To understand the dynamics of learning, it is important to recognize all the associated processes that occur in humans at the time this occurs. It is not about seeing learning as a quantifiable end result, rather it is about identifying what happens while learning is about to occur or while it is occurring.
Thus, understanding the learning process means giving a singular relevance to experience and perception regarding the responses to a certain stimulus, therefore, we can ensure that both experience and perception encompass all behavior, of course ignoring those responses. isolated or specific.
Regarding learning, we can point out that the moment a person begins a didactic experience, that person has a series of skills, expectations and attitudes that will accompany the way in which he or she perceives that learning situation. That is to say, each person has a life story and in that life story in which a whole series of references, prior knowledge or information will be present that, in turn, will play a determining role in the moment of perceiving a certain situation. Therefore, learning will definitely be conditioned by previous experiences, regardless of whether such experiences are positive or not.
Now, in this context, we can refer to the so-called “learning by insight”, or “learning by sudden understanding”. This type of learning is part of the Gestalt theory which defends the thesis that learning occurs after several unsuccessful attempts while searching for a solution. That is, insight learning occurs as a result of a process of global understanding of a given situation, in addition to a perception of its most relevant elements. This theory of learning is not limited to the classic stimulus-response, but considers and recognizes the entire set of prior knowledge and experiences of the person and how these references manage to establish relationships to find the meaning or understanding of what is learned or is about to learn. Of course, we can best identify this with an example:
Suppose we are solving a mathematics problem and we are trying to find the solution to it, for which we look for notes, similar exercises already solved, among others. At a certain moment and almost without realizing it, multiple connections are being established in our mind with endless information and that process is decanting what we really need to find the solution to that problem. However, at first, we did not find the solution and abandoned the activity. After abandoning the activity, our mind may be thinking about what we were doing and suddenly the solution to said problem comes to mind. All of this is called “learning by insight or sudden understanding” since we unexpectedly manage to understand, identify and find the solution. Logically, it can occur while carrying out the activity, or as we have seen in the example, when abandoning it.
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In this sense, the teacher can observe the strategies that the student himself is executing as he enters his own learning process, however, it is essential to identify the level of cognitive development of each person and, based on this, determine the reference concepts. that will allow us to verify that everything is actually happening as expected according to the determined learning curve. This is why it is essential to know the students and respect their identity and individuality, that is, recognize their prior knowledge, direct references from their environment, and obviously the manifestation and action regarding what they are learning.
Therefore, learning as a process is far from being static. At a cognitive level, it certainly involves the activation of many connections that have the hippocampus as their main location, which is an organ with two halves that is located in the brain and in a simple way, we can assure that this organ enables the activation of different memories. which are distributed throughout the brain. On the other hand, let us remember that the hippocampus is directly related to declarative memory (that is, memory whose contents can be expressed verbally).
The hippocampus allows the learning that is carried out to be strengthened by allowing some information to be transferred to long-term memory, in addition to relating this content to some values, whether positive or negative, according to the memories that are associated with pleasant or unpleasant experiences. In this sense, both brain activity and the manifestation of behavior framed in the learning process will mean an aspect of singular relevance for the teacher since, as an educational professional, he will consider all those strategies that from a point of view From a didactic point of view, they will accompany and guide the process that the student must experience while he or she discovers and learns from his or her experiences, references and prior knowledge.
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