Keywords

Education, defining learning, agency

Document Type

Article

Abstract

While teaching an instructional design course, I would often begin the semester by asking students to define the word learning. On the surface, that seems like a relatively simple task, but most students struggled to craft a definition that satisfied them. We would then explore scholarly definitions of the word, often with equally unsatisfying results. Scholars in the fields of education and psychology usually focus on three primary aspects of the word learning: (1) the acquisition of new knowledge or a new skill (2) that persists over time and (3) is not due only to growth and development.