Learning takes place over the entire life span of an individual or
organism. From birth through death
individuals and organisms are learning different things which help them in life
and applying the learning to other processes and situations later on. Learning
that takes place can transfer later on as the organism or individual go into
new environments or situations that the organism or individual hasn't had
experience with before. This transfer of processes and learning is very beneficial
for the organisms or individuals in their life as it allows previously learned
information and processes to be applied to new situations and experiences. In
humans, the learning and transfer of learning can be explained using various
learning theories which can be applied to the workplace. This paper will cover
specific learning theories and how the methods of transfer of learning concepts
applies to the workplace. The paper will
relate an example of explanations of transfer of learning and describe how the
example can be generalized in the workplace.
Transfer of Learning
A transfer process or the process of transferring learning happens
when a person takes the information that they have learned previously and
applies that learning to new areas or situations as needed. Schunk (2012),
states that transfer is an application of skills or knowledge in new ways or
situations. This allows individuals to go into new situations and use the
information or behaviors that were previously learned, and the individual has
deemed acceptable or approved in those new situations. All of the information
or processes that a person learns can be potentially transferred later on if
the situation calls for it. According to
Ellis (1965), the transfer of learning is about the process where past
experiences are the ones that affect the performance and the learning in a new environment. Information gained from the past experiences
applies to the new environments or situations. An individual may take
information learned from schools such as reading and writing, then apply this
information which is a experience to their job and thus have transferred their
learning processes.
In the theory of behaviorism according to Ellis (1965), learning
is centered on the awareness that behavior is acquired through conditioning that
occurs through interaction with the environment and believes that behaviors can
be trained, changed, and measured. When it comes to behaviorism, there are two
major conditioning theories, classical conditioning in which a natural stimulus
is being paired with a response and operant conditioning where learning is done
through rewards or punishments to behaviors.
In conditioning behaviors through operant conditioning a person or
animal is getting rewarded for displaying the correct behaviors or giving up
incorrect behaviors. For example, a
person that gives their new puppy a treat or love for going to the bathroom
outside is reinforcing the behavior of going to the bathroom outside while
decreasing the behavior of doing it inside.
As the animal is rewarded the animal seeks to display the behavior of
going outside more to get more rewards. In behaviorism, the transfer of
learning still happens as the animal or human is conditioned to learn
behaviors. These behaviors which the animal or human are told are acceptable
can be potentially used later on in new situations or environments and the
transfer of learning takes place.
Workplace Situations
It
is working for a fast food restaurant a lot of training and learning is needed.
Most of the training a person receives are in the form of educational videos on
harassment and properly reporting accidents or being safe at work. As the new employee enters the new
environment, they are briefed on how things work and have the trainer take them
over certain things such as how to put food together, how to enter orders into
the system, proper ways to bag food, and to clean. Some information though is considered common
knowledge and the individual has to use the transfer of learning to keep up
with their job. According to Schunk (2012), new students and employees have to
learn through experiences, teaching, or determination to succeed.
Individuals in the fast food environment are
not trained on how to handle trash for instance. These individuals have been trained however
through behaviorism and conditioning to know that they should not take trash
from food. This is information that they
learned previously that taking garbage around cooking food or food being
prepared is dangerous and unsanitary.
The individuals use the prior knowledge they have on food safety to know
that they shouldn't take garbage from the food.
The individuals also know that undercooked food in the fast food
industry is another bad thing as it can make people sick. In this, an individual may have had uncooked
food before, and it resulted in the individual getting sick. From this, the individual learned that
undercooked food was bad. The individual
may have also been trained that not cooking food properly was bad and could
lead to illness in individuals. The
individual learned previously about the need to cook food fully and properly
and transferred this knowledge into the new situation of working for a fast
food company.
Conclusion
Learning takes place over the entire life span of an individual or
organism. From birth through death
individuals and organisms are learning different things which help them in life
and applying the learning to other processes and situations later on. A
transfer process or the process of transferring learning happens when a person
takes the information that they have learned previously and applies that
learning to new areas or situations as needed. Schunk (2012), states that
transfer is an application of skills or knowledge in new ways or situations.
This allows individuals to go into new situations and use the information or
behaviors that were previously learned, and the individual has deemed acceptable
or approved in those new situations. Individuals can take this prior knowledge
and apply it in a working environment such as learning that undercooked food is
bad and applying it when the individual works in a restaurant.
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