Definitions and Functional Criteria for Identifying Teaching

All flashcards

What is teaching?

A practice carried out by a teacher to transmit skills—such as knowledge, practical know-how, and interpersonal skills—to a learner or audience.

What is learning?

The learner’s activity of acquiring or appropriating knowledge. It is closely related to teaching but is not the same process.

What is a mentalistic definition of teaching?

A definition that emphasizes the teacher’s intention to transmit information, behavior, or skill, and the teacher’s assessment of what the learner knows.

What is theory of mind in this context?

The ability to consider another individual’s mental state or knowledge. Assessing a potential learner’s knowledge is associated with this ability.

What are Caro and Hauser’s functionalist criteria for teaching?

The behavior occurs only in the presence of a naive individual, costs the teacher or gives no direct benefit, and may produce a learning gain for the learner.

Quiz questions

1. What is teaching intended to transmit to a learner?Answer: Skills such as knowledge, practical know-how, and interpersonal abilities.
2. How does learning differ from teaching?Answer: Teaching supports skill transmission; learning is the learner’s acquisition of skills or knowledge.
3. Why can a mentalistic definition make animal teaching difficult to establish?Answer: It requires evidence of intention and assessment of what the learner knows.
4. Which behavior meets the first functionalist criterion for teaching?Answer: It occurs only when an inexperienced learner is present.
5. An animal changes its behavior around an inexperienced individual, incurs a cost, and may help the individual learn. How does the functionalist approach classify this behavior?Answer: It may qualify as teaching because it meets the proposed criteria.