Meaningful learning
Contents
learning conditions
learning process
Purpose / desire / ambition
"No one learn but that which his hart wishes" (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, p.19).
The beginning of study starts at an attempt to achieve some goal which will fill specific needs. For instance, when we are hungry, we have needs for food. Our goal then, is to do some action which will bring food into our mouth. Every goal provides some needs. Our actions are based on knowledge that is encoded by our neural networks. Our neural network encode the map of the possible options to achive our goal. We follow the maps and hope to achieve our goals. If our Goals are met and our desires are being fulfilled, then we will corroborated our maps. The synapses in then neural networks that directed us will be strengthen. But if our goal will not be achieved, if our knowledge will not work according to the ways our neural maps implied, then a path for gaining new knowledge will start. Processes called Reward Prediction Error (RPE) will initiate a cascade of learning. A dose of dopamine will rash through our neural networks, and will cause a neural plasticity, which will help us learn more easily and adjust our neurons to what we will find in our investigation for the "failure" of our neural maps. The rush of dopamine will make us feel good. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which works in the reward system and makes us feel good. It paly part in the process of feeling good when drugs are taken. But instead of drugs, learning by RPE, make the student feel excited and joyful when engaging in puzzle solving. The feeling that dopamine generates while trying to solve mysteries is what make some of us curious, and become addicted to puzzle solving. Dopamine release is what makes people go to magic shows, and travel long distances to witness new unfamiliar sights.
To create RPE we first have to make the students try to achieve a goal they want...