Defining Learning: Two Classroom Activities

Abstract

This article describes two activities designed to help students evaluate potential definitions of learning and arrive at a useful one. The first activity involves discussion of 10 events, ranging from clear cases of learning, through ambiguous cases, to cases that are clearly not learning. The second activity involves interacting with a computer program that simulates problem solving and appears to fit most published definitions of learning. The two activities seem to help students evaluate proposed definitions of learning.