How we learn

speaker: Monisha Pasupathi, University of Utah

Myth 1: learning is aware and purposeful

we may think we learned something, but we don’t actually understand it we learn all the time, unconsciously.

Myth 2: people already know how to maximize learning

amount of effort != amount of learning

Myth 3: learning is going well, we feel confident

during moment of confusion and uncertainly, learning is going on

Myth 4: emotion is a problem, messes up learning

emotion changes the orientation, angry -> narrow focus, feel good -> broaden our focus emotion can help or hinder

Myth 5: not interesting, can’t learn it

ways to cultivate interest, a little foundational learning can foster interest

Myth 6: people learn from reward and punishment

learning is innate motivated action, infacts learning to walk reward motivate the demonstration of learning

Myth 7: smart people learn more easily

Myth 8: learning is information dumped into our brain

not passive, we are transforming information all the time depends on connections to prior knowledge

Myth 9: people of all ages learn the same way

kids and adults have different prior knowledge ability to reflect develops young kids are good at learning language

Myth 10: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

association between behavior and consequence
fixed schedule vs variable schedule
- slot machine
punishment in order to be effective needs to be
- immediate
- maximal
- not mild