Roads to Learning: What is The Best Path to Take?

Learning is central to activities the in the home, in school, and in everyday life.  It is a complex process which takes place in the brain.  The human brain is considered a frontier in the educational explorations today.  However, every parent and every teacher searches for the best road – the most effective way to learning. The important question therefore is:  How do people learn?  What are the most effective and the fastest method of learning, especially for children? 

There are certain methods by which people learn.

Trial and Error

Learning through trial and error comes as a result of hitting and missing.  One learns how to sew by different ways of putting fabric together.  Some people call this procedure learning by experience.  If a child would learn how to swim by this method, it might be risky if not fatal!

Conditioning

This learning method, labeled by psychologists as conditioning is habit-forming way—learning to do something by getting used to it.  This, too, has objections, as not all practice makes perfect.  One may play a piece on the piano over and over again, but that’s no guarantee that it’s being done right.  The point is, if you have to practice and repeat something, you have to do it the right way, or else the brain will be conditioned to do the wrong thing because of the repetitive mistake.

Insight

This happens when a sudden flash of intellect brings on an answer or a solution to a problem. Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and inventor, was believed to have discovered the buoyancy principle in this manner.  The answer to the great riddle of the crown asked him by the king of Syracuse came while he was taking a bath.  So excited was he that he ran into the street without dressing and yelled, “Eureka!” (I’ve found it!)

Operational though these methods may be, they’re not foolproof guarantees of learning.  However, there’s only one sure way in which children can and will learn, whether we like it or not and whether they like it or not.  Psychologists agree on this method.

Modeling

It is learning by example, observation, and imitation, or identification.  In teaching music to very young children, this effective method is called “learning by rote” (or imitation).  While scientific studies are continuously being done in this field, there is voluminous research evidence on the effectiveness of this approach.