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Schools for Thought: A Science of Learning in the Classroom (Bradford Books)

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John Bruer wrote Schools for Thought as an overview of cognitive science demonstrated through select educational programs that incorporate research from the cognitive sciences into classroom practice. His argument is that "cognitive science can help us think about our educational problem...[and]...expand our educational problem space...[to]...help us see new possibilities and search for solutions in new ways." (p 290).

The book is well organized. Both the overall structure of the book as well as each individual section reiterate the belief that "if we understand the mental processes that underlie expert performance in school subjects, we can ask and answer other questions that are important for education. How do students acquire these processes? Do certain instructional methods help students acquire these processes more quickly or more easily? Can we help students learn better?" (p. 14)

Content specific sections in science, math, reading, writing, assessment, and teacher preparation provide evidence into the problems of current teaching practice, theory from cognitive science, and select examples that demonstrate what a restructured curriculum could resemble. "Knowing why" is a recurring theme in each of the sections that not only ties the concepts together, but motivates the reader to transfer the concepts into their professional practice. The organization gives those new to cognitive science a thorough overview while allowing experienced readers to quickly center in on their topic of interest. Schools for Thought is a valuable resource for anyone concerned about education and open to changing their views -- administrators, teachers, parents, legislators, etc.

However, just as Newton provides an accurate overview of the formulas for motion until the scientist needs the more precise formulas of Einstein, Bruer should be considered an accurate but limited overview. Other works expand on Bruer's concepts. For example, according to Bruer, "cognitive scientists claim that the human mind can be described as a computing device..." (p. 21) In 'Dynamic Memory Revisited', Schank points to subtle differences between human thinking and computing devices that should affect our approach to education. Similarly, Bruer states that "expert teachers incorporate routines" (p. 285), while in 'Teachers' Workplace', Rosenholtz cautions that a routinized classroom is characteristic of an ineffective school. Again, these are not intended to negate Bruer's claims, but to strengthen them on a more refined level.

