Educational Implications of Insight Theory of

Learning
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Learning by conditioning is common to all animals and human beings and

useful for early education. But learning by insight is suitable only for
intelligent creatures both human and animals and useful for higher learning.
It is a kind of learning done by observation, by perceiving the relationship and
understanding the situation.

When an individual or intelligent animal faces a problem, he thinks and looks

over the whole situation and tries to find out solutions. He tries to get some
clues in the ways he should proceed to solve the problem, the method he
should pursue and a general awareness of the results of his actions. Then
suddenly, he arrives at a solution through his mental exercises. But for this,
the total view of the situation should be exposed to the individual who must
feel urgency of the problem and its solution.

An experiment was conducted by Kohler to show the occurrence of learning by

insight. A chimpanzee in a cage was exposed to a bunch of ripe bananas
outside the cage. It could not reach the bananas to get the fruits by its hands.
Two pieces sticks which could be joined to reach the bananas were however
available to it. The chimpanzee failing to get the bananas by its hands surveyed
the whole situation and examined the pieces of sticks. He suddenly got an idea
and tired to join the sticks, so that he could pull the bananas easily. This is an
example of learning by insight.

Insightful learning is also known as Gestalitic learning which means that

learning is concerned with the whole individual and arises from the
interaction of an individual with his situations or environment. Through this
interaction emerge new forms of perception, imagination and ideas which
altogether constitute insight.

Insight operates when an individual tries to find solutions to problems. A

gestalt means the pattern, configuration or a form of perceiving the whole. In
this situation stimuli and responses are combined in an organized and unified
pattern.
The gestalitic learning implies that every situation or experience is more than
the sums of all its parts. A house is more than the bricks and mortar and other
materials that are in the building. A book is more than a collection of a few
printed pages. Similarly a learning situation is more than the elements of
which it is composed. According to gestalt point of view, the situation should
be learned as a whole rather than separated into component parts and learned
piece by piece.

Educational Implications of Insight Theory of Learning:

An individual has insight into a learning situation to the extent that he is able
to understand the situation as a whole. A solution to a problem is an example
of insight that results from integration of all the mental processes. All the
higher learning takes place by this method.

When a theft case is reported, the police comes to the place of occurrence,
collects data, observe the whole situation, workout in his mind all the clues to
catch hold the thief and finally acts upon the solution. Complex problems
require higher learning and solutions are reached only by application of
insight. All new ideas and concepts, inventions and discoveries are the result
of insightful learning. Teaching and learning of mathematics and science
demand higher intellectual exercises.