Review of How People Learn

Book Review

H OW P EOPLE LEARN: B R A I N , MIND,

EXPERIENCE, AND S CHOOL John D. Bransford,
Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (Eds.).
Committee on Developments in the Science of
Learning, National Research Council. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press. 1999. 385 pages.
$24.95 (paper).
Reviewed by Barry Biddlecomb and Martha Carr
University of Georgia
A revolution has occurred over the past forty
years in what we know about how the mind works
and how we learn. Cognitive psychologists,
developmental psychologists and researchers
working in specific disciplines have learned a
tremendous amount about what influences learning
including memory and the structure of knowledge,
problem solving and reasoning, dispositions to
learn, the ability to self-regulate and the importance
of culture and community. Unfortunately, that
revolution has had little impact on the average
teacher and on the classroom and school. This is
primarily because teachers exposure to this very
broad and extensive body of research is frequently
in the form of one or two weeks of an
undergraduate survey course on learning and
development. Preservice teachers emerge with a
vague and simplistic understanding of memory and
learning and with little understanding of the broader
issues that have emerged from research on
cognition. Some teachers may go on to take a
graduate level course in cognition but these
courses frequently do not highlight the big issues
that teachers need to know about.
This is an excellent book for communicating to
teachers the big issues that have emerged from
recent research on cognition and development and
why they are important for education. The issues
discussed emerge from a number of different
theoretical perspectives, including individual
constructivism, social constructivism,
cognitive
psychology and information processing. Specific
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emphases include expertise, transfer of learning,

the innate capacity of humans for learning, the role
of the community in education, and the need for
assessment to support learning and the
development of curricula. The books repeatedly
connects expertise, transfer of learning, selfregulation (metacognition) and culture to show how
they interact to influence learning. It is this type of
information that helps teachers understand the
development and functioning of the mind and of
learning.
Although it summarizes the important issues
well, as a book for teachers this book does fall short
in several ways. Many teachers may have had only
a brief exposure to cognitive psychology and may
have forgotten or never learned some of the
terminology used in the book. Some terms are
defined but the authors tend to assume that
teachers will understand specific meanings of terms
like "short-term memory," which may not be the
case. While some chapters, particularly those in
the section titled The learner and learning do a
good job of communicating the research to teachers
and giving examples from classrooms, the chapter
on technology provides little research and instead
discusses the hoped for benefits of the technology.
This chapter also presents a number of instructional
programs that have been developed, but that are
inaccessible to most teachers. It would be better to
discuss the characteristics of particular types of
technology that benefit learning and why they do
so. Unfortunately, the research does not exist at
this point for such a discussion. For example,
calculators are presented as technology that can be
used to improve learning, but the jury is still out on
when and where calculators should be used in the
classroom.
Chapter 2 on expertise looks at the role of
meaningful patterns and the organization of
information in memory in learning and problem
solving, and teaching expertise is discussed within
this framework. Chapter 3 discusses transfer and its
importance for learning, including research on
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Review of How People Learn

instructional techniques that improve transfer and

the roles of motivation and context. Chapter 4
addresses research on biological predispositions to
learn language, number and causality. This chapter
also covers the emergence of theory of mind,
metacognition, and strategy use. Chapter 5
discusses research on the brain and the fads that
have emerged from this research, including fad
curriculum based on the assumption of differential
functions of the left and right brain and the belief
that the brain grows in spurts, but given the adverse
impact of fad theories in education, this chapter
should have spent more time debunking these
theories. Chapter 6 brings together the main
themes discussed in prior chapters and discusses
the need to simultaneously consider the needs and
limitations of the learner, the demands of the
domain to be learned, and the need for valid
assessment in order to improve learning and
instruction. The learner and domain are both
discussed within the context of community. Chapter
7 shows how the major concepts in the book (e.g.,
expertise, social construction) apply within the
domains of history, science and mathematics, while
chapter 8 describes learning in preservice and
practicing teachers. Together, these chapters
emphasize that both expertise in specific domains
and expertise in teaching are needed for good
teaching. Chapter 9 on technology describes
possible ways technology can help improve
education, but, as mentioned, little of the
technology described is currently accessible to

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teachers. This chapter should have been a more

critical review of technology, given how little we
know about the usefulness of different technologies
in actual schools or classrooms. Chapter 10
focuses on making recommendations for future
research on the issues discussed at the beginning
of the book.
In sum, this would be a good book for teachers
and educational professionals to read and keep in
their libraries. It would also be an excellent addition
to any course focusing on learning and cognition.
Barry Biddlecomb is an assistant professor in the
Division of Academic Enhancement at the
University of Georgia. His research interests are in
algebraic reasoning in college students and
numerical development in elementary school
students.
Martha Carr is a professor in the Educational
Psychology and Instructional Technology
Department at the University of Georgia. Her
research interests are in mathematics, strategy use
and metacognition in early elementary school age
children.

Teaching Educational Psychology, Vol. 1:1