Schools for Thought
Book Review
Joshua Wickline
3/29/06

Schools For Thought: A Science of Learning in the Classroom. There is a lot in this title about the meaning of the book itself. The first chapter of this book addresses the revolution which is still shaping the changing face of education today. In the last half century, the US Department of Education began taking reliable longitudinal data on a sample of students in the United States and their achievement in different subject areas. The sample, statistically, can be used for extrapolation to the entire nation's population of students. What they have found has been interesting. In the 1980's, the nation's youth were showing considerably less achievement than they had a decade before, and a nationwide concern resulted in sweeping changes in education policy. Stricter standards and higher expectations became the norm, and in the 1990's, United States students had reached a level of achievement equal to their level of achievement in the 1970's. Education reform had improved our schools, but seemed to only be capable of preserving a flat-line effect.
Outside the school system, the nation and the world continued to change and progress. The people, our systems of government, our technology, industries, and culture were becoming more complex and technical. If something weren't done, there could be no guarantee that our nation's youth would be able to meet the demands of an advancing society. Dramatic changes in the way we educated our young people were needed.
This dramatic shift in pedagogical thought actually was started in 1956 at a meeting of minds at MIT, when cognitive science itself was introduced as a vital alternative to behaviorism. In 1972, Newell and Simon released their book, Human Problem Solving, and brought forth the idea that to understanding learning relies on our ability to understand the way humans solve problems. In the end, the development of cognitive science as a discipline became the framework of current research in education policy, largely because it provides "a scientific basis for the improvement of instruction" because "it will tell us not just whether an instructional program succeeds, but why" (Resnick 1984, p. 37).
The meat of this book is organized into sections which address specific areas of education. The first of these sections is about the research on the fundamentals of thought and learning. The research demonstrates the existence of long term memory, short term memory, and working memory. It also delineates their constraints and elucidates ways of making them work to the advantage of the classroom. This section also references research which makes strong implications that human thought is related to computer thought. In solving any problem, there is an initial analysis of the task at hand, a need to operate within a set of rules, and an output which is usually logical relative to the set of rules under which it was generated.
The second section is Intelligent Novices: Knowing How to Learn, address our conceptions of what we believe intelligence and expertise actually are. The philosophical question is posed about whether or not an expert chess player would be suitable for the defense of a nation against invasion. The authors state, "If the goal of education is to develop our children into intelligent subject-matter experts, our predictions about the chess champion, based on what we believe about intelligence and expertise, have implications for what we should do in our schools." (Bruer 1993, p. 51). Research is analyzed and synthesized into models which represent the process of learning, and result in some practical advice for educators to help children learn better. Some of the most useful information has been a result of designing computer software which can solve problems and simulate human thought. There is also a discussion of weak methods and strong methods, two classifications for methods which result in learning. In short, weak methods are the skills that need to be mastered in order to learn new domain knowledge. Metacognition is another idea which is raised in this chapter, and simply states that awareness of a problem and control of a learning situation is needed for students to learn best.
The sections on mathematics spends much time on computer models for solving geometric problems, and computer programs for teaching geometry to students. There has been much success with these programs in their ability to educated students in the field of mathematics, and this is probably a result of the foundations of mathematics itself. Many of the problems associated with learning geometry are associated with "bugs" in our human software, or rules and logic tests that we have missed in our educational careers. Computer programs can identify these bugs in our human software easily because, as it turns out, the bugs we have are predictable. What would take a human teacher a large amount of effort to do for an entire classroom (the debugging) can be done relatively easily by a bank of computers. Another positive point for the computer programs is that they allow students to work at their own pace, allowing all students to progress as quickly as they wish.
In the following section, science is addressed through the lens of cognitive science. It is no coincidence that computer programs have been developed to aid in the learning of high school physics. It is a result of the largely mathematical and logical base of physics and a computer's ability to identify and rectify the bugs in human software which may lead to an inability to learn the subject of physics. Where computers may fail to aid in science instruction is outside the realm of physics, but there is research to guide us there as well. Many frustrations in learning science are encountered because of deeply held misconceptions students acquire as they go along their daily lives. Everyone observes different phenomena throughout their days, and we all find ways of justifying and explaining them to ourselves. When we have satisfied ourselves with an answer, we often stop probing, and upon further exposure to the phenomenon we remember our (misguided) explanation, and it becomes deeper and deeper ingrained. Therefore, when a science teacher explains a concept to you which does not conform to the misconception which you already hold, often you forget the science teachers correct interpretation because you were not truly challenging your own misconceptions. Cognitive science has shown that only by challenging our misconceptions can we really change them and advance in science learning.
Bruer continues to discuss reading, writing, and teacher assessment, all the while using cognitive science as his backbone for argument and suggestions in how to improve teaching and learning in America's schools. I believe that the strengths of this book are its comprehensive approach to the use of cognitive science in education reform, and its well-structured format. Bruer uses plenty of sound research to back up his claims, and behaves himself as both a scientist and a writer.




Bibliography:
Bruer, John T. Schools for Thought: A Science of Learning in the Classroom. 1st ed. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993.

The main premise behind the book is that the human mind works much like a computer. When a person is given a problem, whether the problem is which side of a scale will tip or what to have for dinner, Bruer suggests that the person will go through a prescribed set of binary steps, each step having one of two answers. When all of the steps taken in solving a problem are put together, they comprise a production system, which is likened to the processor in a computer. One of the studies that was evaluated in the book was done by Robert Siegler, and employed a specific balance-scale problem, where subjects had to predict which side of a scale would fall based on the weights and distances on each side. Siegler used this problem to evaluate the subjects' problem solving skills, asking them to solve a series of similar problems and talk their way through how they approached solving the problem. What was found in this study was that there exists a series of different production systems, and that the production system differed based on whether the subject was a novice or an expert. This lead to the conclusion that students must to be taught in a way that they see the errors in their production system so that they are able to modify it to produce the correct solution. The expert's production system produces the correct solution with 100% accuracy.

