How Learning Happens

by Paul A. Kirschner, Carl Hendrick

How Learning Happens introduces 32 giants of educational research and their findings on how we learn and what we need to know to learn effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably. Many of these works have inspired researchers and teachers all around the world and have left a mark on how we teach today. Now updated to include a new section on Memory and Cognition with five new chapters, this revised second edition explores a selection of the key works on learning and teaching, chosen from the fields of educational psychology and cognitive psychology. It offers a roadmap of the most important discoveries in the way learning happens, with each chapter examining a different work and explaining its significance before describing the research, its implications for practice, and how it can be used in the classroom -- including the key takeaways for teachers. Clearly divided into seven sections, the book • Memory and cognition • How the brain works • Prerequisites for learning • How learning can be supported • Teacher activities • Learning in context • Cautionary tales 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.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Psychology, Teaching, Science, School

416 pages, Paperback

Published March 29, 2024

Reviews

[Eduardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a deeper, more rigorous foray into the intersection of education and cognitive science than might be expected, given the text's length and layout. It is an easy read, with bite-size chapters that give citations to original research as well as additional resources. (The digital version that I read contained links to many of those sources that were unfortunately broken but I was still able to find them since I had the complete citations. A note to the digital publisher: some URLs, like YouTube links are case sensitive so printing them in ALL CAPS breaks otherwise-correct links.)

If you read Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning then this book is a parallel read. It is worthwhile in its own right but contains many of the same ideas and takes many of the same positions while only sharing one scholarly paper in common in their bibliographies.

I rated this book lower for a pair of reasons. I found the last section ("Cautionary Tales") to be a bit preachy. Given that the rest of the book describes research and its implications in depth, it seemed redundant and self-serving to add these chapters on. The chapters tend to gloss over earlier material and the references are more frequently to sources written by the authors, often times restatements of earlier chapters. Secondly, I disagree with the authors' dismissal of motivation as an important factor in learning. I write this with the understanding that I do not have the same educational level or domain-specific knowledge that the authors possess. At the same time, I do have a background in achievement motivation that informs my views. My issue with their stance is that they appear to dismiss motivation by equating it with forms of instruction, namely discovery learning. I don't think that they are entirely incorrect about discovery learning, which I think may have a place with learners that already have domain knowledge and require less scaffolding. I do think that saying that increasing learning motivation happens only by using discovery learning is oversimplifying. I think that doing so invites teachers to overlook students' interests and basic psychological needs.

I have two opinions about the book that I think can be seen as differences in perspective rather than shortcomings of the book. First, I also have a background in coaching so I am left to wonder how this book applies to embodied cognition as opposed to more-pure academic cognition. I assume that some of the principles hold but I don't know when they don't because the book is not intended for an audience like that. Second, I don't know if all the principles hold across all grade levels. Many of the studies that are referenced were done in specific age groups and may not make universal claims but the book gives the sense that these principles are universal. It would be much more difficult to write separate books for separate grade levels/ages, especially given that there is likely to be a great deal of similarity. So I can't see this as a shortcoming but only a lack of nuance that I would have appreciated.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend spoke often of the ideas in this book, so I borrowed it from her, and I liked it. It's straight to the point and a quick read; I finished it in a couple of days even though I was taking notes.

Ten takeaways:

*The kind of learning students do in school--cultural or secondary learning--differs from the primary learning that comes naturally to them, so this kind of learning requires direct instruction from someone with expertise. Inherent motivation is not sufficient for learning to take place; working memory and effort are necessary! And students don't become independent, self-regulated learners by being left to wander unsupervised. They get there through modeling, a great deal of guided practice, and intentional scaffolding. Problem-based, inquiry, or discovery learning (whatever you want to call it) doesn't always work well because novices think differently from experts. Beginning learners don't have enough domain-specific knowledge to learn from this approach, and often it takes up so much working memory (see cognitive load theory) that knowledge can't get encoded into long-term memory (which is how these authors define learning).

*Motivation doesn't lead to achievement; achievement engenders motivation.

*Linking learning to prior knowledge is essential for deep processing.

*"Learning styles" are not supported by research. However, the dual coding theory (also called the multimedia principle) is, which says that using multiple modalities (say, visual along with auditory) increases learning. However, the modalities have be complementary, so this doesn't mean reading your PowerPoint slides out loud. There's a special place in hell for those people.

*Mastery (learning) goals are superior to performance goals (grades or test scores).

*Tutored students achieve 2 standard deviations above students taught in a traditional classroom setting. Mastery learning, whereby students are given consistent, specific, corrective feedback, was a key part of the effect size in this study.

