Definition of Holistic Approach to Learning

Holistic Approach to Learning

The most effective way to learn and develop a new skill or behavior is to apply it and practice it on the-the-job and in real-life situations.

The 70/20/10 Formula

70% of learning & development takes place from real-life and on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving. This is the most important aspect of any learning and development plan

20% comes from feedback and from observing and working with role models.

10% of learning and development comes from formal training.

The Learning Process

Definition of Learning

According to Stephen Robbins, learning may be defined as any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. The present definition of learning has several components that deserve clarification:

Learning Involves Change Change may be good or bad from an organizational point of view. People can learn unfavorable behaviors to hold prejudices or to restrict their output, for example, as well as favorable behaviors.

The Change Should be Relatively Permanent

Temporary changes may be only reflexive and fail to represent any learning. Therefore, the requirement that learning should be relatively permanent rules out behavioral changes caused by fatigue or temporary adaptations.

Learning Involves Change in Behavior

Learning takes place when there is a change in actions. We should depend on observation to see how much learning has occurred.

Learning can be defined as a change in behavior as a result of experience. This can be physical and overt, or it may involve complex intellectual or attitudinal changes which affect behavior in more subtle ways. In spite of numerous theories and contrasting views, psychologists generally agree on many common characteristics of learning.

Learning Objectives

To know the basic nature of learning

To know the theories of learning

To know the application of learning principles in organizational context

Learning may be explained by a combination of two basic approaches: behaviorism and the cognitive theories

Behaviorism

Behaviorists believe that animals, including humans, learn in about the same way. Behaviorism stresses the importance of having a particular form of behavior reinforced by someone, other than the student, to shape or control what is learned. In aviation training, the instructor provides the reinforcement. Frequent, positive reinforcement and rewards accelerate learning.

This theory provides the instructor with ways to manipulate students with stimuli, induce the desired behavior or response, and reinforce the behavior with appropriate rewards. In general, the behaviorist theory emphasizes positive reinforcement rather than no reinforcement or punishment. Other features of behaviorism are considerably more complex than this simple explanation. Instructors who need more details should refer to psychology texts for a better understanding of behaviorism. As an instructor, it is important to keep in mind that behaviorism is still widely used today, because controlling learning experiences helps direct students toward specific learning outcomes.

Cognitive Theory

Much of the recent psychological thinking and experimentation in education includes some facets of the cognitive theory. This is true in basic as well as more advanced training programs. Unlike behaviorism, the cognitive theory focuses on what is going on inside the student’s mind. Learning is not just a change in behavior; it is a change in the way a student thinks, understands, or feels.

There are several branches of cognitive theory. Two of the major theories may broadly be classified as the information processing model and the social interaction model. The first says that the student’s brain has internal structures which select and process incoming material, store and retrieve it, use it to produce behavior, and receive and process feedback on the results.

This involves a number of cognitive processes, including executive functions of recognizing expectancies, planning and monitoring performance, encoding and chunking information, and producing internal and external responses.

The social interaction theories gained prominence in the 1980s. They stress that learning and subsequent changes in behavior take place as a result of interaction between the student and the environment.

Behavior is modeled either by people or symbolically. Cultural influences, peer pressure, group dynamics, and film and television are some of the significant factors. Thus, the social environment to which the student is exposed demonstrates or models behaviors, and the student cognitively processes the observed behaviors and consequences. The cognitive processes include attention, retention, motor responses, and motivation. Techniques for learning include direct modeling and verbal instruction. Behavior, personal factors, and environmental events all work together to produce learning.

Both models of the cognitive theory have common principles. For example, they both acknowledge the importance of reinforcing behavior and measuring changes. Positive reinforcement is important, particularly with cognitive concepts such as knowledge and understanding. The need to evaluate and measure behavior remains because it is the only way to get a clue about what the student understands.

Evaluation is often limited to the kinds of knowledge or behavior that can be measured by a paper-and-pencil exam or a performance test. Although psychologists agree that there often are errors in evaluation, some means of measuring student knowledge, performance, and behavior is necessary.

Combined Approach

Both the behaviorist and the cognitive approaches are useful learning theories. A reasonable way to plan, manage, and conduct aviation training is to include the best features of each major theory. This provides a way to measure behavioral outcomes and promote cognitive learning. The combined approach is not simple, but neither is learning.

How do People Learn?

Initially, all learning comes from perceptions which are directed to the brain by one or more of the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Psychologists have also found that learning occurs most rapidly when information is received through more than one sense

Perceptions

Perceiving involves more than the reception of stimuli from the five senses. Perceptions result when a person gives meaning to sensations. People base their actions on the way they believe things to be. The experienced aviation maintenance technician, for example, perceives an engine malfunction quite differently than does an inexperienced student. Real meaning comes only from within a person, even though the perceptions which evoke these meanings result from external stimuli. The meanings which are derived from perceptions are influenced not only by the individual’s experience, but also by many other factors. Knowledge of the factors which affect the perceptual process is very important to the aviation instructor because perceptions are the basis of all learning.

Factors Which Affect Perception

There are several factors that affect an individual’s ability to perceive. Some are internal to each person and some are external.

Physical organism

Basic need

Goals and values

Self-concept

Time and opportunity

Element of threat

Physical Organism The physical organism provides individuals with the perceptual apparatus for sensing the world around them. Pilots, for example, must be able to see, hear, feel, and respond adequately while they are in the air. A person whose perceptual apparatus distorts reality is denied the right to fly at the time of the first medical examination.

