This document provides an overview of the field of learning sciences. It discusses how learning sciences aims to better understand cognitive and social processes that result in effective learning by drawing from fields like cognitive science, educational psychology, and neuroscience. The goal is to use this knowledge to redesign learning environments. It presents several major models of learning and discusses how research in learning sciences uses experimental and qualitative methods to study learning. Reasons for developing a science of learning include that learning is a fundamental human activity, societies have transformed from industrial to knowledge-based, and new sciences continue to generate knowledge about learning.

1. EP0.
Learning Sciences
Elena Pasquinelli
Educa4on, cogni4on, cerveau
Cogmaster 2010‐2011

2. • A new field of research: the science of
learning
• Un4l quite recently, cogni4ve science steered
clear of educa4on, while the sciences of
educa4on tended to ignore cogni4ve science.
• Things have changed over the last few years,
and there is now quite a lot of interac4on
between the two fields.

3. How does neuroscience, and more broadly cogni4ve science, interact with
educa4on? What are the themes and the models at work?
What are the major models of learning? Behaviorism, gene4c epistemology,
cogni4vism, construc4vism, situated approaches in cogni4ve science, conceptual
change theory, will be presented and compared.
What can philosophy of science teach us about the nature of the applied science
at work? What counts as scien4fic evidence in this context? How do we measure
the effects of a given factor? How can one account for extra‐cogni4ve (social,
poli4cal, historical, ideological) factors affec4ng learning and educa4on?
What are some concrete examples of prac4cal applica4ons of experimental and
neuro‐imaging methods in such areas as numerical cogni4on and reading skills?

4. LEARNING SCIENCES

5. Learning sciences (large view)
• “Learning sciences is an interdisciplinary field that studies
teaching and learning.
• Learning scien4sts study learning in a variety of se=ngs, including
not only the more formal learning of school classrooms but also
the informal learning that takes place at home, on the job, and
among peers.
• The goal of the learning sciences is to beTer understand the
cogni?ve and social processes that result in the most effec?ve
learning, and to use this knowledge to redesign classrooms and
other learning environments so that people learn more deeply
and more effec?vely.
• The sciences of learning include cogni&ve science, educa&onal
psychology, computer science, anthropology, sociology,
informa&on sciences, neurosciences, educa&on, design studies,
instruc&onal design, and other fields.” (Sawyer, 2009, p. xi)

6. Learning sciences
Research fields Applica4on
Objec4ves
fields
BeTer understanding of Cogni4ve and social Formal, informal, non
learning processes processes formal learning
Cogni4ve sciences,
psychology,
Design environments for anthropology, sociology,
beTer learning ar4ficial intelligence,
neurosciences,
educa4onal sciences
(economy, philosophy,
Promote beTer learning history, design)

7. OBJECTIVES, METHODS, AND REASONS
FOR A SCIENCE OF LEARNING (OR AN
APPLIED SCIENCE OF EDUCATION)

8. Objec4ves
• Objec?ves:
– Understand learning
• Exploit the beTer comprehension of Neutral vision:
learning processes made available by a design
large pool of sciences, without forge[ng
that learning is a social process environments for
• Use different methods for evalua4ng learning beTer
learning environments and outcomes
– Build the condi4ons for beTer learning
– Promo4ng beTer forms of learning Engaged vision:
(adapted to XXI century needs) foster beTer
learning

9. Methods
• « The golden standard of scien4fic • A general aim of objec4vity and
methodology is the experimental design, in of understanding
which students are randomly assigned to
different learning environments. – What works
• Many educa4on studies are quasi‐ – Why it works
experimental … they iden4fy two exis4ng Vs. the dominion of intui4on and
classrooms that seem to be iden4cal in every tradi4on
way, ans use one teaching method in one
classroom, a different teching method in
another classroom, and analyze which
students learn more and beTer.
• … learning scien4sts have drawn on • Experimental: randomized,
ethnography … ethnomethodology and controlled trials
conversa4on analysis … and sociocultural • Quasi‐experimental:
anthropology… »
• « Many learning scien4sts study the
correla4onal studies
moment‐to‐moment processes of learning, • Longitudinal studies
typically by gathering large amonts of • Qualita4ve observa4ons
videotape data, and they use a range of
methodoloies … known as interac4on
analysis … »
• « … learning scien4sts also study longer term
learning … » (Sawyer, 2009, p. 13‐14)

