:

Saturation is one of the main obstacles in learning. It refers to overloading or providing a student with an excessive amount of information in the same subject, exceeding their capacity to absorb it, especially when the information is delivered rapidly. This is exactly what happens in most teaching situations, where the teacher tries to provide students with the maximum amount of information within a limited time, ignoring the fact that students will reach a state of mental saturation after a short period.

Wisdom here suggests that teaching a small amount of information effectively is better than teaching a large amount poorly and hastily. This necessitates that the teacher pays attention to the usefulness of the material being delivered, its quantity, the speed of delivery, and the methods used to convey it.

Fatigue:

Fatigue can be mental, physical, or a combination of both. It occurs when exposed to prolonged mental effort that tires the eyes, muscles, and face, causing the student to feel irritated and unable to think, concentrate, or make decisions. Rest or relaxation is almost the only remedy for fatigue in typical cases. In teaching situations, breaks during sessions or recreational periods are effective measures to reduce fatigue. It has been found that 45 minutes of teaching is the maximum a student can endure without a break, beyond which efficiency decreases. In teaching periods lasting two hours or more, it is advisable to give a five-minute break after each hour of teaching. Research also indicates that the best time to give students lessons that require precise mental work is just before lunch, while lessons involving exciting activities are better left to after lunch.