PSY340 Module 1 Learning Journal Latest 2020 September

PSY340 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING

Module 1 Learning Journal

The critical thinking journal prompts below are intended to help you reflect on your own learning, and your participation and learning PROCESS are what’s important here… NOT the “correct” answers.  Your answers can be used to help scaffold and guide your own learning and to create a pathway through this course that meets your individual needs.

Successful completion of this activity prepares students for meeting Module Outcomes 1 – 5.

This activity aligns with the career competency of critical thinking.

 Journal

Journal Prompts:

As we get started, consider each of the following events and determine whether or not it represents an example of learning…  Explain in your writing how you decided whether each was actually learning or not.  Did you recognize any reflexes?  Operant conditioning?  Observational learning?  In your explanation, share some examples from your life.

The cessation of thumb sucking by an infant.

The acquisition of language in children.

A computer program generates random opening moves for its first 100 chess games and tabulates the outcomes of those games. Starting with the 101st game, the computer uses those tabulations to influence its choice of opening moves.

A worm is placed in a T-maze. The left arm of the maze is brightly lit and dry; the right arm is dim and moist. On the first 10 trials, the worm turns right 7 times. On the next 10 trials, the worm turns right all 10 times.

Ethel stays up late the night before taking the SAT and consumes large quantities of licit and illicit pharmacological agents. Her combined (verbal plus quantitative) score is 410. The night before the next SAT administration, she goes to bed early after a wholesome dinner and a glass of milk. Her score increases to 1210. Is the change in scores due to learning? Is the change in pretest regimen due to learning?

A previously psychotic patient is given Dr. Sardonicus’s patented phrenological surgery and no longer exhibits any psychotic behaviors.

A lanky zinnia plant is pinched back and begins to grow denser foliage and flowers.

MYCIN is a computer program that does a rather good job of diagnosing human infections by consulting a large database of rules it has been given. If we add another rule to the database, has MYCIN learned something?

After pondering over a difficult puzzle for hours, Jane finally figures it out. From that point on, she can solve all similar puzzles in the time it takes her to read them.

After 30 years of smoking two packs a day, Zeb throws away his cigarettes and never smokes again.

Questions adapted from: Rocklin, T. ( 1987). Defining learning: Two classroom activities. Teaching of Psychology, 14, 228–229.