How People Learn
Dr. John Bransford , Centennial Professor of Psychology and Education and Co-Director of the Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt University - January 30, 2002
Abstract:
In order to enhance learning, we need to understand it. A great deal of theoretical and empirical progress toward this goal has been made during the past 30 years. Much of this progress is summarized in a recent report from the National Academy of Science entitled How People Learn. (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 1999).
Learning is a basic, adaptive function of humans. More than any other species, people are designed to be flexible learners and active agents in acquiring knowledge and skills. Much of what people learn occurs without formal instruction, but highly systematic and organized information systems - reading, mathematics, the sciences, literature, and the history of a society - require formal training, usually in schools. Over time, science, mathematics 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 it's applicability to situations outside school.
If education is to help students make sense of their surroundings and prepare them for the challenges of the technology-driven, internationally competitive world, it must be based on what we know about learning and teaching. This presentation will summarize some results of research in human learning and what this body of knowledge suggests should be the direction of education in the next 10 years.
Bio:
John D. Bransford is Centennial Professor of Psychology and Education and Co-Director of the Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt University. Early works by Bransford and his colleagues in the 1970s included research in the areas of human learning, memory and problem solving, and helped shape the "cognitive revolution" in Psychology. Author of seven books and hundreds of articles and presentations, Bransford is an internationally renowned scholar in cognition and technology.
In 1984 Bransford was asked by the Dean of Peabody College at Vanderbilt to help begin a Learning Technology Center that would focus on education. The Center has grown from 7 people in 1984 to approximately 70. During that time, Bransford and his colleagues have developed and tested a number of innovative computer, videodisc, CD Rom and Internet programs for mathematics, science and literacy. Examples include the Jasper Woodbury Problem Solving Series in Mathematics, The Scientists in Action Series, and the Little Planet Literacy Series, Many of these programs are being used in schools throughout the world.
Bransford and his colleagues have won numerous awards. His Ph.D. dissertation won honorable mention in the national "Creative Talent Awards" Contest; several of his published articles (co-authored with colleagues) have won "article of the year" awards in the areas of science education and technology. The Little Planet Literacy Series, which Bransford helped develop, has won major awards including the 1996 Technology and Learning Award and the 1997 Cody award for Best Elementary Curriculum from the Software Publishers Association.
Bransford and his colleagues are partners in a Technology Challenge Grant awarded to the Nashville School System. This project uses the technology programs that Bransford and his colleagues have developed, plus programs developed elsewhere, to restructure k-12 education according to research-based principles of human learning. The Young Children Literacy Series plays an especially important role in the Challenge Grant.
Bransford served as Co-Chair of a National Academy of Science committee on "New Development in the Science of Learning", (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 1999). The goal was to synthesize new findings from research to create a "user friendly" theory of human learning. Issues of using technology to create learning communities are prominent in this work.
Bransford and his colleagues have received four different "article of the year" awards and have won numerous awards for their technology innovations. Bransford received the Sutherland Prize for Research at Vanderbilt, has been elected to the National Academy of Education, and was awarded the Thorndike award for 2001.