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The Learning Process

Definition of Learning​

  • A process which results in a change in behavior
  • Gaining knowledge or skills through study, instruction, experience

Characteristics of Learnings​

PEMA:

  • Purposeful
  • Result of Experience
  • Multifaceted
  • Active process

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-2

Behaviorism​

  • Explains behavior in terms of observable and measurable responses to stimuli
  • Human behavior is conditioned by events in the person's environment
  • Based on this theory is the simple "carrot-and-stick" approach to learning

Cognitive Theory​

  • Focuses on what's going on inside the mind
  • Examine's the human ability to reflect, problem solve, and think critically

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-2

Social Learning​

Social learning is simply learning by observation of others. Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory has four stages:

  1. Attention - ability to observe others them
  2. Retention - remember the observed behavior
  3. Reproduction - reproduce a previous observed behavior, may require addition skills
  4. Motivation - a reason to reproduce the behavior

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-3

Learning Theories​

  1. Classical conditioning: Pavlovian psychology, association with stimuli
  2. Operant conditioning: Associations are made between positive behaviors and positive consequences, negative behaviors and negative consequences
  3. Social learning: Watching, imitating the actions of others

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-3

Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domains​

Bloom's Taxonomy

  1. Comprehension
  2. Application
  3. Analysis
  4. Synthesis
  5. Evaluation
  6. Knowledge

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-5

Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)​

  • Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), also called aeronautical decision-making (ADM)
  • Based on the last three of Bloom's Taxonomy (synthesis, evaluation, knowledge)
  • Progress learning from simple to complex, from concrete to abstract

Scenario-Based Training (SBT)​

  • Use of structured, "real-world" scenarios to approach flight-training objectives
  • Helps student's "make meaning" out of their past experiences, and use that to strengthen their ADM

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-6

Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge pg. 2-21

Perceptions​

Perceptions graph

  • Perceptions are the basis for learning
  • The process of learning involved mapping new sensory input into useful information
  • Learning can be better accomplished by utilizing more than one sense (e.g. sight, sound, touch)
  • An instructor should guide a learner's perception onto the most important things

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-7

Factors that Affect Perception​

  • Physical organism
    • The physical apparatuses for sensing the world around us
  • Goals and values
    • Sensory input is colored by one's own beliefs and values, goals are the produce of one's value structure
  • Self-concept
    • Self image (e.g. confident, insecure), affects a persons perception
    • Negative experiences can contradict a person's self-concept
  • Time and opportunity
    • We need time and practice to develop perception of something
  • Element of threat
    • Fear adversely affects perception by narrowing the perceptual field
    • An overwhelming situation can be threatening
    • If a learner feels they can handle a situation, then it's viewed as a challenge

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-7

Insight​

  • Insight involves the grouping of perceptions into meaningful wholes
  • It is the instructor's job to facilitate the synthesis of perceptions into insights

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-9

Selective Attention​

  • Over time, student will learn which sensory inputs to focus on and which ones to filter out

See also Sensory Memory

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-36

Levels of Learning​

  • R: Rote / Memorization
    • The first attempt in acquiring knowledge
    • Memorization is quick, but lacks any depth and connection to other knowledge
  • U: Understanding
    • The next stage of learning
    • Ability to make association between facts and procedures
    • Knowledge is organized in a useful way, with coherent groups of facts
    • "Mental model" or self-explanation
  • A: Application
    • Applying and using the knowledge in a meaningful way
  • C: Correlation / Concept Learning
    • Generalization of facts or steps into general concepts
    • Relies on categorization of knowledge into groups
    • Schemas are templates of thought that form when humans observe patterns

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-9

Laws of Learning​

  • R: Readiness: Student must be ready to learn, want to learn, be properly motivated
  • E: Exercise: Skills take rehearsal to master
  • E: Effect: Successful experiences are more likely to be repeated, and thus better for learning
  • P: Primary: Whatever is learned first will be learned strongest
  • I: Intensity: Immediate, exciting, or dramatic experience will be more educational
  • R: Recency: The more recent the information, the better it will be remembered

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-11

Domains of Learning​

  • Cognitive: Recall, understanding, application
  • Psychomotor: Doing, observation, habit
  • Affective: Beliefs and attitudes, emotions towards the experience

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-13

Characteristics of Learning​

  • P: Purposeful: Learners will want to see relevancy of the material
  • E: Result of experience: Knowledge results from a bank of experience
  • M: Learning is multifaceted: Learning involves many elements of experience, and not always what's intended by an instructor
  • A: Active process: Learners must continuously react and respond to material and experiences to learn from it