10. Reason 1. Learning is a pervasive
human ac4vity
• “Learning is a basic, adap4ve func4on of humans.
Learning is a human basic, adap4ve, More than any other species, people are designed to
pervasive func4on. be flexible learners and ac4ve agents in acquiring
knowledge and skills.
People learn all their life long, • Much of what people learn occurs without formal
instruc4on, but highly systema4c and organized
everywhere, in informal se[ngs. informa4on systems—reading, mathema4cs, the
But formal se[ngs have been created sciences, literature, and the history of a society—
require formal training, usually in schools. Over 4me,
too. science, mathema4cs, and history have posed new
problems for learning because of their growing
volume and increasing complexity. The value of the
knowledge taught in school also began to be
examined for its applicability to situa4ons outside
school.
• Science now offers new concep4ons of the learning
process and the development of competent
performance. Recent research provides a deep
understanding of complex reasoning and performance
on problem‐solving tasks and how skill and
understanding in key subjects are acquired. This book
presents a contemporary account of principles of
learning, and this summary provides an overview of
the new science of learning.” (Bransford, et al., 2000,
p. XI)

11. Reason 2. Societal transforma4ons
• “… the schools we have today were designed around commonsense assump4ons
that had never been tested scien4fically:
– Knowledge is a collec4on of facts about the world and procedures for how
to solve problems…
– The goal of schooling is to get these facts and procedures into the student’s
From industrial head…
society to – Teachers know these facts and procedures, and their job is to transmit
them to students.
knowledge society
– Simpler facts and procedures should be learned first…
– The way to determine the success of schooling is to tests students to see
how many of these facts and procedures they have acquired.
• This tradi4onal vision of schooling is known as instruc4onism (Papert, 2003).
Instruc4onism prepares students for the industrialized economy of the early
twen4eth century. … In the knowledge economy memoriza4on of facts and
procedures is not enough for success. Educated graduates need a deep
conceptual understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with
them crea4vely to generate new ideas, new products, and new knowledge. They
need to be able to cri4cally evaluate what they read, to be capable of express
themselves clearly, … to learn integrated and usable knowledge, … to take
responsibility for their con4nuing, lifelong learning.” (Sawyer, 2009, p. 1‐2)

12. Reason 3. Accumula4on of knowledge
• “Learning science is now over twenty
years old … the scien4fic community
has reached a consensus about some
of the most important discoveries
about learning.”
New sciences produce new • “Beginning in the 1970s a new
knowledge, which is meaningful science of learning was born – based
for learning and educa4on in research emerging from
psychology, computer science,
philosophy, sociology, and other
scien4fic disciplines. … By the 1990s,
aner about twenty years of research
learning researchers had reached
consensus on … basic facts about
learning – a consensus that was
published by the United States
Research Na4onal
Council…” (Sawyer, 2009, p. 2‐3)

13. 3.a Disciplinary knowledge on • “Un4l quite recently, understanding the mind—and the
thinking and learning that the mind makes possible—has
mind and brain, on educa4on, on remained an elusive quest, in part because of a lack of
technology, … powerful research tools. Today, the world is in the midst
of an extraordinary outpouring of scien4fic work on the
mind and brain, on the processes of thinking and
3.b Interdisciplinary knowledge learning, on the neural processes that occur during
thought and learning, and on the development of
(new research field on learning) competence.
• The revolu4on in the study of the mind that has occurred
in the last three or four decades has important
3.c Transdisciplinary knowledge implica4ons for educa4on. As we illustrate, a new theory
(new applica4ve discipline of of learning is coming into focus that leads to very
different approaches to the design of curriculum,
educa4on with strong scien4fic teaching, and assessment than those onen found in
background on learning) schools today. Equally important, the growth of
interdisciplinary inquiries and new kinds of scien4fic
collabora4ons have begun to make the path from basic
research to educa4onal prac4ce somewhat more visible,
if not yet easy to travel. Thirty years ago, educators paid
liTle aTen4on to the work of cogni4ve scien4sts, and
researchers in the nascent field of cogni4ve science
worked far removed from classrooms. Today, cogni4ve
researchers are spending more 4me working with
teachers, tes4ng and refining their theories in real
classrooms where they can see how different se[ngs and
classroom interac4ons influence applica4ons of their
theories.” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 3)

