What is Learning?

According to the built-in Apple dictionary:

Learn verb: gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught.

I suppose this is a satisfactory definition of how you learn, but is it a satisfactory definition of what it is. How do you know that you have learned something? What is the difference between learning and remembering? Is there a difference? These are just some of the questions that the above definition does not answer.

What Everyone Thinks Learning is

For anything academics related you would say learning = studying. It’s what you were told in school, it’s what you did in school. For any physical skill the most common answer would be practice. It’s what everyone else does, it’s what you did and still do to improve in any sport or other physical activity. Separate answers for separate uses of the mind-body complex. Seems accurate enough, doesn’t it? It does. But it’s not the answer to the question of “what is learning?”

We have equated the definition of what it is to the process of getting there just as Apple’s dictionary has. There is no point though, in knowing what mode of transport you’re taking, if you don’t know when or where you are supposed to arrive. Additionally, maybe you only need the next suburb and the transport you have been assigned is a plane. The destination needs to be in mind first.

What is learning?

For starters, learning is not memorisation, at least rote-memorisation. A part of learning is remembering things, since learning something and forgetting it later is completely pointless, but it is not memorising things for the sake of memorising things. There tend to be many distractors, particularly in a classroom setting, to convince students they are learning, when in fact, they are only memorising. “Learn the dates of the turning points in World War II outlined in the handout.” Is it even possible to “learn” dates? Here the implied meaning is “Memorise the dates…” Why not just say that? Learning is a word of its own, and should be used accordingly.

“When do you use the word ‘learning’ then?” Learning is conceptual. It’s about understanding, but not just understanding; again, they are separate words, with nuanced definitions. The first step of learning is understanding. When your maths teacher cogently explains how parabolas work, explaining that if you lay out a table of x-values with corresponding, squared y-values and then plot an infinite number of these points on a cartesian plane you get a U-like shape, you may understand parabolas. Could you say you’ve learnt parabolas though? I guess you could say you’ve learnt about parabolas, but it’s not the same thing. When then, are you able to say with confidence that you have learnt parabolas?

When you can apply the principles of the understanding to other situations.

Application of an understanding, having transferable knowledge is what learning is really about. It’s about understanding something and learning how that knowledge and/or skill is applicable to similar (or even seemingly dissimilar) problems. Once you realise that a parabola can be drawn to represent the path of a  ball that has been thrown into the air, and are able to calculate where it will be based on two points you know it has already been, that is when you can truly say you have learnt it.

Who cares?

Good point. Not many I’m guessing. And that’s why you should care. The definition seems unnecessarily semantical and useless. Who cares if it’s learning, understanding or memorising, as long as it’s useful, right? It does matter actually. Semantical accuracy makes it much easier to apply specific goals to educational systems. A clear definition of what learning is, the destination, provides a starting point for a discussion on the best mode of transport.

What should be done?

Learning, using the above definition, should be done. An emphasis on removing unnecessary memorisation should also be done. If a copy of a book exists, use the damn thing instead of cramming your head with quotes and quotes only to throw them straight out of your brain later. Need the date of the discovery of Mercury? DuckDuckGo (or google) it.

Whoah, calm down, I’m getting there. You do have to memorise some things.

A new language, for instance, requires a lot of memorisation. Or does it? Duh duh duuuh. It depends on the definition. If you are learning new vocabulary from a flash-card deck without context, then that is memorisation.

Picture this: You’re tuned in to the 3pm Live Ancient News on channel XI on the day the Senate receives Caesar’s letter after the Battle of Zela and you hear “Veni, vidi, vici”. You look up each word of the phrase in the dictionary getting a definition with a contextualising sentence of its own, plus you have the context of who, what, when, where, why and how Caesar wrote it. This is learning the words. You are learning when they are applicable, or certainly one instance where they are applicable, and that must always be the start. A flash card might say “good” is a synonym for “beneficial” but when you’re asked “how are you?” and you say “Beneficial, and you?” you have to question whether you actually learnt anything by memorising those flashcards.

So, is rote-memorisation ever necessary in today’s day and age? I don’t think so. Contextual memorisation embedded in a conceptual framework is beneficial (or good???) when it’s more of a hindrance to use DuckDuckGo (or google) and/or information storage resources, for example when learning to speak a foreign language or learning to code. Often this is a natural side-effect of immersion and practice of the skill.

Questions to ask yourself

1. Is it knowable? Is it important? – If yes to the previous questions, it is useful.
2. Is the time and effort required to memorise this going to have a good return on investment? – If yes, it might be worth committing it to memory
3. Might I need this information again? – If yes, store it someplace it’s easy to locate for when you might need it
4. How (else) can I apply this knowledge? – To learn, rather than to simply understand