*Repetition works. Proceeding from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract works, as students learn to assimilate information into cognitive schemata. Teaching of discrete skills doesn't help this process, so be sure to show how knowledge and skills are related to each other and to the whole.

*Assessment: formative, formative, formative.

*The best study techniques are distributed practice and practice testing. Highlighting and summarizing aren't as effective, mostly because students don't know how to do them properly and need to be taught.

*Regarding technology, the medium does not determine effective learning; the method does. That means that the delivery of the content has a negligible effect and therefore technology should not be used for technology's sake. Further, the concept of "digital native" should not imply that students are adept at using technology to facilitate their own learning.


As an ELA teacher, I was intrigued by a method of "cognitive apprenticeship" in reading that was mentioned. Everyone reads a paragraph. Taking turns in the "teacher" role, students summarize, clarify, and ask questions about the paragraph, then make predictions about the paragraph to follow. I'd like to try this. Scardamelia, Bereiter, & Steinbach (1984) outlined a cognitive apprenticeship for writing that I'm interested in checking out. I already use something similar to this for my struggling writers and it was heartening to know that such a method is supported by research!

I still have a soft spot in my heart for learning styles, but I do feel better knowing that it's OK if I don't give learning style "inventories" to students; using multiple modalities when possible is enough to encourage learning.

[Joe Bathelt · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, the authors summarise a seminal paper from the fields of education, educational psychology, cognitive psychology or related area in each chapter and make recommendations on how this work can be applied in teaching. The chapters are grouped around broader themes, including brain science, cognitive mechanisms of learning, the role of the teacher, the learning environment, and common misconceptions. In general, I thought that the book was quite informative and provided a good overview of the foundations of education as a scientific discipline. However, I also felt that the book had quite a few shortcomings. My main issue is the structure of the book that focuses chapter around one paper. On one hand, this is useful for anyone who wants to get more detailed knowledge of the foundation of education research with relevant references. On the other hand, it feels like a bit of an intellectual cop-out. Rather than providing a coherent overview of a scientific field, this treatment feels piecemeal and misses the broader connections between separate research strands. In addition, the structure leads to some redundancy because the authors had repeat some points to provide the context in later chapters. Another shortcoming is that many of the seminal works are quite old. For instance, one of the last chapters about the use of technology in the classroom is based on a review from the 1980s. A more thorough treatment of this topic that incorporated research that is not 40 years old would have been quite relevant for many readers. Lastly, there are some issues with editing. There were several typos and spelling mistakes, tables were duplicated, and there were typesetting issues with the references at the end of each chapter. Also, please be warned if you are buying the Kindle edition that you will not be able to open this book on a Kindle device. At least, this was the case on my Kindle Paperwhite (2019 edition). It can be opened with the Kindle app and is displayed like a PDF.
In general, I would not recommend this book. I’m not very familiar with other textbooks in the area, but I expect that there are alternative foundational textbooks that are probably more informative for most readers.

[Daniel H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost 5 stars. There’s a lot of VERY useful LS theory introduced in the first half of the book. It’s well-written. However, the authors’ blatant and uncompromising denial of some of the thoughts within the subject field (namely, of transferrable skills and of digital media’s education-oriented affordances) robs this almost-fantastic book of a chance to present a more fruitful path forward.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summaries of seminal papers on learning

The best part of this book was how it was structured. Each chapter summarizes an article related to the psychology of learning in language that a non-psychologist can easily understand. Plenty of examples are included and there is always a discussion of how the ideas from each chapter can be used in teaching. I took a lot of notes from this book!

[Judith Lichthart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that every teacher should (have) read, in my opinion. In order to teach effectively, we should know how learners learn best. According to Dylan William, "[this book] provides such a rigorous, accessible and practical summary of the last fifty years of research in educational psychology [that] anyone who wants to understand how research can improve teaching needs to read this book." I couldn't agree more.

[Kevin Fulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book.

Each chapter is based on a seminal study in education. The authors work to limit their citations, which helps streamline the book and makes it more accessible. I would highly recommend this book to a teacher who wants to get a good overview of educational research.

[Nádia · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for uni, it was super interesting

[Rod Van Meter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first real book in the field of educational psychology I've read, but it's outstanding. I need to write up *long* self-evaluation using what I learned.

[Barry Garelick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. A must read for anyone involved in any aspect of education.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book out with my professional development funds and have been slowly going through it, one article at a time, for the past year. (Well, slowly until today, where I had a flight and ended up plowing through the second half of the book.)

