The Learning Process

The Fundamentals of Instruction - Task 1.B

We will try to  explain why you will or will not remember this lesson

  • As a flight instructor, the ability to effectively teach students is imperative.
  • Understanding how people learn and how to apply that knowledge is the basis for effective teaching.

Learning theory is the body of principles that explain how people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes.

 

Perceptions and insight

Both internal and external factors affect an individual’s ability to perceive:

 

Perceptions

  • Physical organism - Provides individuals with the perceptual apparatus for sensing the world around them: the ability to see, hear, feel, and respond.

  • Goals and values - Every experience and sensation that is funneled into a person’s central nervous system is colored by the individual’s own beliefs and value structures.

  • Self-concept - a student’s self-image, described in such terms as “confident” or “insecure,” has a great influence on the total perceptual process.

  • Time and opportunity - Learning some things depends on other perceptions that have preceded that learning, and on the availability of time to sense and relate those new things to the earlier perceptions.

  • Element of threat - Confronted with a threat, students tend to limit their attention to the threatening object or condition. Fear adversely affects perception by narrowing the perceptual field.

Insight

Insight involves the grouping of perceptions into meaningful wholes. It is the mental relating and grouping of associated perceptions. Creating insight is one of the instructor’s major responsibilities.

 

Acquiring knowledge

  1. Memorization

  2. Understanding

  3. Concept Learning / Application - Concept learning is based on the assumption that humans tend to group objects, events, ideas, people, etc., that share one or more major attributes that set them apart.

The laws of learning

They are rules and principles that apply generally to the learning process. The first three are the basic laws; the last three are the result of experimental studies:

  • R eadiness — Individuals learn best when they are ready to learn, and they do not learn well if they see no reason for it or lack motivation. If students have a strong purpose, a clear objective, and a true reason for learning something, they make more progress.

  • E xercise — Memory and connections between concepts are strengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued, which reflects the adage “use it or lose it.” The student needs to practice what has been learned in order to understand and remember it.

  • E ffect — Learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying feeling, but weakened when associated with an unpleasant feeling.

  • P rimacy — The state of being first often creates a strong, almost unshakable impression and underlies the reason that an instructor must teach correctly the first time and the student’s initial learning must be right.

  • I ntensity — A vivid, dramatic, or exciting learning experience teaches more than a routine or boring experience.

  • R ecency — The things most recently learned are best remembered.

Domains of learning

  • Cognitive (thinking) - a grouping of levels of learning associated with mental activity. The six major levels, in order of increasing complexity, are: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

    • R ote — the ability to repeat something back that was learned but not necessarily understood.

    • U nderstanding — to comprehend or grasp the nature or meaning of something.

    • A pplication — the act of putting something to use that has been learned and understood.

    • C orrelation — associating what has been learned, understood, and applied with previous or subsequent learning; this level is the overall objective of aviation instruction.

  • Affective (feeling) - a grouping of levels of learning associated with a person’s attitudes, personal beliefs, and values. The levels (in order of increasing complexity) include: receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterization.

  • Psychomotor (doing) - a grouping of levels of learning associated with physical skill levels, which include (in order of increasing complexity): perception, set, guided response, mechanism, complex overt response, adaptation, and origination.

Characteristics of learning

 Memory Aid: PRMA

  • Purposeful - Each student is a unique individual whose past experience affects readiness to learn and understanding of the requirements involved. Students have fairly definite ideas about what they want to do and achieve.

  • Result of Experience - Learning is an individual process from personal experiences. Previous experience conditions a person to respond to some things and ignore others. Knowledge cannot be poured into the student’s head.

  • Multifaceted - Learning may include verbal elements, conceptual elements, perceptual elements, emotional elements, and problem-solving elements all taking place at once.

  • Active Process — Students do not soak up knowledge like a sponge absorbs water. For students to learn, they must react and respond — perhaps outwardly, or perhaps only inwardly, emotionally, or intellectually.

Acquiring skill knowledge

  • Cognitive — Cognitive learning has a basis in factual knowledge; since the student has no prior knowledge of flying, the instructor first introduces him or her to a basic skill. The student then memorizes the steps required to perform the skill.

