Learning "How we learn"..

Reflecting back to childhood days, it was just repetition that led to memorizing and finally learning of the concept. We never asked our teachers why do we need to learn something. We learned concepts or skills over repeated practice, we were motivated by positive reinforcements(rewards for recalling something learned), we were afraid of negative reinforcements (missing rewards or getting punished). We had more of behaviorist way of learning when we were young.

As we grew we had more of cognitivitivism and constructivism in our learning approach. We had scaffolding from teachers to assist in weaker areas, we used to learn in groups, share our ideas and progress in learning. The more knowledgeable tutor helped the learner to advance up in the learning curve. This is constructivitim in learning.

When we started to solve problems we started to use a cognitive approach. Complex problems were broken down into smaller parts using prior knowledge of concept (stored in the memory).

As we further advanced in age we started learning through our networks. Here comes the connectivism way of learning. Learning happened through diverse connected networks and legitimate sources.

Even as we become adults and ended up in a career of our choice, the learning still continued. Now we learned concepts or skills that are more associated with what we do and what is relevant to us. Here comes the master of all learning theories as I like to call it, "the andragaogy". It tells about the art and science of how adults learn. We as adults are self motivated, we need to know why we learn. And so we learn and learn and still learn.

Learning how we learn still has more realms to explore...