Funny how these questions still intimidate me. They’ve been asking this question from Day 1 and I’m not sure I can answer it any better now than I could back then. Woei asked us to write our definitions of learning on a piece of paper and turn them in. I would have felt less concerned if he didn’t want our names on them. Bah.
My definition of learning was “information that is stored in Long Term Memory which can be retrieved and demonstrated when needed.” That is a distinctly cognitivist perspective (with a little behaviorism thrown in there – thank you Gagne).
Since I have been indoctrinated, I mean taught, using Gagne’s theory of learning, I tend to measure everything else against that. (Of course, this proves the theory that we use our pre-existing knowledge to assimilate new ideas.) My definition above came from a combination of what I learned about CIP and an article written by Kirschner et al on minimal guidance. I guess it just makes sense to me. I wonder if I had learned Bloom’s first if I would see things differently. Seems I would.
