Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education

by David N. Perkins

New in Paperback! Make learning more meaningful by teaching the "whole game"

David Perkins, a noted authority on teaching and learning and co-director of Harvard's Project Zero, introduces a practical and research-based framework for teaching. He describes how teaching any subject at any level can be made more effective if students are introduced to the "whole game," rather than isolated pieces of a discipline. Perkins explains how learning academic subjects should be approached like learning baseball or any game, and he demonstrates this with seven principles for making learning whole: from making the game worth playing (emphasizing the importance of motivation to sustained learning), to working on the hard parts (the importance of thoughtful practice), to learning how to learn (developing self-managed learners).

Vividly explains how to organize learning in ways that allow people to do important things with what they know Offers guidelines for transforming education to prepare our youth for success in a rapidly changing world Filled with real-world, illustrative examples of the seven principles

At the end of each chapter, Perkins includes "Wonders of Learning," a summary of the key ideas.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Adult, Personal Development

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 10, 2008

About the author

David Perkins is a founding member of Harvard Project Zero, a basic research project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education investigating human symbolic capacities and their development. For many years, he served as co-director, and is now senior co-director and a member of the steering committee. Perkins conducts research on creativity in the arts and sciences, informal reasoning, problem solving, understanding, individual and organizational learning, and the teaching of thinking skills. He has participated in curriculum projects addressing thinking, understanding, and learning in Colombia, Israel, Venezuela, South Africa, Sweden, Holland, Australia, and the United States. He is actively involved in school change. Perkins was one of the principal developers of WIDE World, a distance learning model practitioners now embedded in programs at HGSE. He is the author of numerous publications, including fourteen authored or co-authored books. His books include; The Eureka Effect, about creativity; King Arthurs Round Table, about organizational intelligence and learning; Making Learning Whole, a general framework for deepening education at all levels; and Future Wise, about what's worth teaching for the contemporary era.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was recommended by one of my colleagues from the Center for Teaching and Learning. I really didn't know what I was in for...I was just attracted by the title. I appreciated the author's paradigm shifting metaphor for learning. He suggests that our approach to instruction should be more like teaching baseball. Instead of dissecting learning into isolated facts and skills, we need to start by exposing students to the "whole game". In the health professions, this may mean exposing them to patient care, even when they can't care for patients yet.

The author pushes his metaphor further by suggesting that we also need to pay attention to things like "playing out of town" (learning to perform when the circumstances aren't exactly the same) and "learning from the team" (observing others, receiving mentorship from others, not focusing solely on learning from teachers). Once again, my reading was made more meaningful by reading this with a colleague (thanks Nikki!) and discussing the implications of each strategy the author advocates. I would recommend reading this book over time and pondering changes that might be possible. The author fosters this by closing each chapter with a series of questions to ask yourself to start moving in the directions discussed.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harvard professor David Perkins writes an engaging and unpretentious book of educational theory based, of all things, on a baseball game. That is, he uses seven principles that work for both baseball and teaching, further breaking the principles down into more detailed theories. The seven are:

1. Play the Whole Game
2. Make the Game Worth Playing
3. Work on the Hard Parts
4. Play Out of Town
5. Uncover the Hidden Game
6. Learn from the Team
7. Learn the Game of Learning

Each principle gets its own chapter with examples and exhaustive explanation. Mostly, however, the book deals in theories, and sometimes Perkins floats off on his abstract raft a bit too much, but overall, the self-evident principles are sound and grounded in all manner of research (as he points out).

For beginning teachers, his humor and disarmingly easy style makes for a perfect introduction to recent theories on how to teach. And for grizzled veterans, the book gives a nice theoretical foundation for the practices and strategies they've learned from other, more explicit professional development authors who deal more in the "how-to," the strategies and ideas, all ready to go for the classroom.

[Fawn Georgina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book proposes some useful principles of effective teaching and learning, but it certainly doesn't share anything new and groundbreaking. It is often said that in education, seemingly new initiatives are really just old best practices repackaged with a new fancy title. The seven principles in this book are indeed second nature to truly good teaching. But that being said, it is nearly impossible to do them all at once and to get it right.

