HOW STUDENTS LEARN

This book presents three sample science units that use student inquiry to encourage students to build a framework around which to organize and understand science content. The text extends the foundations laid by “How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School”, 1999, and is an excerpt of “How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom” (The included CDROM contains the full text of that book.) The intent of the volume is to provide examples of how HPL principles might be incorporated in the teaching of a set of topics that frequently appear in the K-12 curriculum. The three units covered are: light, gravity, and genetics.

The main principles of HPL are:
1. Engage prior knowledge: prior knowledge can be a powerful support for further learning, it can also lead to development of conceptions that act as barriers to learning.
2. The essential role of factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks in understanding: factual knowledge must be placed in a conceptual framework to be well understood, concepts are given meaning by multiple representations that are rich in factual detail.
3. The importance of self monitoring: helping students become effective learners is at the heart of a “metacognitive” (meta: after, along with, or beyond) or self-monitoring approach that can help students develop the ability to take control of their own learning, consciously defining their own learning goals, and monitoring their progress in achieving them. Helping students become more metacognitive about their own thinking and learning is closely tied to teaching practices that emphasize self-assessment.

The importance of self monitoring and formative assessment are established with research and classroom examples. For example, in an assessment of Thinker Tools, students in the reflective assessment classes gained more understanding of scientific inquiry and physics content than those who did not participate in reflective assessment. Low-achieving students gained even more than high-achieving students.

A community-centered classroom is one that allows students thinking to be made transparent; requires that students explain their thinking to others; supports conceptual change by providing a forum in which students thinking is challenged.

- David P 1/21/08