14. Issues
• What is learning?
• Which are the main learning mechanisms?
– For reading?
– For mathema4cs?
• Which is the role of emo4onal states in learning?
• How social interac4ons influence learning?
• What are the constraints to learning
• Why are certain learning environments beTer than others?
• …?

15. A BIT OF HISTORY

16. 1. Dissa4sfac4on with behaviorism
• “By the turn of the century, a new school of behaviorism was emerging. In reac4on to the subjec4vity inherent in
introspec4on, behaviorists held that the scien4fic study of psychology must restrict itself to the study of observable
behaviors and the s4mulus condi4ons that control them.
• Drawing on the empiricist tradi4on, behaviorists conceptualized learning as a process of forming connec4ons between
s4muli and responses. Mo4va4on to learn was assumed to be driven primarily by drives, such as hunger, and the
availability of external forces, such as rewards and punishments (e.g., Thorndike, 1913; Skinner, 1950).” (Bransford, et
al., 2000, p. 6‐8)
• “In the mid 1950s, behaviorism was the prevailing orthodoxy in American psychological science. B. F. Skinner and other
behaviorists believed that a scien4fic psychology had to be based solely on observed behavior. For the behaviorists,
acceptable psychological explana4ons could appeal only to observable environmental s4muli and to the observable
responses the s4muli evoked from organisms. Appeals to mysterious, unobservable mental processes were scien4fically
inadmissible. There could be no science of the mind –such a no4on was self‐contradictory, behaviorists claimed. On
their theory, to teach an animal a new behavior you expose it to appropriate environmental s4muli and reward it when
it makes the proper response. In educa4on, behaviorist learning theory emphasized arranging the student’s
environment so that s4muli occurred in a way that would ins4ll the desired s4mulus‐response chains.
• Teachers would present lessons in small, manageable pieces (s4muli), ask students to give answers (responses), and
then dispense reinforcement (preferably posi4ve rather than nega4ve) un4l their students became condi4oned to give
the right answers.” (Bruer, 1993, p. 3)
• A limita4on of early behaviorism stemmed from its focus on observable s4mulus condi4ons and the behaviors
associated with those condi4ons. This orienta4on made it difficult to study such phenomena as understanding,
reasoning, and thinking—phenomena that are of paramount importance for educa4on..” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p.
6‐8)

17. Behaviorism (J.B. Watson)
• J.B. Watson, 1913: Psychology “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objec4ve
experimental branch of natural science. Its theore4cal goal is
as the behaviorist sees it the predic4on and control of behavior. Introspec4on forms
• Learning allows no essen4al part of its methods, nor is the scien4fic value of
organisms to acquire its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend
habits that respond more themselves to interpreta4on in terms of consciousness. The
behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal
or less well to the s4muli response, recognizes no dividing line between man and
of their environment brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and
• S4muli and responses complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total
scheme of inves4ga4on.
are closely connected, and
can be extracted one from The psychology which I should aTempt to build up would
the other take as a star4ng point, first, the observable fact that
organisms, man and animal alike, do adjust themselves to
their environment by means of hereditary and habit
equipments. These adjustments may be very adequate or
they may be so inadequate that the organism barely
maintains its existence; secondly, that certain s4muli lead
the organisms to make the responses. In a system of
psychology completely worked out, given the response the
s4muli can be predicted; given the s4muli the response can
be predicted. Such a set of statements is crass and raw in the
extreme, as all such generaliza4ons must be.” (Watson,
1913)