Perkins' writing also gets side tracked throughout his explanations and it is easy to lose the point he is getting to with his long, comma laden lists. And although his principles may seem useful at face value and most educators would agree with the importance of the applications of his principles, the book does not offer practical application of these principles. Perkins relates stories of how they could be performed with no concrete suggestions of how to do this in the classroom. So the book ends up being reflective and conceptual rather than practical.

[Joslyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

While David Perkins' 'Learning by Wholes' has some commendable aspects, it leaves room for improvement. The book's content, which primarily revolves around the concept of learning, could potentially be condensed into a more concise and impactful format, such as a short article. One of the main shortcomings is that it often presents ideas that may come across as common sense to readers, leaving them craving more profound insights. Additionally, the book meanders, making it less engaging (such a boring book on a topic I love 😩). There are a few good points, but it does not fully live up to its potential as a comprehensive learning resource.

[Monta Gao · Rating 4 out of 5]

key concepts:
- avoid falling into "elementitis" (focusing too hard on mastering specific concepts of a broader skill), e.g. focusing on drilling KVL and KCL equations and not understanding why they matter)
- learn in a multitude of environments (cook in someone else's kitchen, cook different types of cuisine)
- play miniature versions of the whole game rather than falling into "elementitis", e.g. try watching basic Chinese TV to learn chinese rather than trying to drill root words into your head

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Perkins lays out a comprehensive framework for learning theory wrapped around the metaphor of "playing the whole game." Drawing upon research across the range of education, psychology, and learning theories, Perkins makes the convincing argument that to learn anything deeply people need to engage in seven core principles.

Using the "whole game" metaphor, the seven principles are: 1. Play the Whole Game (engage in an authentic full version of the content or skills that you want to learn), 2. Make the Game Worth Playing (find what will motivate you to learn), 3. Work on the Hard Parts (focus on the parts of what you are learning that are difficult with deliberate practice), 4. Play Out of Town (be mindful of how you will transfer the learning to different contexts), 5. Uncover the Hidden Game (learn the underlying rules, strategies, and processes of the topic), 6. Learn from the Team (utilize the social context of the learning environment to construct understanding), and 7. Learn the Game of Learning (be metacognitive about the learning processes).

This is a powerful synopsis of how to structure learning experiences and should be read by everyone interested in education.

[Juggleandhope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to teaching for meaningful learning. The basic framework feels simple but also full of possibilities and nuance.

Really appreciated the emphasis on teaching only what really matters and the specific criteria the author proposes for that - "disciplinary significance", "societal significance", "personal significance" (for learners & teacher), and "charisma". His criteria for charisma are, "Are the ideas magnetic, alluring, arresting?".

I'm thinking about how to integrate this framework with the challenge-based learning with the idea of carefully tracking growth on prioritized standards.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's so much in this book to motivate and inspire students of education. Whether you are an education administrator, a teacher, parent or student, Perkins offers in this book highly salient ways of thinking about thinking and learning about knowledge that should inform schools and education practice throughout the country. Chapter 5 "Uncover the Hidden Game" should be required reading for anyone with an interest in schools. Start there.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting ideas about making learning more natural. Takes ideas from how we learn in informal/non-school settings and tries to see how we could apply those ideas to school learning for more engagement and understanding. Great applications in non-school settings too. I've got some ideas to try out in my classroom next fall and know I will find more when I re-read it at some point...

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this with other colleagues at work. Most of the instructors do not have formal training in teaching so this may be useful -- a sort of "crash course" MAT... I didn't think it was that wonderful, but certainly the ideas in it are sound.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good - a little long winded (read: not very entertaining) when many of the concepts could been clearly made with an example or two and then move on. Some good points here that are always worth revisiting for all educators. My favorite: play out of town.

[Amy Scheck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book models what it is trying to teach in the best way! The best advice for teachers comes at the end- "skim" and use what works for you. I will definitely integrate some key ideas from the book into my practice.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I'm only to chapter 2, I can tell that this will be one of my most referenced books as I work with educators. More later after I've read more.

[Mary Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thinking about his ideas, layered on my beliefs and practices re: reading/writing workshop, layered on TEACHING WITH POVERTY IN MIND.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been helpful not only for classroom use but in any teaching situation, especially parenting.

[Chris Heim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt this book was long on ideas that are not as profound as the author would have you believe, and too often vacillating as to whether to be an easily accessible read or a textbook.

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book makes some great points and suggestions.....but it is not written in a very interesting way.