How People Learn II
Committee on How People Learn II:
The Science and Practice of Learning
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences
Board on Science Education
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
A Consensus Study Report of
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This activity was supported by grants and awards from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Grant No. 2014-3-06), the American Educational Research Association (unnumbered award), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant No. OPP1110470), the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education (Grant No. R305U150005), the Teagle Foundation (unnumbered award), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Grant No. 2014-1118), with additional support from the National Academy of Sciences’ W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fund and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Presidents’ Circle Fund. Support for the work of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences is provided primarily by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Award No. BCS-1729167). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-45964-8
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-45964-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957415
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/24783
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Copyright 2018 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.17226/24783.
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COMMITTEE ON HOW PEOPLE LEARN II: THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF LEARNING
CORA BAGLEY MARRETT (Chair), Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
PATRICIA J. BAUER, Department of Psychology, Emory University
CYNTHIA BEALL (NAS), Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve
MARGARET E. BEIER, Department of Psychology, Rice University
DAVID B. DANIEL, Department of Psychology, James Madison University
ROBERT L. GOLDSTONE, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University
ARTHUR C. GRAESSER, Department of Psychology and Institute of Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis
MARY HELEN IMMORDINO-YANG, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California
RUTH KANFER, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology
JEFFREY D. KARPICKE, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University
BARBARA M. MEANS, Learning Sciences Research, Digital Promise
DOUGLAS L. MEDIN (NAS), Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
LINDA NATHAN, Center for Artistry and Scholarship
ANNEMARIE SULLIVAN PALINCSAR, School of Education, University of Michigan
DANIEL L. SCHWARTZ, School of Education, Stanford University
ZEWELANJI N. SERPELL, Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University
SUJEETA BHATT, Study Director
TINA WINTERS, Associate Program Officer
RENÉE L. WILSON GAINES, Senior Program Assistant
HEIDI SCHWEINGRUBER, Director, Board on Science Education
BARBARA A. WANCHISEN, Director, Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences
BOARD ON BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE, AND SENSORY SCIENCES
SUSAN T. FISKE (Chair), Department of Psychology and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
JOHN BAUGH, Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis
LAURA L. CARSTENSEN, Department of Psychology, Stanford University
JUDY DUBNO, Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina
JENNIFER EBERHARDT, Department of Psychology, Stanford University
ROBERT L. GOLDSTONE, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University
DANIEL R. ILGEN, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University
NANCY G. KANWISHER, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JANICE KIECOLT-GLASER, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
BILL MAURER, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine
STEVEN E. PETERSEN, Department of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, School of Medicine, Washington University Medical School
DANA M. SMALL, Department of Psychiatry, Yale Medical School
TIMOTHY J. STRAUMAN, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University
JEREMY M. WOLFE, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Departments of Ophthalmology and Radiology, Harvard Medical School
BARBARA A. WANCHISEN, Director
BOARD ON SCIENCE EDUCATION
ADAM GAMORAN (Chair), William T. Grant Foundation, New York, NY
GEORGE BOGGS, Palomar College, San Marcos, CA (emeritus)
MELANIE COOPER, Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University
RODOLFO DIRZO, Department of Biology, Stanford University
JACQUELYNNE ECCLES, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
JOSEPH FRANCISCO, Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska
MARGARET A. HONEY, New York Hall of Science, New York City
MATTHEW KREHBIEL, Kansas State Department of Education, Topeka
MICHAEL LACH, Urban Education Institute, University of Chicago
LYNN S. LIBEN, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
CATHY MANDUCA, Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College
JOHN MATHER, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
BRIAN REISER, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
MARSHALL “MIKE” SMITH, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stanford, CA
ROBERTA TANNER, Thompson School District, Loveland, CO
SUZANNE WILSON, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut
YU XIE, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
HEIDI SCHWEINGRUBER, Director
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There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has substantially expanded understanding of brain processes and what they mean for individual learning, schooling, and policy. In 2000, the report How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (National Research Council, 2000; hereafter referred to as HPL I) was published and its influence has been both wide and deep, but 20 years later the research landscape has evolved still further. How People Learn II provides a much-needed update.
This book does not presume to provide answers to specific educational dilemmas—recipes for teaching or the proverbial “what to do on Monday morning.” Instead, the committee hopes that the book will be a tool that can enrich discussions about research and practice in education and learning for people of all ages. We have tried to present the existing scientific evidence in the most straightforward, accurate, and complete way that we can, and to synthesize and interpret the findings creatively. However, the practical applications that derive from the science will never be completely straightforward because the real world is highly complicated, with many moving parts and hidden complexities. The committee therefore asks you, the reader, to think critically about the findings we present in relation to your own work, and about how the findings reviewed here square with evidence and policies used to justify educational strategies, policies, and research questions in your professional context. Only through active debates and attempts to contextualize and adapt the findings beyond the narrow settings in which they often were studied will we create significantly new understanding and better policy and practice as they relate to learning.