18. Radical Behaviorism (B. F. Skinner)
1938: The behavior of
organisms
• Operant condi4oning:
• S4muli in the
environment
• Response (behavior) on
the side of the organism
• When a paTern of
s4mulus‐response is
rewarded
(reinforcement), the
organism is condi4oned
to respond
1. Behavior that is posi4vely reinforced will reoccur;
• It is not just elici4ng
intermiTent reinforcement is par4cularly effec4ve
responses (classic
2. Informa4on should be presented in small amounts
condi4oning), but
so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping")
reinforcing the organism’s
3. Reinforcements will generalize across similar s4muli
responses
("s4mulus generaliza4on") producing secondary
condi4oning

19. Behaviorism and educa4on: note the
analogies with the new science of
learning (and the disanalogies)
• The teaching machine
1. Prac4ce should take the form of ques4on
(s4mulus) ‐ answer (response) frames which
expose the student to the subject in gradual
steps
2. Require that the learner make a response
for every frame and receive immediate
feedback
3. Try to arrange the difficulty of the
ques4ons so the response is always correct
and hence a posi4ve reinforcement
4. Ensure that good performance in the
lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers
such as verbal praise, prizes and good grades.

20. • Some 4me ago I was called upon to make a study of certain species of birds. Un4l I went to Tortugass I
• Ground had never seen these birds alive. When I reached there I found the animals doing certain things: some
of the acts seemed to work peculiarly well in such an environment, while others seemed to be unsuited
observa4on of to their type of life. I first studied the responses of the group as a whole and later those of individuals. In
s4muli and order to understand more thoroughly the rela4on between what was habit and what was hereditary in
these responses, I took the young birds and reared them. In this way I was able to study the order of
behaviors appearance of hereditary adjustments and their complexity, and later the beginnings of habit forma4on.
(learned) • My efforts in determining the s4muli which called forth such adjustments were crude indeed.
Consequently my aTempts to control behavior and to produce responses at will did not meet with much
• Laboratory, success. Their food and water, sex and other social rela4ons, light and temperature condi4ons were all
controlled beyond control in a field study. I did find it possible to control their reac4ons in a measure by using the
nest and egg (or young) as s4muli. It is not necessary in this paper to develop further how such a study
experiments should be carried out and how work of this kind must be supplemented by carefully controlled
• Prac4cal goal of laboratory experiments.
applying • Had I been called upon to examine the na4ves of some of the Australian tribes, I should have gone
about my task in the same way. I should have found the problem more difficult: the types of responses
psychological called forth by physical s4muli would have been more varied, and the number of effec4ve s4muli larger.
studies to I should have had to determine the social se[ng of their lives in a far more careful way. These savages
would be more influenced by the responses of each other than was the case with the birds.
educa4on, law, … Furthermore, habits would have been more complex and the influences of past habits upon the present
• Problems of responses would have appeared more clearly. Finally, if I had been called upon to work out the
psychology of the educated European, my problem would have required several life4mes.
applicability • But in the one I have at my disposal I should have followed the same general line of aTack. In the main,
my desire in all such work is to gain an accurate knowledge of adjustments and the s?muli calling them
forth.
• My final reason for this is to learn general and par4cular methods by which I may control behavior.
• … If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist and the business
man could u4lize our data in a prac4cal way, as soon as we are able, experimentally, to obtain them. Ask
any physician or jurist today whether scien4fic psychology plays a prac4cal part in his daily rou4ne and
you will hear him deny that the psychology of the laboratories finds a place in his scheme of work. I
think the cri4cism is extremely just. One of the earliest condi4ons which made me dissa4sfied with
psychology was the feeling that there was no realm of applica4on for the principles which were being
worked out in content terms. (Watson, 1913)

21. What’s missing in the descrip4on of
the learning process made by
behaviorists?
• Hardwired &
sonwired
constraints
– Previous
knowledge
– Func4onal
architecture

22. 2a. Cogni4ve theory of learning
• Construc4vism: “In the 1960s and 1970s,
– Jean Piaget Jean Piaget’s wri4ngs
• Knowledge structures of children are became widely
qualita4vely different from adults’ influen4al in America,
• Developmental stages towards logic thought educa4on. Before Piaget,
• Adapta4on to the world: disequilibra4on and most people held the
re‐equilibra4on via assimila4on/accomoda4on commonsense belief that
processes children have less
– Vygotsky: social construc4on of knowledge knowledge than adults …
– Jérôme Bruner what’s even more
• Adapta4on of Piaget’s epistemology and of important to learning is
Vygotsky social construc4vism to educa4on, but that children’s minds
without stages contain different
– Seymour Papert knowledge
• Construc4onism: learning by construc4on structures…” (Sawyer,
2009, p. 5)

