On Learning and Conditioning

Overview:
Learning/ Conditioning
How do we learn? Is learning only a human trait? Learning Theories

PART 1: Warm-Up Question/ Reflection (for your Self-Assessment/ Reflection Lifeline Diary:
1. Think of the three most significant lessons you have learnt so far.
Describe them.
2. Then, reflect on how you learnt them and why you call them significant.
3. In what ways is learning associated with our both survival and development as human beings?

As you move on:
How have you been conditioned?
Could you reflect on happiness? health? relationships of yours? How would you complete the sentences:
I will be happy, if …
I will be healthy, if…
I will be in a fulfilling relationships, if …

As you complete the lesson:
As you study learning and conditioning, make a list of 10 points which you think are very interesting for a psychotherapist.
Describe each point and then comment on why you think this is significant for psychotherapy and how a psychotherapist might make use of it to support the person in session.

PART 2: Videolectures

Videolecture 1: On Learning_Part 1

Videolecture 2: On Learning_Part 2

PART 3: Study Material

Part A: The following 2 videos on personal Constructs by Vivien Burr are a wonderful addition to this lesson. (external source)

1. On Personal Constructs-Part 1: A lecture by Vivien Burr
   

2. On Personal Constructs-Part 2: A lecture by Vivien Burr
   

Part B. The following study material will give you the chance to better understand the topic of Learning in different theories and models.

1. In the “GLOSSARY”, you will be able to better understand some of the terms used in the lesson:
   
   
   
2. Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective by Peggy A. Ertmer and Timothy J. Newby
   
3. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
   
   
   
4. Subsumption Theory_Ausubel
   
5. Andragogy
   
6. Phases of learning: How skill acquisition impacts cognitive processing_Caitlin Tenison , Jon M. Fincham, John R. Anderson
   
7. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens
   
8. Positive Psychology and Constructivist Developmental Psychology_Marshall Paul
   

PART 4: Self-Study Material

1. Pavlovian Conditioning It’s Not What You Think It Is by Robert A.
   
2. B. F. Skinner_Operant Conditioning
   
3. A step-by-step tutorial on using the cognitive architecture ACT-R in combination with fMRI data_Anderson
   
4. One Brain or Two: The split brain in man_Gazzaniga, M. S. (1967).
   
5. Extracting Information from Repertory Grid Data: New Perspectives on Clinical and Assessment Practice 
   
6. The Behavior of Organisms_BF Skinner
   
7. On Gardner’s work
   
   
   
8. Concept maps, Theory, Methodology , Technology_Proceedings of the 1st Intern. conference on Concept Mapping
   
   BOOK SUGGESTION: Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity as Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot… by Howard Gardner
   You can see the google book here .
   In this book, using as a point of departure his concept of seven “intelligences,” ranging from musical intelligence to the intelligence involved in understanding oneself, Gardner examines seven extraordinary individuals—Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T.S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Mahatma Gandhi—each an outstanding exemplar of one kind of intelligence. Understanding the nature of their disparate creative breakthroughs not only sheds light on their achievements but also helps to elucidate the “modern era”—the times that formed these creators and which they in turn helped to define.

PART 5: 
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

Albert Einstein

And

“Our actions may be impeded, but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Marcus Aurelius