There are a lot of ideas about how people learn. I am guessing that you don't want a detailed scientific explanation about brain cells and things, but are asking for more general terms. If you do want the nerve cell answer, just ask another question and we'll see what we can do to answer it! Here are some ways that people learn things:
people search for meaning - it is normal for people to wonder why things happen, or what things mean, and we learn by doing this.
people learn by repetition - the more you practice something, the better you get. This is not only because you've trained your body and mind how to do that thing, but also because each time you repeat, your brain goes back over the same pathway of nerves and actually gets faster at connecting!
people learn by conditioning - this is a fancy way of saying that if you get a reward of some kind for learning something, you'll learn faster and remember it better. This is why we have grades in school and paychecks in adult life - any reward makes you do a better job.
people learn by watching others - it is normal for people to watch someone else do a task before they try it themselves. You learn more easily if you have a model to show you how things work.
people learn when something doesn't work - failure actually helps you to learn more than success. When something doesn't work, you learn all the things that failed, and you learn how to fix them and make that thing work - this is a lot more information than you'd have gotten if things just flew along perfectly the first time.
people learn to understand - it's very frustrating to see other people doing something you can't do, and it's normal for people to want to understand how things are done by others.
people learn in three basic styles - visual learners (people who learn easiest when they see something on paper or a computer screen), auditory learners (people who learn best if they hear something), and kinesthetic learners (people who learn best by actually doing something themselves).
children learn in four basic stages. They begin with something that a famous psychologist (Jean Piaget) calls the sensori-motor stage; this is the time from birth to about 2 years old when children begin to learn about reality (for example, most young children don't understand that objects are still there even when they cannot see them - this is why the game of "peek-a-boo" is so much fun for babies). The next stage (ages 2-7) is called the pre-operational stage, and is where the child doesn't understand abstract ideas and thinks in concrete terms (for example, they have trouble connecting the idea of "all dogs" to the idea of "my collie dog"). Ages 7-11 are known as the concrete operations stage, and is when the child begins to learn abstract thinking skills (for example, they now can work math problems using just numbers without needing physical objects to count with). Finally, from ages 11-15, the child enters the formal operations phase, during which they learn adult thinking skills.
people learn by concentrating and focusing on things, and making an effort to learn them.
people also learn in unconscious ways, such as hearing a song and remembering the words without making any effort to do so.
people learn with different areas of the brain - your right brain is usually better at learning more creative (intuitive) things like inventing solutions to problems and looking at the overall picture; your left brain is usually better at learning more logical (rational) things like ordered lists, analyzing problems, and looking at specific parts of the whole.
people search for meaning - it is normal for people to wonder why things happen, or what things mean, and we learn by doing this.
people learn by repetition - the more you practice something, the better you get. This is not only because you've trained your body and mind how to do that thing, but also because each time you repeat, your brain goes back over the same pathway of nerves and actually gets faster at connecting!
people learn by conditioning - this is a fancy way of saying that if you get a reward of some kind for learning something, you'll learn faster and remember it better. This is why we have grades in school and paychecks in adult life - any reward makes you do a better job.
people learn by watching others - it is normal for people to watch someone else do a task before they try it themselves. You learn more easily if you have a model to show you how things work.
people learn when something doesn't work - failure actually helps you to learn more than success. When something doesn't work, you learn all the things that failed, and you learn how to fix them and make that thing work - this is a lot more information than you'd have gotten if things just flew along perfectly the first time.
people learn to understand - it's very frustrating to see other people doing something you can't do, and it's normal for people to want to understand how things are done by others.
people learn in three basic styles - visual learners (people who learn easiest when they see something on paper or a computer screen), auditory learners (people who learn best if they hear something), and kinesthetic learners (people who learn best by actually doing something themselves).
children learn in four basic stages. They begin with something that a famous psychologist (Jean Piaget) calls the sensori-motor stage; this is the time from birth to about 2 years old when children begin to learn about reality (for example, most young children don't understand that objects are still there even when they cannot see them - this is why the game of "peek-a-boo" is so much fun for babies). The next stage (ages 2-7) is called the pre-operational stage, and is where the child doesn't understand abstract ideas and thinks in concrete terms (for example, they have trouble connecting the idea of "all dogs" to the idea of "my collie dog"). Ages 7-11 are known as the concrete operations stage, and is when the child begins to learn abstract thinking skills (for example, they now can work math problems using just numbers without needing physical objects to count with). Finally, from ages 11-15, the child enters the formal operations phase, during which they learn adult thinking skills.
people learn by concentrating and focusing on things, and making an effort to learn them.
people also learn in unconscious ways, such as hearing a song and remembering the words without making any effort to do so.
people learn with different areas of the brain - your right brain is usually better at learning more creative (intuitive) things like inventing solutions to problems and looking at the overall picture; your left brain is usually better at learning more logical (rational) things like ordered lists, analyzing problems, and looking at specific parts of the whole.
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