23. Construc4vism, social construc4vism
and construc4onisms
“Piaget's theory relates how children become progressively detached from the world of concrete objects and
local con4ngencies, gradually becoming able to mentally manipulate symbolic objects within a realm of
hypothe4cal worlds. He studied children's increasing ability to extract rules from empirical regulari4es and to
build cogni4ve invariants. He emphasized the importance of such cogni4ve invariants as means of interpre4ng
and organizing the world. One could say that Piaget's interest was in the assimila4on pole. His theory emphasizes
all those things needed to maintain the internal structure and organiza4on of the cogni4ve system. And what
Piaget describes par4cularly well is precisely this internal structure and organiza4on of knowledge at different
levels of development. ” (Ackerman, 2001, p. 7)
Seymour Papert of MassachuseTs Ins4tute of Technologies developed a theory of learning based upon Piaget’s
construc4vism. Note that Papert worked with Piaget in Geneva in the late 1950’ies and early 1960’ies. In his own
words: “Construc-onism—the N word as opposed to the V word— shares contruc-vism’s view of learning as
“building knowledge structures” through progressive internaliza-on of ac-ons… It then adds the idea that this
happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in construc-ng a public
en-ty, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe (Papert, 1991, p.1)
Stressing the importance of externaliza4ons as a means to augment the unaided mind is not new. Vygotsky has
spent his en4re life studying the role of cultural ar4facts—tools, language, people—as a resource for drawing the
best out of every person’s cogni4ve poten4al. So have many other researchers in the socio‐construc4vist
tradi4on. The difference, as I see it, lays in 3 things: 1. In the role such external aids are meant to play at higher
levels of a person’s development, 2. In the types of external aids, or media, studied (Papert focuses on digital
media and computer‐based technologies) and more important, 3. In the type of ini4a4ve the learner takes in the
design of her own “objects to think with.” (Ackerman, 2001, p. 5)

24. 2b. Cogni4ve revolu4on
• “In the late 1950s, the complexity of understanding humans and their environments became
increasingly apparent, and a new field emerged—cogni?ve science. From its incep4on, cogni4ve
science approached learning from a mul4disciplinary perspec4ve that included anthropology,
1956: MIT linguis4cs, philosophy, developmental psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and several
symposium branches of psychology .” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 6‐8)
– Birth of
cogni4ve
science • “The 1956 MIT symposium and the subsequent cogni4ve revolu4on in psychology were the first
steps toward this applied educa4onal science.
and of its • Presenta4ons by Noam Chomsky, George Miller, Herbert Simon, and Allen Newell implied that a
objects: science of the mind was not only possible but necessary. There had to be a science of how we
perceive, remember, learn, plan, and reason. Par4cipants len the mee4ng convinced that
behaviorism was too narrow a theore4cal basis for psychology.
• Problem
• Over the next 16 years, the cogni4ve revolu4on spread and developed into a scien4fic discipline.
solving Cogni4ve scien4sts, as the revolu4onaries eventually called themselves, worked to exploit the
• Exper4se similari4es between thinking and informa4on processing. Besides logic, Newell and Simon
studied problem solving. … Problem solving … depends on learning facts, skills, and strategies
that are unique to the area. As cogni4ve scien4sts say, exper4se in each area requires mastery of
a dis4nct knowledge domain. ” (Bruer, 1993, p. 7‐8, 11)

