Form Of Learning example essay topic

The Ways I Learn Have Learned, Think & Reason and DemonstrateIntelligenceAs I reread this topic several times and tried to bring it to life to write an intelligent paper on it, I had to search my memory for the actions that made me think, learn, act and react. So, I took a trip down memory lane and thought back to my childhood and started thinking of my elementary school days, high school days, military days, right on through to raising my children and now attempting college myself. What a trip! I'm not sure if I am learning anything or if I just keep going to see where I will wind up. At any rate, I will try to apply all these things into this paper as well as where I relate it in the book "Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology".

(Your comment here on perhaps people should keep a learning journal; I am totally in agreement to this idea as it would be so helpful in later years.) Learning has many forms, of them I believe that repetition is a common form, I do something over and over again and I do it wrong a few times, am told of my mistakes and how to correct them, then go back to repeat the process correctly, eventually I will do it properly, then I can say I have mastered a new feat. A good example of this would be riding a bicycle. I remember learning to ride by falling off several times, and being a youngster, I didn't care about the bruises and skinned knees. I'd get up off the sidewalk, road, or whatever I landed on and repeat the process again and again, until I was able to do it without falling and even got brave and tried with no hands, (not a good idea when you are a beginner). As an adult learning to ride a bicycle is a much more difficult procedure, we aren't as prepared to take the physical spills a child can endure, therefore, it is much more frightening to an adult to master bicycle riding. Another method of learning that goes along with repetition is association, Pavlov (Hilgard p 228) studied how dogs react to stimulus, in offering a dog food when a light was on, when the room was dark, there was no food.

In just smelling the food, the dog had a response; he would salivate making his response an unconditioned one. In association of food with light, the dog became conditioned to expect when there was light, he could expect food. The dog now has a conditioned response. There is an old adage that states; when you want to get something done, 'dangle a carrot' meaning offer something of motivational value as a reward to get whatever it is you want an individual to do.

So here it is safe to say that association is classical conditioning and motivation is an integral form of this learning method. Taking this a step further, there is another form of conditioning known as aversive conditioning this happens when you begin to associate a negative act as a reaction to doing something wrong. An example would be, when we are in our teen years, and all our friends are smoking, and it is our turn to do the nasty deed, we vacillate, "to do or not to do". We internally hear all the negatives regarding smoking, but we see our friends saying "just come on, do it". We know if we are caught doing this act, there will be much negative reaction from our parents, in the form of a huge punishment, so the big question we ask ourselves, is peer pressure worth it, or should I just say no. If I smoke, I pay a consequence in getting grounded, if I say no, will my friends mock me?

(We will cover peer pressure in a later paper). So, aversive conditioning comes when we know a negative reaction will come from doing an iniquitous deed. Making the difference in classical conditioning and aversive conditioning, the way a reward or motivation is utilized, either granting positive reinforcement, or creating negative responses. (Hilgard p 245) Observational learning is yet another form of learning, when we are children, we learn by watching what goes on around us (TV, parents, friends, and other children).

Young children watch the adults and other children around them. When they see aggressive behavior as a constant in certain situations, they will tend to react in the same manner, when in the same situation. As children we want to emulate our role models, we observe their patterns and we imitate them, when they use cuss words, we in time find ways to put those words into our vocabulary. As we scrutinize our models, whether good behavior or bad, if it is something we perceive as what we want to do, we will try it.

By observing others around us, we are constantly having to determine if we should imitate certain behaviors or if in doing so, we will be asking for aversive reactions. (Hilgard p 98 & 400) Learning is retention, we learn something, we retain it, and our minds are a giant computer of sorts, where we store information and process it, as it becomes necessary. We hear something that strikes our fancy, but it does not apply to the moment, it is put in a huge bank to be ready at our fingertips at the distinct time it becomes relevant to the subject. This is a great asset to behold, our minds hold so much information that all we have to do is start thinking on any topic and for some reason we have a plethora of information available for us. These are tidbits of information gathered throughout our lives, young to old. Although as we age, it appears that this system that seemed so fail proof in our younger days is getting weaker and the signals we are receiving from our memories aren't as clear as they had appeared in our young to mid-years.

I relate this to the 3 stages of memory: encoding, storage and retrieval. (Hilgard - Chapter 8- pgs 257-294) Intelligence is a difficult thing to assess: the first person to attempt to develop a test of intellectual ability was Sir Francis Galton, over a century ago. (Hilgard pg 413) Based upon his beliefs that some families were smarter, stronger and logically superior because of their intelligence and passed down from generation to generation. Galton's original testing was based upon head size and he eventually had to admit that a man's head size had absolutely nothing at all to do with his level of intelligence. In order for a test to accurately test intelligence, it must demonstrate that it brings unvarying and duplicated results and have strength to gauge what was supposed to be measured. It is believed by many psychologists that there are multiple intelligences and that current tests only tap at the surface and register primarily academic intelligence as opposed to practical intelligence.

Meaning it is easy to monitor book smarts through IQ testing, but street smarts and common sense are much harder to provide researched studies on, seeing they are individual traits. In conclusion, I believe that learning is a cycle of events, that we go through starting as early as our time in the womb and ending as late as on our deathbeds, every day is a learning process in which we observe different concepts, ideas and solutions on how to deal with them. It is our academic intelligence that allows us to know the correct answers to scholastic and trivia related quandaries, and our common sense that advise us of right from wrong. When used together, we should be able to make comfortable, informed decisions and lead successful lives. Your comment regarding learn or die, could be a most appropriate thought. As it is my thought, that if we fail to push our minds to continue to operate, we will slowly become negligent in ourselves and no longer be able to intelligently function in this ever-changing world we live in..