How Learning Happens

Clearly divided into six sections, the book covers how the brain works and what this means for learning and teaching. It also explores prerequisites for learning, how learning can be supported, teacher activities, learning in context, and cautionary tales including the ten deadly sins of education. Written by two leading experts and illustrated by Oliver Caviglioli, this is essential reading for teachers wanting to fully engage with and understand educational research as well as undergraduate students in the fields of education, educational psychology and the learning sciences.

Key Features

• How the brain works and what this means for learning and teaching
• Prerequisites for learning
• How learning can be supported
• Teacher activities
• Learning in context
• Cautionary tales and the ten deadly sins of education

Additional Information

The text Kirschner and Hendrick offer alongside each seminal article does a wonderful job of situating the content in the broader scientific context, and in the classroom.

As the volume of research into psychology and education grows, it becomes ever harder for researchers, let alone teachers, to keep up with the latest findings. Moreover, striking results often turn out to be difficult, or impossible to replicate. What teachers need, therefore, is good guidance about research that has stood the test of time, and practical guidance about how these well-established findings might be used to inform teaching practice, and this is why this is such an extraordinary, wonderful and important book.

It's hard to overstate just how fabulous this book is; a book I've wanted to exist for years and now here it is. A judicious and comprehensive selection of seminal research papers presented by two expert communicators, this is absolutely superb.

Teachers are rightly encouraged to base their practice on research - but education research is a huge field and it's hard to know where to start. This book provides the answer: it's valuable in its own right as a summary of some key research papers, and it's also a great starting point for further reading and research.

With the increasing volume of calls for education to become more evidence based, teachers everywhere have shaken their heads and wondered where on earth they’re supposed to find the time to locate, read and evaluate the ever-increasing acreage of research papers out there. Worry no more.

Future historians of education will look back on this period as a Renaissance; a time when dogma and orthodoxy were being challenged, and gate keepers, priesthoods and shamans felt the ground shift beneath their feet.

In these increasingly evidence-informed days, we are encouraged to be familiar with the research literature and reflect on the finding from within our own frames of reference.

How Learning Happens is ambitious in reach, determined in argument and thorough in reasoning. The authors have produced a text that will aid teachers to appreciate and correctly use the science necessary to improve their practice.

The book is a resource which can be read cover to cover or can be dipped into as needed. In summary, a powerful, comprehensive work, which clearly explains the significance and relevance of the research discussed for teaching and learning in the classroom today.

Specifications

This book is essential reading for teachers and undergraduate students in related fields.

Recommendations

Every school should have this book and every teacher should read it.