Customer Reviews

How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice

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Perhaps this may be preaching to the choir, but the people who are reading this book probably already know how people learn. The people who need to read this book are the bad, burned out teachers who fail in their role as educators. With that in mind, I believe that this book has a lot to say to many. Unfortunately, what it said, I already knew. Research done by John Dewey and Howard Gardner demonstrated a lot of what this research has to say already.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book dealt with misconceptions. Every students that walks into a classroom, walks into the room with misconceptions. Teachers give the students facts that dispute these misconceptions, but rarely replace the misconceptions. It is only when teachers make students active in disproving a misconception that the students actually internalize the truth. This is where the American educational system fails miserably. For example, most teenagers still believe impeachment means removal from office. When you prove Bill Clinton was never removed from office, they can actually see evidence that disputes their misconception. How else could we have proven the Earth was not flat before space travel? Demonstrating through learning which required thinking to prove a misconception wrong.