Some quick hit insights, more for my own brain:

-I liked the format! Each chapter focuses on a seminal paper in learning theory. The authors review the article, provide the abstract, a summary and analysis of the big ideas, discuss how it should inform practice, and end the chapter with takeaways and links to future reading.

-The papers are organized into themed sections, which was a good idea. I think there was a little bit of a missed opportunity here to synthesize papers on a particular topic in a more developed introduction or conclusion to each section.

This is especially important for readers who approach it like I did for the first half of the book—one chapter here or there.

The best “synthesis” came toward the end but was so deeply riddled with pet peeves of the author that I found it frustrating.

I will say that the authors do make connections between articles in different sections, which is helpful. Less specifically, “Here’s how this work built on or responded to this one,” and more just their own brief insights and connections.

-The book takes a very negative view towards what it terms “cognitivism”, discovery learning, inquiry learning, problem-based learning, grit, 21st century skills, and towards the end of the book, a focus on motivation and/or media.

This was frustrating for a couple reasons:
1) While I agree with them that discovery learning is probably not appropriate in many cases, particularly in a K-12 classroom or for novices in a field, they never considered places where the strategy MIGHT be appropriate. Perhaps for upper level college students who have a level of foundational knowledge in their discipline.

It felt like there was a missing analysis of the wide ranging contexts these approaches are used in. I want to speak more to context later in the review.

2) At the end of the book, they lambast Sir Ken Robinson for using “straw men”, but they absolutely did the same towards these approaches.

First of all, cognitivism is WAY more nuanced than just discovery learning. In the later chapters, at least, the authors treated them as synonymous.

Active learning, which was covered positively in an earlier chapter, is also a cognitivist approach, as are some of the social learning techniques mentioned.

Maybe reading their full articles on these topics (instead of just the chapters summarizing the articles) would give a more detailed view and be a fairer presentation, but I had been thinking “these are straw men arguments, they aren’t presenting these ideas on their own terms before explaining WHY they are problematic” for a good several chapters, so when they leveled the accusation at another author (without much context or fair treatment of his work), it was frustrating to say the least.

It seems like the authors intentionally took the most extreme form of some of these ideas (discovery learning with no guidance from the instructor, for example) and knocked it down, which seemed completely unfair.

3) Maybe I missed it until I read a larger chunk in one sitting, but it felt like the last 1/3-1/4 of the book had a VERY negative tone as a result.

4) in that more problematic end, they keep defining “learning” as “a change in longterm memory”. If the idea is defended in the first half of the book, I forgot it. When I encountered it again today, I kept thinking, that that is WAY too shallow a definition of learning, which casts doubt on their analysis in these sections.

-Speaking of context, I wish there were a section on this for every chapter. I work primarily in an online, async, higher ed context in the US. It appears the authors focus on a K-12, traditional brick and mortar classroom context in the UK. These distinctions matter!

What was the original context of the research? When was it performed? What background or other research was it responding to? What populations were studied? Do the ideas apply to different contexts? Have those contexts also been studied?

This would have been SO helpful, and I actually think it’s a really important part of examining research that just felt missing.

-Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy the book. My thinking was challenged. I’d like to pursue some of these chapter further and dig into the articles and references more fully. I think this could be a great book to go through with a team or department, where more of those nuances and applications to practice could be fleshed out.

[Wing · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The goal of teaching and learning is to move as efficiently and effectively from means-ends analysis to expert problem-solving” (p.90). This book tells you how. Modernity dictates that problem-solving is almost always domain specific and deep knowledge is required to mitigate cognitive overload and to formulate sophisticated problem analysis. “You don’t learn how to solve problems by solving problems” (p. 76). But to acquire knowledge, “to-be-learnt information is related by learners to what is already present in the existing cognitive structures” (p. 119). The book therefore dedicates quite a number of pages to explaining the crucial concept of schemata.

The translation of declarative into procedural knowledge is always challenging, and skilful use of conditional rules is the key. All these are not meant to belittle the importance of generalist knowledge as it has a vital role in metacognition and thence self-efficacy. Similarly, the importance of perception and emotion cannot be overemphasised. The mindset is always pivotal.

The structure of the book is based on the authors’ analysis of and commentary on over thirty seminal papers. This format proves to be effective. These papers are carefully curated and exceptionally relevant to pedagogy. I would go further and say they are germane to a healthy life philosophy. Life is a wonderful journey of learning and mastery.

