How Students Come to Be, Know, and Do: A Case for a Broad View of Learning (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)

Studies of learning are too frequently conceptualized only in terms of knowledge development. Yet it is vital to pay close attention to the social and emotional aspects of learning in order to understand why and how it occurs. How Students Come to Be, Know, and Do builds a theoretical argument for and a methodological approach to studying learning in a holistic way. The authors provide examples of urban fourth graders from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds studying science as a way to illustrate how this model contributes to a more complete and complex understanding of learning in school settings. What makes this book unique is its insistence that to fully understand human learning we have to consider the affective-volitional processes of learning along with the more familiar emphasis on knowledge and skills. Developing interest, persisting in the face of difficulty, actively listening to others’ ideas, accepting and responding to feedback, and challenging ideas are crucial dimensions of students’ experiences that are often ignored.

Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Learning Sciences and Human Development and Cognition Programs in the College of Education at the University of Washington. She teaches in the Elementary Master's in Teaching Program. Dr Herrenkohl studies the intellectual, social, and emotional aspects of children's development as science learners in formal and informal settings. She enjoys collaborating with practitioners to apply developmental theory to support the design of learning environments. Her work has been included in the national panel summary of school-based science learning, Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007) and was featured as one of twelve case examples in the volume on applying science research to teaching practice, Ready, Set, Science! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms (2008). She served on the oversight panel for the recently released Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments (2010). Dr Herrenkohl has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

Véronique Mertl is a doctoral candidate in human development and cognition in the College of Education at the University of Washington. Her research explores the social, affective, and contextual elements that influence learning, with a particular focus on collaboration and belongingness in and out of school. She currently studies professional and adolescent musicians. She seeks to understand musicians' interactions, networks, and trajectories, particularly how out-of-school art and music settings engage and empower youth. Mertl works as a researcher for the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center, a National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center. She is also a consultant for several music and arts organizations in the United States.