THE BOOKS

John L. Rudolph, Section Editor

How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom, edited by M. Suzanne Donovan andJohn D. Bransford, National Research Council Committee on How People Learn. (2005).National Academies Press, Washington, DC, USA, 2005. xiv + 397–615 pp. ISBN0-309-08950-6.

This volume is the latest product from a sustained program of scholarship. The first bookin the series—How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (NRC, 1999a)—was a broad, in-depth review of what is known about human learning and its implicationsfor teaching. This was accompanied by How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice(NRC, 1999b), which identified the research and development that was still needed in respectof classroom teaching and learning and suggested ways in which the outcomes could becommunicated to teachers. The next step was the identification of “examples of how theprinciples and findings on learning can guide the teaching of a set of topics that commonlyappear in the K-12 curriculum” (p. vii) at three levels (elementary, middle, and high school)and their publication in How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in theClassroom (NRC, 2005). The present volume is a subset of the latter, concerned only withscience, preceded by the Introduction and followed by the concluding chapter from thelarger publication. It is accompanied by a CD-Rom that gives the full text of that volume.Before beginning a review of the present volume, it is worth remarking that science teacherswould be well advised to look also at the material on history and mathematics. GivenJerome Bruner’s maxim that it is the task of pupils to extract an education from a courseof instruction, teachers’ awareness of what is going on elsewhere in the curriculum is to bestrongly encouraged.

This edited volume, the compilation of which was overseen by a committee, consistsof six chapters. The first sets out the principles that underlie the other four, the secondwith the teaching of scientific inquiry, the third is concerned with the teaching of “light”at the elementary school level, the fourth with the support of guided inquiry, the fifth withthe use of model-based inquiry, while the last is an overview that synthesizes the otherfour.

The first chapter sets out the three principles that underlie the volume: the importanceof engaging pupils’ preconceptions, the essential role of a conceptual structure for what isto be taught, and the desirability of promoting metacognitive monitoring in pupils. Theseprinciples are then woven into proposals for the design of learning environments withfour “lenses”: learner-centeredness, in which pupils’ preconceptions are identified and builtupon; knowledge-centeredness, in which the development of a structure for knowledge isactively sought; assessment-centeredness, in which every effort is made to monitor pupils’learning at regular intervals and to respond accordingly; and community-centeredness,in which a culture of questioning, respect, and risk-taking is encouraged. As the authorsfreely admit, this treatment is given at a high level of generality with the inclusion ofvery few examples of how these complex tasks might be addressed. The second chapter

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essentially places the general ideas given in the first chapter into the context of teachingscience. The experiential basis of preconceptions, the centrality of scientific methodologyin the actual teaching and learning of science, and the significance of metacognition are allemphasized.

It is only in the third chapter that science is placed center-stage. The example chosen isthat of “light” at the elementary school level. This is done because the phenomena are read-ily available and because the field can be understood at this level with the aid of relativelyfew concepts. The common preconceptions are reviewed and then a heuristic for guideddiscovery is presented. Its use is extensively (and potentially most helpfully) illustrated withexamples from first-hand practical work by pupils. This process of illustration does, how-ever, switch between different examples. This makes an overview of how guided discoverytakes place in the classroom hard to build up. Most interestingly, the use of second-handinquiry based on the use of written case studies is illustrated. The need to go through severalcycles of inquiry in different contexts is then advocated but not exemplified. Finally, howthis activity can result in a conceptual overview for the pupils is given in principle, thoughwith minimal illustration.

The fourth chapter presents ideas of how teachers can create classroom environmentsthat implement guided inquiry learning and what they can do in practice to support thatlearning as pupils’ work passes through key phases. This is elegantly done with ample, clearillustration drawn from the phenomena of physics. Surprisingly, no indication is given inany of the examples of the grade level of the pupils involved. The fifth chapter is concernedwith developing understanding through model-based inquiry, mainly illustrated from thetheme of genetics. Although no general argument in favor of model-based learning is made,the results of existing research into the learning of established models and of modelingskills are squeezed into the organizational structure advocated in the first chapter. The lastchapter revisits these principles with a somewhat more demanding conceptual analysisprovided.

This volume contains many ideas and, indeed, an overall structure that can make avaluable contribution to science education. Although primarily intended (quite properly)for the U.S. market, it could inform other educational systems by a process of analogy.However, it will be difficult for the individual teacher to see how to apply its principles ina particular context. The book might therefore be used to greatest effect where mentoringsupport is available, e.g., in preservice, teacher-education programs.

Alas, the volume is a second-order derivative from a larger enterprise. Thus there isa great deal of overlap between the first two chapters, while the last chapter is largelysuperfluous. Had the work of providing such a volume been seen as a first-order task, thespace saved could have been more fruitfully used in the fuller exposition of some ideas, e.g.the presentation of illustrations of multicycles of inquiry. Moreover, it might have enabledthe guiding structure of the volume to be more extensively illustrated in each chapter, perhapsallowing neglected themes, e.g. conceptual development or community-centeredness, to beaddressed. While interview-based data are included in the text to good effect in developingideas, other research is consigned to text boxes that will be ignored by many readers.The issue of how to communicate research findings to teachers has evidently not yet beensolved.

REFERENCES

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (1999a). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, andschool. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

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Donovan, M. S., & Bransford, J. D. (Eds.). (2005). How students learn: History, mathematics, and science in theclassroom. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Donovan, M. S., Bransford, J. D., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (1999b). How people learn: Bridging research andpractice. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

JOHN K. GILBERTInstitute of EducationThe University of ReadingWoodlands AvenueEarleyReading RG6 1HYUK

DOI 10.1002/sce.20115Published online 26 September 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).