LEARNING .......................................................................................................................................................... 2 TYPES OF LEARNING ...................................................................................................................................... 2 SIMPLE NON-ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING ................................................................................................................ 2 Habituation ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Sensitization: ................................................................................................................................................. 3 ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Operant Conditioning .................................................................................................................................... 4 Classical Conditioning ................................................................................................................................... 7 OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING ............................................................................................................................... 9 Required conditions ..................................................................................................................................... 10 Effect on behavior ........................................................................................................................................ 10 APPROACHES TO LEARNING ...................................................................................................................... 11 ROTE LEARNING ............................................................................................................................................... 11 INFORMAL LEARNING ........................................................................................................................................ 11 FORMAL LEARNING ........................................................................................................................................... 11 NON-FORMAL LEARNING AND COMBINED APPROACHES ...................................................................................... 11 NEUROSCIENCE.............................................................................................................................................. 12 HOW NEUROSCIENCE IMPACTS EDUCATION ................................................................................................................ 12 STUDY SKILLS AND LEARNING TECHNIQUES FOR STUDENTS .......................................................... 12 BEST TYPES OF STUDYING ................................................................................................................................. 12 PREPARING FOR EXAMS ..................................................................................................................................... 12 The PQRST Method ..................................................................................................................................... 13 LEARNING Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom. It is the product of experience and the goal of education. Learning ranges from simple forms of learning such as habituation and classical conditioning seen in many animal species, to more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals. For small children, learning is as natural as breathing. In fact, there is evidence for behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed for learning and memory to occur very early on in development. Learning has also been mathematically described as a differential equation of knowledge with respect to time, or the change in knowledge in time due to a number of interacting factors (constants and variables) such as initial knowledge, motivation, intelligence, knowledge anchorage or resistance, etc. Thus, learning does not occur if there is no change in the amount of knowledge even for a long time, and learning is negative if the amount of knowledge is decreasing in time. Inspection of the solution to the differential equation also shows the sigmoid and logarithmic decay learning curves, as well as the knowledge carrying capacity for a given learner. Types of Learning Simple Non-Associative Learning Habituation In psychology, habituation is an example of non-associative learning in which there is a progressive diminution of behavioral response probability with repetition of a stimulus. It is another form of integration. An animal first responds to a stimulus, but if it is neither rewarding nor harmful the animal reduces subsequent responses. One example of this can be seen in small song birds - if a stuffed owl (or similar predator) is put into the cage, the birds initially react to it as though it were a real predator. Soon the birds react less, showing habituation. If another stuffed owl is introduced (or the same one removed and re-introduced), the birds react to it as though it were a predator, showing that it is only a very specific stimulus that is habituated to (namely, one particular unmoving owl in one place). Habituation has been shown in essentially every species of animal, including the large protozoan Stentor coeruleus. Habituation need not be conscious - for example, a short time after we get dressed, the stimulus clothing creates disappears from our nervous systems and we become unaware of it. In this way, habituation is used to ignore any continual stimulus, presumably because changes in stimulus level are normally far more important than absolute levels of stimulation. This sort of habituation can occur through neural adaptation in sensory nerves themselves and through negative feedback from the brain to peripheral sensory organs. The learning underlying habituation is a fundamental or basic process of biological systems and does not require conscious motivation or awareness to occur. Indeed, without habituation we would be unable to distinguish meaningful information from the background, unchanging information. Habituation is stimulus specific. It does not cause a general decline in responsiveness. It functions like an average weighted history wavelet interference filter reducing the responsiveness of the organism to a particular stimulus. Frequently one can see opponent processes after the stimulus is removed. Habituation is connected to associational reciprocal inhibition phenomena, opponent processes, motion aftereffects, color constancy, size constancy, and negative afterimages. Habituation is frequently used in testing psychological phenomena. Both infants and adults look less and less at a particular stimulus the longer it is presented. The amount of time spent looking at a new stimulus after habituation to the initial stimulus indicates the effective similarity of the two stimuli. It is also used to discover the resolution of perceptual systems. For instance, by habituating someone to one stimulus, and then observing responses to similar ones, one can detect the smallest degree of difference that is detectable. Dishabituation is when a second stimulus is used, which briefly increases habituated response, it has been shown that this is a different mechanism from sensitization Sensitization: Sensitization is an example of non-associative learning in which the progressive amplification of a response follows repeated administrations of a stimulus (Bell et al., 1995). An everyday example of this mechanism is the repeated tonic stimulation of peripheral nerves that will occur if a person rubs his arm continuously. After a while, this stimulation will create a warm sensation that will eventually turn painful. The pain is the result of the progressively amplified synaptic response of the peripheral nerves warning the person that the stimulation is harmful. Sensitization is thought to underlie both adaptive as well as maladaptive learning processes in the organism. Sensitization primarily refers to AMPA receptor-associated sensitization. However, there are others as well, e.g. sensitization in drug addiction. A common mechanism for the AMPA receptor-associated types of sensitization is the activation of AMPA receptors on the post-synaptic membrane. Repeated stimulation of the pre-synaptic neuron will cause glutamate to be released into the synaptic cleft. The increased release of glutamate will activate the AMPA receptors. AMPA receptors will allow for additional Na+ to enter the post-synaptic neuron, thus increasing its depolarization. This will cause the post- synaptic neuron to fire continuously, thereby creating a prolonged response. It is possible that the intensity of the stimulation is what distinguishes the different types of sensitization, in that kindling may require more intense stimulation than LTP. Another possibility are alterations in the function of inhibiting GABAergic neurons. This, however, has not been established (McEarchern & Shaw, 1999). y For example, electrical or chemical stimulation of the rat hippocampus causes strengthening of