98
Volume:
2021
,
January

Accessible Foundations

Submitted By:
Andrew Housiaux, Tang Institute, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice by Paul A. Kirschner and Carl Hendrick
Routledge, February 1, 2020

For decades, researchers in educational psychology published papers that were largely inaccessible to non-specialists. More recently, a range of scholars have worked to translate these technical findings into actionable writing aimed at K-12 teachers. Up until now, however, there has been no single comprehensive and accessible resource related to this topic. This gap has been filled admirably by Kirschner and Hendrick's How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice. The book has six sections, each of which is dedicated to broad topics in education, such as the role of the teacher or how the brain works. Individual chapters contain a practical, concrete distillation of a foundational research article. The writing is clear, contains helpful visuals, and introduces the major research findings of the studies. Chapter topics include cognitive load theory, scaffolding, growth mindset, direct instruction, and dual coding theory. The illustrations by Oliver Caviglioli are compelling and informative. One shortcoming of this excellent book is the lack of attention paid to questions of identity as they intersect with the science of learning. Readers interested in that topic might consider a text like Verschelden's Bandwidth Recovery to read alongside this one.

Categories
Teaching Practice