The theory presented in this section of the book is very interesting. It explains why many students make the similar mistakes on the same problems, and makes a good argument for evaluating problems similar to this using a cognitive science approach. However, it does not extend far beyond that. Bruer presents and interprets the research, and then simply tells the reader that "instruction . . . has to include teaching an effective strategy for encoding and remembering." Throughout this section he continues to tell the reader that teachers simply have to help students advance to the next cognitive level. Cognitive science shows that students need to be enabled to reach more thorough production systems, but Bruer does little to reveal exactly what teachers should do in their classrooms to encourage this.

In subsequent chapters of the book, Bruer tackles the specific subjects of math, science, reading, and writing, and how cognitive science research fits into each of these domains. The chapter dedicated to science focuses around seeing into the "mental black box", or figuring out what is going on in the brain of a student when they are learning science. A series of tricky problems were used to explore students' understanding of matter and Newton's laws. What was discovered, which is corroborated by the idea of scaffolding in science education, is that beginning at a very young age, children form science schemas in their mind to explain the world around them. Theses schemas may or may not be completely accurate. As a science teacher, one must determine what the students' preconceived notions are, and either build upon them or disprove them so that the students can formulate new schemas.

In the study of how children develop an understanding of matter, Smith, Carey, and Wiser went into schools and implemented a computer program to teach the students the concept of density. While the program proved to be wildly successful (scores from the pretest to the posttest increased by about 40%), the program has both pros and cons. One of the positive aspects of the computer program is that it appeared to make the concept very visual for the students, which can be difficult with vague concepts such as matter and density. The computer aspect of the learning also has its benefits. Most of the studies discussed in the book use various computer programs to teach concepts to the students, and in 1994, this was a novel idea. However, computers cannot replace some of the important benefits of an actual teacher. Where a book or a computer program can explain a concept one way, a teacher with a broad knowledge of his or her subject can explain a concept in many different ways, illuminating it to students who cannot learn from more traditional methods. Another problem with the study is that the program that was implemented spanned six weeks, which was admittedly longer than the classroom teacher had planned to spend on this topic. In the current culture of standards-based assessment, any science teacher would be hard-pressed to find six weeks in the curriculum to devote to the single concept of density. Finally, as before, Bruer fails to expound on exactly what about the program caused it to be so successful. If the reader knew how to recreate the cognitive approach to science learning that was used in the computer program, he or she may be able to produce the same success in the classroom, but the book is not explicit about how to use the information it is passing on.

Bruer reaches similar conclusions in many other studies, both in science and the other subjects. In a physics-based study, Barbara White and Paul Horwitz used a computer program call ThinkerTools to teach Newton's laws to sixth graders. The aim of the program was to target children's na?ve representations of the world around them, and address and mold these ideas. Once again, the program is successful, but Bruer does not give a sufficient analysis of why the program was successful and how teachers can mirror this in their own classrooms.

Overall the book brings up many good points about how the field of cognitive science can be applied to education to understand not only what the students are learning, but also what their entire thought processes are when they are solving problems. Theoretically, this can help teachers to target exactly what the difficulty is with certain subjects, and therefore more effectively educate their students. However, Schools for Thought is little more than a textbook for cognitive science in education, reiterating many successful studies in this field but rarely telling the reading the why and how. In the conclusion to the book, Bruer does bring up an interesting point. He suggests that much of a student's difficulty with certain problems is not in the solving of the problem, but in how it is approached in the first place. He states "poor initial representation makes it impossible to solve a problem," and goes on to say that "the initial representation can influence not only how we solve the problem, but also what we take to be a satisfactory answer." While most of the book focuses around how students approach and solve different kinds of problems, he applies this to educational reform, and suggests that society may be approaching the problem of education reform from the wrong direction. No matter what the problem, cognitive science is a logical way of looking at it that can provide definite answers.

