Book Review: How Learning Happens (Kirschner & Hendrick)
By Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel
A few weeks ago, Paul Kirschner contacted us and said that he co-wrote a new book with Carl Hendrick and wondered whether we would be interested in reviewing it in form of a blog post. So, here I am now, sitting in my living room: laptop on my lap, book by my side, and ready to do this.
“How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice” is the title of the book and the authors collaborated with Oliver Caviglioli who provided his wonderful illustrations. The book covers all important science of learning topics in a unique way. Instead of going from chapter to chapter and introducing the topics as you would in a textbook, this book uses published papers as anchors for each chapter. Each chapter reviews one representative paper on the topic and explains why you should read this article, provides an abstract of the article, summarizes the article in an accessible way (this part is often supported by helpful illustrations), discusses implications for educational practice, offers ideas on how to use the work in your teaching, and concludes with the most important take home messages. I really enjoyed this very structured approach of how the chapters are designed. Each chapter offers a range of suggested readings and useful links in the end – many of them can be easily accessed by scanning a QR code. Brilliant for the tech savvy who want to get their fingers on the additional resources as fast as possible.
Image from Pixabay
As mentioned above, the book covers all essential aspects of learning and teaching. Just to list a few topics that demonstrate the wide range discussed in this book: novices versus experts, self-efficacy, problem-solving, feedback, learning context, educational myths, and many more. When I first saw the table of contents, I was curious how the authors had accomplished to create a coherent book, but once you start reading it the connections become clear. However, at the same time, the book allows you to pick a chapter of your choice and interest and dive in right away. Thus, if you want to learn more about – let’s say – feedback you can move to chapter 20 (“Feed up, feedback, feed forward”) and understand it – without having read the preceding chapters. The authors provide all important details that the reader needs to understand each chapter independently, but, of course, you will get the most out of the book if you read them all.
Image from Pixabay
Personally, I think this is a massive strength of this book. Very often I do not have the time to read educational books from cover to cover. So, being able to select certain chapters and obtain an understanding of the research behind a topic and practical recommendations, is a huge advantage. Also, being able to point students or teachers to selective chapters is great, too. I will definitely add this book to the reading list for my Service Learning module – where students learn about different learning strategies and then create and deliver How-To-Study tutorials in local schools.
Taken together, this book contributes in a unique way to the professional development literature for educators and its clear structure supports understanding and implementation of the discussed learning and teaching concepts. The book can be accessed here.
References:
(1) Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How learning happens: Seminal works in educational psychology and what they mean in practice. Routledge.
