Learning Characteristics
Some of the important characteristics of learning are as given below:
1. Learning is Unitary: It implies that the learner reacts as a whole person to the whole situation in a unified way. It means that the learner responds intellectually, emotionally, physically and spiritually at the same time. This attitude helps in the achievement of educational goals.
Development of skills: A skill is a learned activity that one develops through practice and reflection. It is the ability to perform a learned activity well and at will. Skill, as an ability to perform something, includes proficiency, competence, and expertise in the activity. Skill refers to learning psycho-motor behaviors required in the activities such as driving a car or swinging a tennis racket. The development of skills entails the following stages:
a. Cognitive Stage: Achieved through declarative knowledge.
b. Associative Stage: Combining individual steps into larger units.
c. Automated Stage: Where the whole procedure can be accomplished without much attention. In the last stage, the brain process shifts from reflective to reflexive.
Development of Attitudes: Attitude is mental state held by an individual which affects the way that person responds to events and organizes responses. Attitudes are commonly held to have three essential components or dimensions:
i. A Cognitive Dimension: Beliefs and rationalizations which explains the holding of the attitudes.
ii. An Affective Dimension: Emotional aspects of attitudes, such as likes, dislikes, feeling of distaste, and
iii. A Conative or Behavioral Dimension which involves the extent to which the individual is prepared to act on the attitude that they hold.
2. Learning may be planned or unplanned.
3. Learning can be active as well as passive
4. Learning is usually individual, but it can also be collectively generated in groups.
5. Learning is treated both as a process and as an outcome learning is lifelong process.
6. Learning may be incremental-it may add cumulatively to the prior learning or transformation.
7. Learning can be stimulated or triggered by any experience, failure, success, and anything else.