This report is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Educational Research Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, the Teagle Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, with additional support from the National Academy of Sciences’ W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fund and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Presidents’ Circle Fund. We especially acknowledge Ed Dieterle (formerly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) who provided vision and enthusiasm for making this report a reality. We are grateful for the substantive core support to the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences received from federal agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate and the National Institute on Aging’s Division of Behavioral and Social Research, which ensured necessary oversight on the project. We also appreciate the funds provided by the American Psychological Association.
Over the course of the study, committee members benefited from discussion and presentations by the many individuals who participated in our three fact-finding meetings. At the first committee meeting, Marc Chun (Hewlett Foundation), Felice Levine (American Educational Research Association), and Daniel Goroff (Sloan Foundation) each provided valuable background information on the goals of the study’s sponsors. In addition, Marianella Casasola (Cornell University) provided an overview of the research on thought and language in the bilingual infant. Barbara Rogoff (University of California, Santa Cruz) shared reflections on understanding cultural differences that influence how, why, and where people learn; and Guinevere Eden (Georgetown University) provided a review of the most recent neuroimaging research on reading and reading disabilities. Finally, members of the HPL I authoring committee provided insights on how best to approach the study process in order to meld ideas from diverse disciplines to maximize the impact of the report for research and practice. The HPL I committee members included Barbara Means (SRI International), Jose Mestre (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), Linda Nathan (Boston University), Penelope Peterson (Northwestern University), and Barbara Rogoff. The Webcast audience for this first meeting included individuals from the United States and several other countries: Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iceland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Taiwan.
At the second meeting, three committee members (Patricia Bauer, David Daniel, and Jeff Karpicke) briefed the committee and audience on the evidence regarding cognitive and developmental factors affecting learning in context. Robert Mislevy (Educational Testing Service) provided insights on how developments in psychology and technology challenge assessment in learning contexts, and Kevin Crowley (University of Pittsburgh) provided an overview of learning in informal settings. Finally, Elizabeth Albro (Institute of Education Sciences) shared the perspectives of the sponsor with the committee. The Webcast audience included individuals from Canada and the United States.
The third committee meeting included discussions from two different panels: (1) Panel on Learning in Adulthood and the Use of Technology for Learning in Adulthood and (2) Panel on Learning Disabilities, Universal Design for Learning, and Assistive Technology. The Learning in Adulthood panelists were Philip Ackerman (Georgia Institute of Technology), Walter Boot (Florida State University), and Ursula Staudinger (Columbia University). The Learning Disabilities and Universal Design for Learning panel included Donald Compton (Florida State University), Jack Fletcher (University of Houston), and David Rose (CAST). The Webcast audience for this meeting included individuals from Brazil, Canada, and the United States.
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Daniel E. Atkins, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan (emeritus); Philip Bell, Learning Sciences and Human Development, University of Washington; John Dunlosky, Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University; Kris Gutiérrez, Educational Policy and Language, Literacy and Culture, University of California, Berkeley; Kenji Hakuta, School of Education, Stanford University; Karen R. Harris, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University; David Klahr, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University; Kenneth R. Koedinger, Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, Carnegie Mellon University; Gloria Ladson-Billings, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education, Michigan State University; Bruce McCandliss, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University; James W. Pellegrino, Learning Sciences Research Institute, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago; Diana C. Pullin, Lynch School of Education, Boston College; Barbara Rogoff, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz; Lorrie A. Shepard, Laboratory of Educational Research, School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder; and Brian A. Wandell, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release.
The review of this report was overseen by Michael I. Posner, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon (emeritus), and Greg J. Duncan, School of Education, University of California, Irvine. They were responsible for making
certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
Thanks are also due to the project staff and staff of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE). In particular, special thanks to Tina Winters, associate program officer, who was instrumental in organizing data-gathering opportunities for the committee, agenda development, facilitation of commissioned paper selection and contracting, and invaluable assistance in the writing and development of the committee’s final report. Renée Wilson Gaines, senior program assistant, also provided critical support to the study process by managing the study’s logistical and administrative needs, making sure meetings and workshops ran efficiently and smoothly, obtaining copyright permissions, and engaging in other essential report activities. Appreciation is also extended to Barbara Wanchisen, director of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, and Heidi Schweingruber, director of the Board on Science Education, for their leadership, guidance, oversight of, and support for the study. We are also indebted to the National Academies consultant Robert Katt for final editing of the manuscript. We are particularly grateful to Patricia Morison and Alexandra Beatty for their support and significant assistance with improving the flow of the report. We thank the Executive Office staff of DBASSE, especially Kirsten Sampson-Snyder, who managed the review process, Yvonne Wise, who oversaw the final publication process, and Lisa Alston for financial oversight. Finally, we would like to thank the Research Center at the National Academies for their valuable support in conducting literature and data reviews, generating impact summaries, and supporting general research.
Cora Bagley Marrett, Chair
Sujeeta Bhatt, Study Director
Committee on How People Learn II:
The Science and Practice of Learning