NewsLetter #9 June 10, 2024
Basic Types of Learning
Watching a child learn is watching a continuous process. It is rapid and filled with surprises. Sometimes children just seem to know things without learning as if the knowledge is spontaneously generated. However, this spontaneity is an illusion. With children’s learning, not everything occurs in broad daylight. What we see is just the surface of learning. There are at least four general types of learning that engage children. These types are not exclusive. At any time, a child will likely be applying more than one type of learning as they accomplish different aspects for the task of acquiring new information. This newsletter merely distinguishes the general types without discussing the mechanisms involved in each.
Four General Types of Learning
For a child, learning is an intuitive experience. Most children have no learning strategies they intentionally employ, although they have a feeling about what works for them. The natural process of behavior strengthens those efforts that have proved most successful for them. However, cognitive, social, and physical development facilitate the child in acquiring information from the environment in four different ways.
These natural ways of acquiring information have been named: rote learning, observational learning, discovery learning, and associative learning. These ways involve the facts that children remember experiences, attend to their environment, categorize their experiences, and make meaningful connections between their experiences. Each of these ways of learning performs a different function for the child. It will be useful to call these ways of learning, learning strategies.
The first strategy is called rote learning. Rote learning is the simplest strategy and may be the first acquired by the child. Rote learning is based on strict repetition of the presentation of information. This type of learning is very passive. The child does little processing of the information beyond that of attending to its presentation. The information the child attends to is stored first in short-term memory then into long-term memory as the information is used. The main function of this learning strategy is to store information about the environment.
Rote learning is very common in our daily lives. Our lives would be much more difficult without this type of learning. We use rote learning to learn our phone numbers, our house numbers, items we need to buy at the store, our daily routine, etc. No learning strategy every stands alone. We engage in all of them throughout the day. They work together to solve our daily problems.
The second learning strategy is observational learning. Observational learning goes beyond rote learning by processing the information observed. In observational learning, the child is actively engaged with her environment and is attending to various aspects. Here, the child is attending to aspects of the environment involving multiple sensory modalities. There is rote-type information gathering of sight, sound, texture, and movement. In observational learning, the child’s brain is integrating all this information into a unity with its correspondence to the environment. The child is doing much more than storing sensory information; the child is creating meaning. By creating meaning, observational learning draws upon the child’s language development.
In a way, observational learning stands on the shoulders of rote learning. Observational learning uses rote learning to maintain a store of necessary information with which to work. Observational learning occurs anytime you watch someone perform a task. A child watching a garbage truck empty containers of trash is learning how garbage trucks work through observational learning. The child is watching the functions of the truck while absorbing all the sights and sounds of the truck’s actions.
The third learning strategy sounds much more exciting, discovery learning. One advantage of discovery learning is that discovery is itself very reinforcing to the learner. This strategy gives the learner total control of the teaching process. In a sense, the learner becomes the teacher. Discovery learning assumes the learner is an experienced learner, but discovery does occur randomly. The learner just needs to be observant. Thus, your child is discovering things from the beginning of her learning journey. As she gains experience in learning, her discovery will become more systematic and she will develop her skills in setting the learning occasions so that discovery occurs more often. Discovery will become like an intuitive skill for her.
Discovery learning is occurring when a child notices that bees like flowers and crawl over their pedals. Discovery learning involves noticing relationships between events in ones environment. A child who walks to school each day may discover that if he takes one route home he encounters an ice cream truck, while if he takes another route home, he doesn’t. The child has made an important discovery about his walking routes.
The most advanced learning strategy is associative learning. Through her learning growth, associations made by your child’s brain has been helping her unravel the mysteries of her world. As her central nervous system matures, she will discover that objects, actions, and emotions are connected. In her memory, one calls up another. She will notice that the connections among these mental objects help her remember things she has learned. She will then look for associative connections in the things she reads and experiences in her life. She will begin to engage in associative learning; her learning will become accelerated.
Everything in life is connected. Our brain recognizes these connections by making associations. Many associations occur on a subconscious level and modern advertising has taken advantage of that fact. Businesses spend millions of dollars creating associations with their brand that facilitate the sale of their products. Every time you watch a commercial, you are experiencing associative learning. Associative learning can be intentional and conscious, but it doesn’t have to be.
The Importance of Knowing
You send your child to school to be taught by educational professionals. By doing so, you place a large part of your child’s learning in the hands of professional educators. Regardless of how competent these professionals are, they don’t know your child in the way that you do. Also, they are not with your child as much as you are. Most of a child’s learning occurs outside of school. It is the parents who will build the foundation on which the professionals will do their work with you child. The success of the professionals will largely depend upon the adequate foundation of learning created by you. Knowing the ways your child learns is a place to start in building your child’s foundation for learning.