Associative Learning
(Capability of Connecting Puzzles)
What is the sum of the first 100 numbers?
1+2=3, 3+3=6, 6+4=10, 10+5=15, etc.
Teacher J. G. Buttner asked this question and when an eight-year-old boy, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss heard him, he quickly concluded that the sums of 1+100, 2+99, 3+98 is always 101 and that there is 50 such pairs. So he gave a simple solution 50 x 101 = 5.050.
The ability to link different facts into a new set of definitions is creativity, and the learning process that leads to the development of that ability is called associative learning.
The basic difference between repetition of facts and creativity lies in the (non)ability to create a new unit from what is already known.
In linear learning, a child is able to process the facts one by one, to remember them like that and after a while to repeat the learned.
In associative learning, a child connects a fact that he is learning with a previously acquired knowledge.
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