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-19

Learning Styles​

  • Left/Right brain:
    • Left brain: step-by-step, writing, plans, structured analytical
    • Right brain: Coordinated, creative, impulsive, open-ended questions, responds well to demonstrations
  • Reflective/Impulsive
    • Reflective individuals will think deeply before acting, considering all possibilities
    • Impulsive individual will act from impulse, quick assessments
  • Holist/Serialist
    • Holist: Top-down learners, want to see the big picture
    • Serialist: Bottom-up learners, concentrates on one stage at a time
  • Auditory/Visual/Kinesthetic
    • Auditory: Learn best from listening
    • Visual: Learn best from images
    • Kinesthetic: Learn by hands-on doing

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-20

Acquiring Skill Knowledge​

Stages of Skill Acquisition​

  1. Cognitive stage: Based in factual knowledge, memorization, fixations
  2. Associate stage: Practice mode, associate task elements together, make assessments of their own progress
  3. Automatic response stage: Perform skills automatically and can multi-task, skill is rapid and smooth

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-24

Knowledge of Results​

  • Give feedback early and often, whether the learner's performance is good or bad
  • The student should be learning how to judge their own performance

How to Develop Skills​

  • Transition skills from effortful to automatic requires repeated practice
  • The first few attempts will be awkward and slow

Learning Plateaus​

  • Plateaus can be caused by
    • consolidation of other skills
    • waning interest
    • reaching of cognitive capability limits
    • the need for a more efficient method of practice

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-26

Types of Practice​

  1. Deliberate practice:
    • Practice with a specific goal in mind
    • Usually done with an instructor giving immediate feedback
  2. Blocked practice:
    • Practicing skills repeatedly in a block of time
    • Utilized short-term memory, which is only useful for the time in the block
    • Not as useful for developing long-term skills
  3. Random practice:
    • Practices a random set of skills
    • The most valuable type of practice

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-26

Evaluation vs Critique​

  • Critique, or suggestions are used early in the training
  • Over-learning involves continued study after proficiency has been achieved
    • Sometimes concepts can give way to rote procedure if not engaged with (like a checklist becoming rote)
  • Learners not only need a skill to become easy or habitual, but know when to apply the skill or knowledge

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-28

Putting it all together​

  • Multitasking: Attention switching, simultaneous performance
  • Distractions and interruptions should be minimized early in training, but added in as the student progresses
  • Fixation and inattention: A tendency to over- or under-observe a particular piece of information

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-29

Errors​

  • Slip: a person plans to do the right thing, but does something else
  • Mistake: A person plans to do the wrong thing

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-33

Ways to minimize errors​

  1. Take more time
  2. Check for errors deliberately
  3. Use reminders like checklists and automation
  4. Develop routines to prevent the error
  5. Raise awareness when a person know an error is likely

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-33

Learning from errors​

  • Instructors should give students ways to recover from errors
  • Point out errors and ask student why they occurred
  • Point out that errors occur at all skill levels

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-35

Memory​

Memory is the vital link between the learning retaining information and the cognitive process of applying what has been learned.

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-35

Sensory memory:​

  • Receives initial stimuli from the environment
  • Processes information according to what the person deems important (discarding what is deemed extraneous)

Working or short-term memory​

  • Information stored for roughly 30 seconds
  • Limited to about 7 "chunks" of information
  • Additional effort required to transition information into long-term memory
    • This is called the coding or chunking process
    • Rehearsal can help convert into LTM

Long-term memory​

  • Long term memory is theoretically infinite and permanent
  • During the encoding process, information should be contextualized with other memories
  • Recalling from LTM involves reconstruction of the information

Forgetting​

  • Fading: People forget things that are not used
  • Retrieval failure: Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
  • Interference: Something over shadows the knowledge, or a similar piece of information causes confusion
  • Repression or suppression: Forgetting because a person subconsciously does not want to remember

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-37

Retention of Learning​

  • Praise stimulate remembering
  • Recall is promoted by association
  • Favorable attitudes help retention
  • Learning with all senses is most effective
  • Meaningful repetition aids recall
  • Mnemonics

Aviation Instructor's Handbook pg. 3-38

Transfer of Learning​

The process of applying knowledge from one context in a new situation.

Types of Transfer​

  • Near/far
    • Near transfer: applying information in a closely-related area
    • Far transfer: applying information in a novel situation which share some common structure with the original scenario
  • Positive/negative
    • Position transfer: When previous information aids in the learning and understanding of new information
    • Negative transfer: When previous information conflicts or confuses the new skill or information

Encouraging Transfer​

  • Habit formation:
    • Encourage students to form good habits early
  • How understanding affects memory
    • The more deeply a person thinks about information, the better they will remember it
  • Remembering during training
    • Students will need to practice
  • Remembering after training
    • Continued practice is key to remembering information
  • Sources of knowledge
    • Learners should seek out other sources of knowledge with different perspective
  • Summary of instructor actions
    • Encourage students to use mnemonics
    • Discourage cramming