Basic Need

A person’s basic need is to maintain and enhance the organized self. The self is a person’s past, present, and future combined; it is both physical and psychological. A person’s most fundamental, pressing need is to preserve and perpetuate the self. All perceptions are affected by this need.

Goals and Values

Perceptions depend on one’s goals and values. Every experience and sensation which is funneled into one’s central nervous system is colored by the individual’s own beliefs and value structures. Spectators at a ball game may see an infraction or foul differently depending on which team they support. The precise kinds of commitments and philosophical outlooks which the student holds are important for the instructor to know, since this knowledge will assist in predicting how the student will interpret experiences and instructions.

Goals are also a product of one’s value structure. Those things which are more highly valued and cherished are pursued; those which are accorded less value and importance are not sought after.

Self-Concept

Self-concept is a powerful determinant in learning. A student’s self-image, described in such terms as confident and insecure, has a great influence on the total perceptual process. lf a student’s experiences tend to support a favorable self-image, the student tends to remain receptive to subsequent experiences. lf a student has negative experiences which tend to contradict self-concept, there is a tendency to reject additional training.

A negative self-concept inhibits the perceptual processes by introducing psychological barriers which tend to keep the student from perceiving. They may also inhibit the ability to properly implement that which is perceived. That is, self-concept affects the ability to actually perform or do things unfavorable. Students who view themselves positively, on the other hand, are less defensive and more receptive to new experiences, instructions, and demonstrations.

Time and Opportunity

It takes time and opportunity to perceive. Learning some things depends on other perceptions which have preceded these learning, and on the availability of time to sense and relate these new things to the earlier perceptions. Thus, sequence and time are necessary.

Element of Threat

The element of threat does not promote effective learning. In fact, fear adversely affects perception by narrowing the perceptual field. Confronted with threat, students tend to limit their attention to the threatening object or condition. The field of vision is reduced, for example, when an individual is frightened and all the perceptual faculties are focused on the thing that has generated fear.

Flight instruction provides many clear examples of this. During the initial practice of steep turns, a student pilot may focus attention on the altimeter and completely disregard outside visual references. Anything an instructor does that is interpreted as threatening makes the student less able to accept the experience the instructor is trying to provide. It adversely affects all the student’s physical, emotional, and mental faculties.

Learning is a psychological process, not necessarily a logical one. Trying to frighten a student through threats of unsatisfactory reports or reprisals may seem logical, but is not effective psychologically. The effective instructor can organize teaching to fit the psychological needs of the student. If a situation seems overwhelming, the student feels unable to handle all of the factors involved, and a threat exists. So long as the student feels capable of coping with a situation, each new experience is viewed as a challenge.

A good instructor realizes that behavior is directly influenced by the way a student perceives, and perception is affected by all of these factors. Therefore, it is important for the instructor to facilitate the learning process by avoiding any actions which may inhibit or prevent the attainment of teaching goals. Teaching is consistently effective only when those factors which influence perceptions are recognized and taken into account.

Insight

Insight involves the grouping of perceptions into meaningful wholes. Creating insight is one of the instructor’s major responsibilities. To ensure that this does occur, it is essential to keep each student constantly receptive to new experiences and to help the student realize the way each piece relates to all other pieces of the total pattern of the task to be learned.

As an example, during straight-and-level flight in an airplane with a fixed-pitch propeller, the RPM will increase when the throttle is opened and decrease when it is closed. On the other hand, RPM changes can also result from changes in airplane pitch attitude without changes in power setting. Obviously, engine speed, power setting, airspeed, and airplane attitude are all related.

True learning requires an understanding of how each of these factors may affect all of the others and, at the same time, knowledge of how a change in any one of them may affect all of the others. This mental relating and grouping of associated perceptions is called insight.

Insight will almost always occur eventually, whether or not instruction is provided. For this reason, it is possible for a person to become an electrician by trial and error, just as one may become a lawyer by reading law. Instruction, however, speeds this learning process by teaching the relationship of perceptions as they occur, thus promoting the development of the student’s insight.

As perceptions increase in number and are assembled by the student into larger blocks of learning, they develop insight. As a result, learning becomes more meaningful and more permanent. Forgetting is less of a problem when there are more anchor points for tying insights together.

It is a major responsibility of the instructor to organize demonstrations and explanations, and to direct practice, so that the student has better opportunities to understand the interrelationship of the many kinds of experiences that have been perceived. Pointing out the relationships as they occur, providing a secure and non threatening environment in which to learn, and helping the student acquire and maintain a favorable self-concept are key steps in fostering the development of insight.

Motivation

Motivation is probably the dominant force which governs the student’s progress and ability to learn. Motivation may be negative or positive, tangible or intangible, subtle and difficult to identify, or it may be obvious.

Negative motivation may engender fear, and be perceived by the student as a threat. While negative motivation may be useful in certain situations, characteristically it is not as effective in promoting efficient learning as positive motivation.

Positive motivation is provided by the promise or achievement of rewards. These rewards may be personal or social; they may involve financial gain, satisfaction of the self- concept, or public recognition. Motivation which can be used to advantage by the instructor includes the desire for personal gain, the desire for personal comfort or security, the desire for group approval, and the achievement of a favorable self-image.