Learning is acquiring new, or modifying existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves. Learning is not compulsory; it is contextual. It does not happen all at once, but builds upon and is shaped by what we already know. To that end, learning may be viewed as a process, rather than a collection of factual and procedural knowledge.
Human learning may occur as part of education, personal development, schooling, or training. It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation. The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory, and pedagogy. Learning may occur as a result of habituation or classical conditioning, seen in many animal species, or as a result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. There is evidence for human 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.
Play has been approached by several theorists as the first form of learning. Children play, experiment with the world, learn the rules, and learn to interact. Lev Vygotsky agrees that play is pivotal for children's development, since they make meaning of their environment through play. The context of conversation based on moral reasoning offers some proper observations on the responsibilities of parents.
Read more about Learning: Domains of Learning, Transfer of Learning, Active Learning, Further Reading
Other articles related to "learning":
... The National Learning Network (NLN) was a UK national partnership programme designed to increase the uptake of Information Learning Technology (ILT) across the learning and skills sector in England ... Supported by the Learning and Skills Council and other sector bodies, the NLN provided network infrastructure and a wide-ranging programme of support, information ... substantial and wide-ranging collections of e-learning materials in the UK ...
... in school, partly because they enter school earlier but mostly because of greater learning productivity per year of schooling ... Nutritional deficiencies have been shown to have a negative effect on learning behavior in mice as far back as 1951."Better learning performance is associated with diet induced effects on ... The "nutrition-learning nexus" demonstrates the correlation between diet and learning and has application in a higher education setting ...
... Fle3 is a Web-based learning environment or virtual learning environment ... for computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) ... creative problem solving and scientific method in an inquiry learning process, for example the progressive inquiry method ...
... A learning agent that actively investigates the consequences of new information can detect and exploit a variety of learning opportunities e.g ... By exploiting these learning opportunities the learning agent is able to learn beyond the explicit content of the new information ... The machine learning program KI, developed by Murray and Porter at the University of Texas at Austin, was created to study the use of automated and semi-automated knowledge integration to ...
... Authorware is particularly well suited to creating e-learning content, as it includes highly customizable templates for CBT and WBT, including student ... can be used to deliver content via any AICC or SCORM Learning Management System ...
Famous quotes containing the word learning:
“We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“If you think of learning as a path, you can picture yourself walking beside her rather than either pushing or dragging or carrying her along.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Go, throng each other’s drawing-rooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique:
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your penny-trumpets squeak:
Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a noble time,
And oil each other’s little heads
With mutual Flattery’s golden slime.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)