25. 3. The biological revolu4on
• Decade of the brain • “There is a revolu4on afoot that is bringing brain and
• neuroscience
• cogni4ve neuroscience
cogni4ve science into educa4on and crea4ng new tools to
• Neurobiology vastly improve how students learn. Or is there? Expecta4ons
• neurogene4cs for educa4onal neuroscience are extremely high, but at this
point, it could turn out to be not a revolu4on but just another
– BeTer comprehension of fad, a popular enthusiasm that fades with 4me as the
learning mechanisms,
iden4fica4on of
unreality of exaggerated expecta4ons becomes clear ….
mechanisms and neural • What is needed is not a quick fix from neuroscience, which
substrates of learning will not work for educa4on, but the crea4on of a new field
– Neural representa4ons of that integrates neuroscience and other areas of biology and
learning (localiza4on,
4ming) cogni4ve science with educa4on …
– BeTer comprehension of • Crea4ng this field, which some of us call mind, brain, and
individual differences educa-on … can transform schools and educa4on in the long
term by crea4ng a scien4fic basis for educa4onal prac4ce.
” (Fischer & Immordino‐Yang, 2008, p. xvii)

26. The biological revolu4on in educa4on
• neuroscience • “There is a revolu4on afoot that is bringing brain and
• cogni4ve neuroscience
• Neurobiology
cogni4ve science into educa4on and crea4ng new tools to
• neurogene4cs vastly improve how students learn. Or is there? Expecta4ons
for educa4onal neuroscience are extremely high, but at this
– BeTer comprehension of point, it could turn out to be not a revolu4on but just another
learning mechanisms, fad, a popular enthusiasm that fades with 4me as the
iden4fica4on of
mechanisms and neural
unreality of exaggerated expecta4ons becomes clear ….
substrates of learning • What is needed is not a quick fix from neuroscience, which
– Neural representa4ons of will not work for educa4on, but the crea4on of a new field
learning (localiza4on,
that integrates neuroscience and other areas of biology and
4ming)
cogni4ve science with educa4on …
– BeTer comprehension of
individual differences • Crea4ng this field, which some of us call mind, brain, and
educa-on … can transform schools and educa4on in the long
term by crea4ng a scien4fic basis for educa4onal prac4ce.
” (Fischer & Immordino‐Yang, 2008, p. xvii)

27. Neuroeduca4on
• “Many scien4sts and educators feel that we are advancing toward new ways of connec4ng mind, brain, and
educa4on (MBE). This feeling arises, in part, because the disciplines related to the cogni4ve sciences,
neurobiology and educa4on have made considerable advances during the last two decades, and scholars in the
disciplines are beginning to seek interac4ons with each other …
• One name for this effort is neuroeduca4on ..., which emphasizes the educa4onal focus of the transdisciplinary
connec4on. Another is educa4onal neuroscience, where the focus is on neuroscience, to which educa4on
connects. We use the name “mind, brain, and educa4on” to encompass both of these focuses and others that
bring together cogni4ve science, biology and educa4on.
• On the one side, this emerging field touches on all levels of modern neuroscience: from molecules to genes,
from synapses to ar4ficial neural networks, from reflexes to behaviors, from animal studies to human brain
imaging…
• On the other side, the term educa4on is as vast as human culture itself.” (BaTro, Fischer, & Léna, 2008, p. 3)
• “… a mature science of learning will involve understanding not only that learning occurs but also understanding
how and why it occurs” (Bransford, et al., in Sawyer, 2009, p. 20)

28. Founda4ons for the new science of
learning
• “The new science of learning has arisen from several
disciplines. Researchers in developmental psychology
have iden?fied social factors that are essen?al for
learning. Powerful learning algorithms from machine
learning have demonstrated that con?ngencies in the
environment are a rich source of informa?on about
social cues. Neuroscien?sts have found brain systems
involved in social interac?ons and mechanisms for
synap?c plas?city that contribute to learning.
Classrooms are laboratories for teaching
prac?ces.” (Meltzoff, et al., 2009, p. 284)

