Learning As A Generative Activity

This book presents eight evidence-based strategies that promote generative learning, which enables learners to apply their knowledge to new problems.

During the past twenty-five years, researchers have made impressive advances in pinpointing effective learning strategies (namely, activities the learner engages in during learning that are intended to improve learning). In Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Understanding, Logan Fiorella and Richard E. Mayer share eight evidence-based learning strategies that promote understanding: summarizing, mapping, drawing, imagining, self-testing, self-explaining, teaching, and enacting. Each chapter describes and exemplifies a learning strategy, examines the underlying cognitive theory, evaluates strategy effectiveness by analyzing the latest research, pinpoints boundary conditions, and explores practical implications and future directions. Each learning strategy targets generative learning, in which learners actively make sense out of the material so they can apply their learning to new situations. This concise, accessible introduction to learning strategies will benefit students, researchers, and practitioners in educational psychology, as well as general readers interested in the important twenty-first-century skill of regulating one's own learning.

Generative Learning in Action helps to answer the question: which activities can students carry out to create meaningful learning? It does this by considering how we, as teachers, can implement the eight strategies for generative learning set out in the work of Fiorella and Mayer in their seminal 2015 work Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Learning. At a time when a great deal of attention has been paid to the teaching and learning from the perspective of effective instruction, Generative Learning looks at the flip side of coin and considers what is happening in the minds of the learner. This book takes a teachers-eye view of a range of theories of learning and keeps their application to the classroom firmly in mind through the use of case studies and reference to day to day practice. Generative Learning in Action also discusses the key considerations and potential limitations of each of the strategies, as well as how you could implement these in your own practice and more widely across a school. The authors bring a wealth of experience to this topic. Zoe Enser was a classroom English teacher for over 20 years as well as head of department and school leader in charge of improving teaching and learning. She is now lead specialist advisor for Kent with The Education People. Mark Enser has been a geography teacher for the best part of two decades as well as a head of department and research lead. He is the author of Making Every Geography Lesson Count and Teach Like Nobody's Watching as well as a TES columnist.

Over the past century, educational psychologists and researchers have posited many theories to explain how individuals learn, i.e. how they acquire, organize and deploy knowledge and skills. The 20th century can be considered the century of psychology on learning and related fields of interest (such as motivation, cognition, metacognition etc.) and it is fascinating to see the various mainstreams of learning, remembered and forgotten over the 20th century and note that basic assumptions of early theories survived several paradigm shifts of psychology and epistemology. Beyond folk psychology and its naïve theories of learning, psychological learning theories can be grouped into some basic categories, such as behaviorist learning theories, connectionist learning theories, cognitive learning theories, constructivist learning theories, and social learning theories. Learning theories are not limited to psychology and related fields of interest but rather we can find the topic of learning in various disciplines, such as philosophy and epistemology, education, information science, biology, and – as a result of the emergence of computer technologies – especially also in the field of computer sciences and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, machine learning struck a chord in the 1980s and became an important field of the learning sciences in general. As the learning sciences became more specialized and complex, the various fields of interest were widely spread and separated from each other; as a consequence, even presently, there is no comprehensive overview of the sciences of learning or the central theoretical concepts and vocabulary on which researchers rely. The Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning provides an up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the specific terms mostly used in the sciences of learning and its related fields, including relevant areas of instruction, pedagogy, cognitive sciences, and especially machine learning and knowledge engineering. This modern compendium will be an indispensable source of information for scientists, educators, engineers, and technical staff active in all fields of learning. More specifically, the Encyclopedia provides fast access to the most relevant theoretical terms provides up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the most important theories within the various fields of the learning sciences and adjacent sciences and communication technologies; supplies clear and precise explanations of the theoretical terms, cross-references to related entries and up-to-date references to important research and publications. The Encyclopedia also contains biographical entries of individuals who have substantially contributed to the sciences of learning; the entries are written by a distinguished panel of researchers in the various fields of the learning sciences.

Leadership in Education is an evocative, forward-looking text that is grounded in years of research gathered in hundreds of schools and across districts. The text calls teachers, supervisors, and school administrators to action in the classroom, demonstrating effective leadership skills that affirm mutual respect, build trust, stimulate reflection, strengthen partnerships, and use inquiry to direct action. Building multi-faceted and nuanced links between educational leadership, school improvement, teaching effectiveness, and student learning, this succinct and compelling guide offers highly effective strategies for provoking meaningful growth in the classroom. The authors guide the reader through the process of using generative dialogue in leadership roles, from provocation to reflection, a shift in thinking, and implementation of highly effective leadership practices. The volume reinforces the ethical responsibility of educators to focus on practices that provide optimal learning environments for all students. Both an academic resource and an interactive manual, Leadership in Education features literature reviews, suggested readings, a glossary, thought provocations, and case studies with reflection questions to encourage deeper learning. Grounded in lived experiences and brimming with real stories of educators, this critical guidebook is ideal for graduate students in education and leadership programs.

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 important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.

This Handbook reviews a wealth of research in cognitive and educational psychology that investigates how to enhance learning and instruction to aid students struggling to learn and to advise teachers on how best to support student learning. The Handbook includes features that inform readers about how to improve instruction and student achievement based on scientific evidence across different domains, including science, mathematics, reading and writing. Each chapter supplies a description of the learning goal, a balanced presentation of the current evidence about the efficacy of various approaches to obtaining that learning goal, and a discussion of important future directions for research in this area. It is the ideal resource for researchers continuing their study of this field or for those only now beginning to explore how to improve student achievement.