COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA

To what extent do you agree that learning is a social process?

To what extent do you agree that learning is a social process?

Introduction

In order to decide that weather learning is a social process or not primarily we need to focus on what basically learning is. According to Nikolas Lehmann:

From the very first day throughout the whole life one can learn a lot of things, learning is basically developing knowledge and understanding about different things which may happen in our day to day life. Learning can be classified into two broad categories i.e. Social Learning and Individual learning. Studies proved that humans have the tendency to learn for social interactions and therefore they can develop better understating and knowledge.

Expert opinion, international reviews and communication journals and experts from mind sciences emphasize and highlight the fact that learning is a social process. It is a social process based on the interaction between people and groups. The theory of learning by Vygotsky's identifies clearly that learning comes under the context of social interaction with people. It is the interaction with the people which develops learning about different things. For example a student went to university, other than learning from books he can also learn a lot of things from socializing with friends. The key problem is to identify that learning is a social process. The problem is addressed through various theories of social learning defining its scope and extent to which people agrees with it.

We define learning as a process of relative or a permanent change in the behavior of a person created by experience. Most of the physiologists are on the view that people learn things from observations. The better the observation the greater will be the learning. For example: Children learn a lot by observing their surroundings, and try to act the same.

Thesis Statement

Up to what extent do you agree that learning is a social process?

Research on Learning Process

Constructivism Theory of Learning

Constructivism is based on the efforts of Vygotsky in (1978) and Bruner in (1990). Vygotsky highlighted that the process of learning is affected by the traditional and shared environment. The theory of Constructivism undermines the fact the information is primarily constructed in a social context and then is transformed to individual level. The theory put forward the idea that sharing information and point of views with people would build and develop understanding about different prospective. Scholars termed learning as a social and active process through which one can develop understanding (Brown et al.1989; Ackerman 1996). The theory of Constructivism follows the research work presented by Vygotsky.

Is Learning a Social Process?

Social learning is one in which a human being develop their understanding by observing, touching and feeling things. Learning is a social phenomenon which automatically develops understanding about different things for example: fire can burn your skin therefore, up to greater extent researchers agrees with the fact that learning is a social process and most of them endorse their arguments as a human starts ...