29. • “Research from cogni?ve psychology has increased understanding of the nature of competent performance and the
principles of knowledge organiza4on that underlie people's abili4es to solve problems in a wide variety of areas,
including mathema4cs, science, literature, social studies, and history.
• Developmental researchers have shown that young children understand a great deal about basic principles of biology
and physical causality, about number, narra4ve, and personal intent, and that these capabili4es make it possible to
create innova4ve curricula that introduce important concepts for advanced reasoning at early ages.
• Research on learning and transfer has uncovered important principles for structuring learning experiences that enable
people to use what they have learned in new se[ngs.
• Work in social psychology, cogni?ve psychology, and anthropology is making clear that all learning takes place in
se[ngs that have par4cular sets of cultural and social norms and expecta4ons and that these se[ngs influence
learning and transfer in powerful ways.
• Neuroscience is beginning to provide evidence for many principles of learning that have emerged from laboratory
research, and it is showing how learning changes the physical structure of the brain and, with it, the func4onal
organiza4on of the brain.
• Collabora?ve studies of the design and evalua?on of learning environments, among cogni4ve and developmental
psychologists and educators, are yielding new knowledge about the nature of learning and teaching as it takes place in
a variety of se[ngs. In addi4on, researchers are discovering ways to learn from the ''wisdom of prac4ce" that comes
from successful teachers who can share their exper4se.
• Emerging technologies are leading to the development of many new opportuni4es to guide and enhance learning that
were unimagined even a few years ago.
• All of these developments in the study of learning have led to an era of new relevance of science to prac4ce. In short,
investment in basic research is paying off in prac4cal applica4ons. These developments in understanding of how
humans learn have par4cular significance in light of changes in what is expected of the na4on's educa4onal
systems.” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 4)

30. Structuring the field
1991: 1st
1970‐1980: 1987: 2000: Bransford 2002: 2003‐2006: NSF:
Interna4onal 2007 2010
AI and Ins4tute for et al (NRC): How Interna4on 6 Learning
conference IMBES EARLI
educa4on the Learning people learn al Society Centers
on Learning SIG 22
conferences Sciences for the
sciences/
(ILS, R. learning
Journal of 1999 2003
Shank); sciences
the learning OECD‐CERI Mind,
Ins4tute for
sciences Brain Brain
Research on
Learning (J. program 1 Educa4
S. Brown, J. 1991 2002 on
Greeno, D. Decade of OECD‐ (Rome)
Kearns) the brain CERI
Brain 2005
program (Erice)
2

31. An example

32. RECIPES FOR OUR COURSE

33. Learning beTer
• Focusing on learning in addi?on to teaching : « When children ac4vely par4cipate in construc4ng their
own knowledge, they gain a deeper understanding, more generalizable »
• Crea?ng learning environments: « Scaffolding is the help given to the learner that is tailored to that
learner’s needs in achieving his or her goals at the moment … effec4ve scaffolding provides prempts and
hints that help learners to figure it out on their own. »
• The importance of building on a learner’s previous knowledge : « learning always takes places against
a backdrop of exis4ng knowledge. Students don’t enter the classroom as empty vessels, wai4ng to be
filled; they enter the classroom with half‐formed ideas and misconcep4ons about how the world works
… » (Sawyer, 2009, p. 2‐3)
• The importance of reflec?on. “Students learn beTer when they express their developing knowledge –
either through conversa4on or by crea4ng papers, reports, and other ar4facts – and then are provided
with opportuni4es to reflec4vely analyze their state of knowledge.”
• « the best learning take place when learners ar4culate their unformed and s4ll developing
understanding, and con4nue to ar4culate it throughout the process of learning. »
• « ar4cula4on is more effec4ve if it is scaffolded – channeled so that certain kinds of knowledge are
ar4culated, and in a certain form that is likely to result in usful reflec4on. »
• « One of the reasons that ar4cula4on is so helpful to learning is that it makes possible reflec4on or
metacogni4on – thinking about the process of learning and thinking about knowledge. » (Sawyer, 2009,
p. 12)

34. with Technology
• « Computers can represent abstract knowledge in concrete forms
• … Allow learners to ar4culate their developing knowledge in a visual and verbal way
• … allow learners to manipulate and revise their developing knowledge
• … Internet‐based networks of learners can share and combine their developing understandings
…» (Sawyer, 2009, p. 9)

35. QUESTIONS

36. • WHY should we have a science of learning?
• WHAT’s the role of research for educa4on?
• WHAT have cogni4ve sciences and
neuroscience to do with educa4on (and the
other way around)?
• HOW can research have an impact upon
educa4on (or else)?