  • Associative — As the storage of skill knowledge through practice continues, the student learns to associate individual steps in performance with likely outcomes. They no longer perform a series of memorized steps, but are able to assess their progress along the way and make adjustments in performance.

  • Automatic Response Stage — As procedures become automatic, less attention is required to carry them out, so it is possible to do other things simultaneously, or at least do other things more comfortably.

Types of practice

3 Types of skill practice

  • Deliberate — practice aimed at a particular goal; the student practices specific areas for improvement and receives specific feedback after practice; the feedback points out discrepancies and the student focuses on eliminating those discrepancies.

  • Blocked — practicing the same drill until the movement becomes automatic; doing the same task over and over leads to better short-term performance, but poorer long-term learning; it tends to fool not only the student but the instructor into thinking the skills have been well learned.

  • Random — mixing up the skills to be acquired throughout the practice session, which results in better retention. By performing a series of separate skills in a random order, the student begins to recognize the similarities and differences of each skill, which makes it more meaningful.

Scenario-based training

A Good Scenario Has:

  • It uses a highly structured script of real world experiences to meet flight training objectives in an operational environment.

    • System – concept is integrated throughout training.

    • Experiences – new and different experiences are important.

    • Operational environment – the real thing.

  • Clear set of objectives

  • Is tailored to the needs of the student. Practice solving problems they want solved.

  • Capitalizes on the nuances of the local environment.

FAA Material /Slides on SBT Training.

Errors

Error Types

  • Slip — Occurs when a person plans to do one thing but then inadvertently does something else. For example, planning to land Runway 21 and instead lands on 3.

  • Mistake — Is when a person plans to do the wrong thing and is successful. Mistakes are errors of thought and are sometimes the result of gaps or misconceptions in the student’s understanding.

 

Reduce Errors By

  1. Learning and practicing

  2. Taking time

  3. Checking for errors

  4. Using reminders - Avionics bugs, kneeboard notes.

  5. Developing routines - Checklists, but practice with flows as well.

  6. Raising awareness - Take note of areas where problems often occur.

Memory and forgetting

  • Sensory Memory - Immediate processing, brain decides what is important.

  • Short Term Memory: 30 Seconds (IFR/Taxi Clearance for example)

  • Long Term Memory: Lifetime.

Threats to Memory

  • Lack of Frequent Usage

  • Lack of Understanding

Know thy Enemy

Forgeting

  • Retreval Failure - Simply unable to recall.

  • Fading - a person forgets information that is not used for an extended period of time.

  • Interference - (Trauma) people forget because a certain experience has overshadowed it or the learning of similar things has intervened.

  • Repression - a memory is pushed out of reach because the individual does not want to remember feelings associated with it.

Retention of learning

  • Praise — stimulates remembering; absence of praise or recognition discourages remembering.

  • Association — recall is promoted by association.

  • Attitudes — favorable attitudes aid retention; people learn and remember only what they wish to know.

  • Senses — learning with all senses is most effective.

  • Repetition — meaningful repetition aids recall, but mere repetition does not guarantee retention.

Transfer of learning

Transfer of learning is defined as the ability to apply knowledge or procedures learned in one context to new contexts.

  • Positive transfer — occurs if the learning of skill A helps to learn skill B.

    • Example: The practice of slow flight helps the student learn short-field landings (positive transfer).

  • Negative transfer — occurs if the learning of skill A hinders the learning of skill B

    • ​Example: Touch and goes could hinder the habit of after landing checklists.

Levels of Learning

Not in PTS, but are interesting and worth discussing. 

They are, in increasing order of depth/complexity :

  • Rote Learning
    • The ability to repeat something that has been taught without deep understanding or being able to apply it to general situations.
  • Understanding
    • Insight into what has been taught where the student consolidates old and new perceptions into an insight.
  • Application
    • The student understands the material/technique, can apply it to situations, and has practiced it until they can do so consistently. But don’t stop here!
  • Correlation
    • The student can correlate what has been learned with things previously learned, and can apply those insights to broader categories of activities (i.e. correlate the elements of a turn with performing lazy eights and chandelles).
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