Learning is a continuous process which exists from birth to death. An individual learns various facts things, concepts, events through various medium.

These means or medium through which we learn anything can be defined as modes of learning.

Methods of Learning

1. Learning by observation:

This is the first and foremost mode of learning. Every human being learns various things through observation. Here by observation, we do not mean only seeing a thing rather it refers to the act of perceiving or observing the stimulus.

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In observation process, we do not take help only eyes as in seeing but we take help of other organs also for listening, smelling tasting and touching. A person observes an event, thing etc. when he is interested in these.

So we should first try to make interested the child in these things and then he can observe them aim fully. This interest is aroused as a result of the impulse evoked by instincts.

The greater the impulse the more is the amount of interest attached to it. And the greater the interest the more the attention paid to the object.

We as a teacher should provide opportunity to students to observe new things according to their interests. We should provide a chance to students to grasp the meaning of the demonstration of an action. We should try to fix images of how the model looks in each step of the demonstration.

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Teacher should provide them verbal directions also while students are observing the action or things. We can teach various parts of human body by giving a chance to students to observe the model of human body.

2. Learning by imitation:

Students can learn very much by copying the actions. Imitation is the tendency to repeat the observed actions of others. In the beginning, the child learns his movements, actions, and gestures by imitation. As we know that students take very much interest in copying the actions of others.

The capacity of imitating is very much prominent in children and we must have observed that they take delight in imitation. We as a teacher can use this mode of learning in our teaching-learning process. Students can recite poems with actions of parts of body by imitating the recitation of his/her teacher.

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A science teacher can teach about experiments through the mode of imitation. This imitation should be willingly and deliberate. Students should imitate the actions of the teacher consciously. Teacher should try to arise interests in students about the action and then provide the chance of imitating to students.

A child learns very much from his birth to primary education level through imitation. We should use this mode of learning in our teaching learning process also.

3. Learning by Trial and Error:

As we know that every human being learns from his/her own errors. Like this students can learn from their own errors. Students try to solve any problem and they do not succeed due to some errors. Teacher should provide them feedback about their errors, and reasons of the errors.

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When students know the errors and their reasons then they make another trial avoiding from the errors which they have made in their pre trial. Here the role of the teacher is veil important. Teacher should provide feedback about the errors after every trial and then provide them treatment of these errors so that they could avoid from these errors in next trial.

Some of the laws underlying trial errors learning are law of readiness law of effect and law exercise. As for example if students are trying to make a experiment of composition of carbon dioxide, they try to compose it but they do not succeed in first trial due to some errors.

Teacher should provide them feedback about their errors and their reasons after it students will try again to compose it without using these errors. At last they will succeed in composition of carbon- di-oxide gas.

4. Learning by insight:

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If an individual reaches the solution all of a sudden while solving a problem, we say that he has learned by insight. In fact the person reaches the solution by understanding the relation between different aspects of the problematic situation. In daily life of every student he/she comes across to many problems and he/she solves them.

In this solving process, they learn many principles, processes, facts and theories. These learning can be said learning by insight. In the mode of learning’s insight, student analyses the various aspects of the situation and tries to establish a meaningful relationship among them.

On the basis of this new perception, he defines the situation. This process goes on till he solves the problematic situation all of a sudden. That is what we mean when we say that a learner suddenly gets an insight into the solution. This may be call learning by insight.

In the end we can say that a learner does not learn from any specific mode of learning but he/she can use any mode from these modes according to his/her needs. So teacher should provide positive situations to learners so that they could learn through these modes according to their ability, needs and interests.