academic bookshelf, The

LEARNING I

When I was in graduate school in educational psychology in the 70s, the most common definition of learning that was offered was: "Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of practice with feedback" We must have had a lot of practice with feedback for me to remember it after more than 20 years!

Herbert Simon stated in an address "What We Know about Learning" at the 1997 Frontiers in Education Conference in Pittsburgh that "learning is a change in behavior of the students." He also emphasized two points about learning

1. Learning has to occur in the students.

2. Effectiveness lies in what we can cause students to do.

Simon accused faculty of being "amateurists" and said it was a long tradition. By amateurists, he meant, that neither faculty nor students have studied the skills of teaching and learning. Systematic study, he said, would make the process (especially skill acquisition) much more effective.

Our understanding of learning, especially its complexity and richness, has grown considerably in the past 20 years. Some of the significant developments are: increased understanding of expertise and expert-novice differences; the importance of learning in context and helping students construct their own learning; the importance of narrative in learning; the importance of cognitive rehearsal; especially through small-group discussion; and the importance of active, interactive, and cooperative learning.

LEARNING, REMEMBERING, BELIEVING: ENHANCING HuMAN PERFORMANCE

by Daniel Druckman and Robert A. Bjork, Editors National,4Academy Press, 1994, 395 pages.

Learning, Remembering, Believing is the third report of the Commission on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (CTEHP). The Commission's first two reports, Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques, issued in 1988 and In the Minds Eye: Enhancing Human Performance, issued in 1991 provided detailed review and careful synthesis on many topics relating to learning.

Learning, Remembering, Believing examines recent research in learning, memory and cognition, emotions, and social and team processes and their implications for application. The central theme involves bringing basic research findings to bear on applied issues related to performance. It is organized into five major sections Overview, Learning and Remembering, Learning and Performance in Teams, Mental and Emotional States, and New Directions.

Section Two, Learning and Remembering, contains two chapter-Transfer, and Illusions of Comprehension and ControL The chapter on transfer (three) supports and extends previous findings - "immediate and constant feedback may fail to optimize performance. Delayed and intermittent feedback may produce superior performance because it allows learners to detect and correct errors. . delayed and intermittent feedback diminishes reliance on extrinsic feedback." Chapter four addresses the paradox "Subjective experience is a compelling basis for judgment." "It is also an errorprone source for judgment." They conclude that "Regular challenges are needed to provide learners with experiences that reveal the actual extent of their understanding of the task or material they are learning."

Section Three, Learning and Performance in Teams, consists of three chapters: Cooperative Learning, The Performance and Development of Teams, and Training in Teams. Chapter five summarizes and extends the rapidly growing body of evidence supporting cooperative learning. `The cooperative experience is an attempt to foster individual learning and social interactions, both of which lead to enhanced performance." Chapter six focuses on factors that influence team performance, especially the structural aspects. "The structural aspects of tasks and team members affect performance because they affect such mediating processes as interaction, coordination, and cohesiveness." Chapter seven on training in teams summarizes the benefits of training in teams - "intact work teams are likely to gain more from training than ad hoc assemblies of people assigned to teams only for training purposes."

Section Four, Mental and Emotional States, has two chapters Self-Confidence and Performance, and Altering States of Consciousness. Chapter eight opens with the statement "It has become apparent that perceptions of self-confidence play an important role in performance." The chapter outlines ways these perceptions can be manipulated to enhance performance. Chapter nine discusses some implications of altered states of consciousness for performance: hypnosis, transcendental meditation, restricted environmental stimulation, and sleep learning.

Section Five, New Directions, contains two chapters - Socially Induced Effect, and Thought Suppression. The editors are reluctant to draw conclusions about these two areas but recommend that they receive further research.

The Epilogue, Impediments to Effective Training, addresses the challenges to implementing the research findings in organizations. The chief impediment is "training is often not highly valued in organizations." Other impediments include the tendency to view teaching as a talent rather than a learned skill, and the failure to view teaching itself as a difficult skill to be learned leads organizations to recruit experts in a given domain without regard to their experience as teachers.