The Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain - Softcover

Kevin D. Washburn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0984345906 ISBN 13: 9780984345908

Publisher: Clerestory Press, 2010

Synopsis

Become an Architect of Learning! (blueprints included). The brain constructs new learning, sorting and labeling new data, comparing it with prior experience, and using resulting understandings to interact with the environment. Written for teachers, educational leaders, and instructional designers, this guide presents tools for developing teaching that engages the student thinking needed to construct learning. With applied research from neuroscience and cognitive psychology, The Architecture of Learning introduces a series of blueprints that strategically direct a teacher s thinking and planning. The resulting instruction capitalizes on the brain s penchant for patterns and moves students from recognizing a reference point for constructing new understanding to using new learning to think about and act on the real world. The Architecture of Learning addresses: Understanding how students learn, building blocks of learning, subject matter types and focus processes of learning, aligning learning, teaching, and assessment, critical and creative thinking in teaching and learning, evaluating and revising instruction

About this title

About the Author

Kevin D. Washburn, (Ed.D.), is Executive Director of Clerestory Learning/Make Way for Books LLC, author of the Architecture of Learning instructional design model and its training program, the Writer's Stylus instructional writing program and co-author of an instructional reading program used be schools across the country. Dr. Washburn specializes in instruction and curriculum. His experience as a teacher in elementary through college level classrooms combines with his penchant for reading and research in educational and scientific areas to uncover important implications for learning. Whether speaking in the classroom or convention setting, writing, or blogging, he conveys a passion for quality teaching and authentic learning.

Review

Like architecture, learning is not attained by happenstance, but is a matter of design. Great design arranges and utilizes necessary elements to meet the needs of the environment and achieve its purpose. Like an architect, Kevin provides a blueprint that shows us how to carefully build the bricks of learning (experience, comprehension, elaboration, application, and intention) into a master plan that constructs meaningful learning. Architecture of Learning offers a blueprint for us to become masterful designers of learning. --Rob Jacobs, Blogger Education Innovation

Teachers enter classrooms with a toolbox full of instructional strategies. These tools of the trade are often haphazardly and ineffectively used when there is not a clear plan for instruction or a clear understanding of the process of learning. The Architecture of Learning instructional design allows teachers the opportunity to effectively put their tools to work to become master craftsmen of teaching as they design instruction that builds learning. Teachers trained to use this research-based instructional model learn to become draftsmen (of instructional blueprints), architects (of instructional design and concepts), builders (of learning) and inspectors (as they assess learning, provide feedback for improvement, and look for the essential elements of the learning process). We have used this model of instruction at our school for several years and can truly say that the Architecture of Learning instructional design has improved classroom teaching and, more importantly, has produced long-lasting learning that endures beyond the final exam! --Tasha Holliday, Asst Head of School, First Presbyterian Day School Jackson, MS

When students become engaged with subject matter and are given opportunities to think and interpret, they retain more knowledge and understand it more deeply. The Architecture of Learning is a welcome book at this time in our development of mind, brain, and education connections. This book provides neuro-logical and teacher-friendly guidance for designing instruction that aligns with current research in how the brain learns. --Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed. Author of Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning

Edition details

• Publisher: Clerestory Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0984345906
• ISBN 13: 9780984345908
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286