What is the Meaning of Learning and Teaching in Education in English

Back to: Learning and Teaching – Unit 1

Meaning of Learning

Learning refers to the acquisition of skills and knowledge through experience and study. It is the acquisition of new knowledge, understanding, skills, and behavior. Learning is a process and an activity which is done in order to acquire knowledge and to develop any skill through practice, learning, training, studying, experiencing and researching.

Learning is a process which keeps an individual in the student part for gaining knowledge from various means. Learning is a process which is meant to bring change in the situation and state of the knowledge and experience level in an upward direction as learning always adds up something through the process.

Learning can be beneficial in various ways. Such as, learning provides an opportunity to an individual to enhance the academic and professional performance to get higher positions in achieving the milestones. Therefore, learning always enhances the human potential to do better and get better in certain areas of education and work. Many researchers and educationists have given various definitions to learning. These are as following:

Definitions of Learning

Robert Gagne has states in the book The Conditions of Learning that,

A change in human disposition or capability that persists over a period of time and is not simply ascribable to processes of growth.

Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel in Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning stated that,

Acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.

Malcolm Knowles in The Adult Learner stated that learning is

the process of gaining knowledge and expertise.

M. Driscoll

“A persisting change in human performance or performance potential…[which] must come about as a result of the learner’s experience and interaction with the world.”

E.A. Peel

“Learning can be described as a change in the individual which takes place as a result of the environmental change.”

Meaning of Teaching

Teaching is the process of teaching or giving instructions to another individual or person. It is the process of imparting knowledge.

Definitions of Teaching

N.L.Cage

“Teaching is interpersonal influence aimed at changing the behavior potential of another person.”

Jackson

“Teaching is a face to face encounters between two or more persons, one of whom ( teacher) intends to effect certain changes in the other participants ( students).”

J B Hough and James K Duncan

“Teaching is an activity with four phases, a curriculum planning phase, an instructing phase, and an evaluating phase.”

Clerk

“Teaching refers to activities that are designed and performed to produce in students behavior.”

H C Morrison

“Teaching is an intimate contact between the more mature personality and a less mature one.”