Some of the best bits of the book are on the debunking of shortcut approaches and the illusion of free lunches. Forget all those so-called “twenty-first century skills” hype. Evidence always trumps fantasy: “Constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching, due to their inherent nature, tax working memory in such a way that it impedes effective and efficient learning … The goal of instruction is not to have learners search for and discover information, but rather to give them specific support for guidance about how to cognitively manipulate information in ways that are consistent with a learning goal, and store the result in long-term memory” (p.236). Again, the book tells the reader how.

Those who love learning will love this book. Those who moronically treat education as a status - like a placard hanging around their neck - will foolishly ignore it. Knowledge enriches the soul. Only crass vulgarians will treat it as a commodity.

Timely and immeasurably important. Five stars.

[Anly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe this is how the book should have been presented and not any other way. It’s direct which was important in clarifying and demystifying issues in learning. What I appreciate about it is the part about discovery learning which I used to believe was the right way to go when learning new topics. I was happy to be corrected. Consideration of our cognitive structure is crucial in ensuring that information leads to knowledge and learning. In discovery learning or in “to solve problems we need to solve problems” approach, it overwhelms our working memory and thus information doesn’t convert to learning which is another way of saying long term memory changes. Most of the discussion are no longer new to me except the instructional design part which I never thought can be quite fascinating topic that can go deeper and get very interesting. Needless to say that’s where I’m headed to after this.

[Aiwendil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice overview of a lot of educational research in bite-sized chapters. It gave me a lot of ideas for teaching and because it covers so many different papers on a wide range of topics (all focused on learning of course), it is a very worthwhile read for those in the field of education. I agree with some of the criticism here on Goodreads that it sometimes lacks a little nuance and especially the concluding chapters felt a bit repetitive because the topics there were already discussed in previous chapters, without necessarily giving a good overview or bringing anything new to the table.

All in all a very worthwhile read for educators. However if you're just starting on your educational research journey, perhaps this isn't the best entry point because I feel it presupposes quite a bit of prior knowledge on the topic.

[Tauno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where self-efficacy is about how you anticipate a situation and how well you think you’re able to complete a task, attribution theory is about what we think causes your success or failure. It looks specifically at how those perceptions affect your emotional state and how that affects your subsequent motivation for future tasks. Similar to self-efficacy, the perception is more significant than the actual situation.
https://3starlearningexperiences.word...

[Fifi · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Possibly the greatest thing a teacher can do is to introduce students to wondrous worlds beyond the limited borders of their own experience, to allow them to see the previously unseen and to make new and enriching connections that were hitherto unavailable to them.'
#DeZinVanHetBoek #ThePointOfTheBook

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be. Straightforward breakdowns of research into cognitive psychology, what it means for teachers, and information for further reading. It's accessible but doesn't waste a lot of time trying to spice the subject matter up.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books to reread on education. It is the one book that properly promotes reflective thinking for teachers and has made me think far more deeply into the processes I use and how my learners think.
Best buy

[Robbie Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly exceptional. Essential, absolutely essential reading for every teacher who cares about their craft.

[Eric Kalenze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for ed professionals. Required.

[Gwilym Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not a page turner, but it is helpful. And it reminded me of some things that I already knew but haven't been acting on in my teaching for a while. Changes are coming...

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all educators! A bit repetitive. I wonder if that was done with purpose. Cognitive learning theory in action perhaps.

[André Henriques · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could suggest only one book to read on education, this would definitely be at the top of the choices. Brilliantly organized and, more critical, evidence-based.

[Akram Sabah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable book for anyone working with learning processes and/or psychoanalysis.

[Nga Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great explanation and research-based knowledge.

[Anneliese McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The amount of times I referenced this and the changes I’ve made to my classroom has been phenomenal.

[Hari Sood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read a few different books on pedagogy, this wasn't as revelatory as it may have been.

Nevertheless, as a comprehensive, evidence based guide to the world of pedagogy this was amazing - there's something incredibly valuable about just taking important papers, refactoring them into something digestible and highlighting the key lessons.

I'll be suggesting this to anyone with an interest in learning about learning, as a way to get an efficient, non-BS detailed introduction to what the field has to offer.

The large bank of resources at the end of each chapter are also a great way to go into more depth with all of the topics covered.

[N.J. Danatangelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite non-fiction book of 2023. Shattered a number of long held beliefs I had around learning and education with persuasive, pivotal research. This book is a must for any parent, teacher or student. The format is fantastic and I think every discipline should have a book like this. Economics and Finance would benefit greatly from a similarly structured book.