Schools for Thought presents some interesting ideas on the learning process. It explores how we learn and uses some classroom experiences to show that the current ways that teachers teach some of the main subjects does not benefit students who are in need of help. Some of the programs presented in this book had some great results for all type of students. Both students in need and those are at grade level or beyond benefited from the programs. Besides the great results claims in this book, some of those programs are not currently used in schools today in the United States.
Overall, Schools for Thought was an interesting look at how to address some the problems that we face in education today. I agree with some of his programs like have better mathematics and science teachers at the lower grades and the process in which we learn but I have some problems with teaching science and mathematics by using computer programs. I think most students need a teacher to explain the material for them in the language that best suit that student learning style. The author needs to conduct better studies of his programs and if those studies prove that those programs are beneficial to all students, then he need to find a way to increment his program in all schools.

This book exposes the current inadequacy of teaching methodologies in classrooms and advocates for cognitive science as a direct and satisfactory answer to better education. The author, however, while explicating the essence of cognitive science, also makes constant reference to studies that are not documented, nor does he provide any criteria used for the studies that he uses to support his emphatic support for cognitive science. In the end, he also does not offer more than a generic alternative rather than a strategically outlined methodology.

Cognitive science parallels the human mind to computers in that they both use similar system in processing information. That is what is known as the theory of computation. Based on this premise, cognitive science studies how our mind works, how we think, remember and learn; alas the process by which one decodes, stores and remembers knowledge. The premise here is that that knowledge in a domain can help the learning process of a related one. In other words, we transfer knowledge; however, while some children naturally transfer knowledge, others need to learn how to do it. This is part of how cognitive science can improve teaching and learning. The cognitive science theoretical frameset is built upon the principle that learning occurs when we are presented with a problem: something for which we do not already have a schema that we can apply towards its understanding. We solve the problem by modifying existing memory structures (schemas) and implementing it with new information. In order to acquire new information our brain chooses operators that create a chain of stages of learning, which ultimately links the initial problem to its solution. These stages are called methods and are categorized in two types: weak methods and strong methods. The former require little or no knowledge of a specific domain, while the latter are knowledge-specific or domain-specific. Cognitive theorists determined that domain-specific methods were essential to expert performance and intelligence, yet they were not sufficient. In the `80s a new concept was introduced, that of metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to monitor one's metal processing, be consciously aware of the problem solving procedure in all its stages of performance. It was found that expert learner monitor their schematic association. It was also observed that some people naturally develop this skill, while others do not. Those who naturally make use of this advance learning practice are called intelligent novices: they are the students that we witness learning quickly and seemingly without efforts. It was consequently observed that there is one further step that distinguished intelligent novices. That is the ability to extrapolate from acquired knowledge and apply it to new information in an effort to formulate new problems and find new solutions for such problems. A practical example would be that of "scientists, scholars, artists and skilled mangers who all have to take what they know and stretch it to pose an answer novel problems. They have to transfer prior learning to new situations." According to cognitive science the most important implication of these discoveries is that for teachers and educators at large what is taught is equally important to how a subject is taught.

The research of cognitive science was conducted primarily in the field of mathematics, science, reading and writing. The general principles outlined previously were applied to each of these domains each of which is extensive covered in the book.

While the frameset of cognitive science is exposed in a manner that appears to be convincing, in my opinion in part because most of it seems to be merely common sense more than science; it must be noticed that no concrete date pertaining the conducted research is provided. The book has a considerable bibliography but no notes whatsoever. No researchable reference, or proper citation is provided for any of the reported observations, nor any background information is offered in terms of what kind of observations had been conducted and what level of reliability such observations carry. We do not know how large the sampling where, or what variable were exactly taken in consideration. In other words, we have absolutely no data to back the credibility of cognitive science from this book. There is no introductory remarks that generally state the sources for this book, nor is there an introduction to the book in which general guidelines as to how the research was compiled could have been outlined. While it has been noted during the presentation of this book that to an educated reader might be familiar with the most of the research referenced throughout the book, I believe it is unacceptable to assume that everybody reading the book is completely familiar with it. Furthermore, if this book was written a specifically target community, than it should not be assigned to an uneducated reader; yet, this book is used in classrooms throughout the States. This leads me to believe it was written for the general public consumption. Consequently, I stress the fact that the absence of proper footnoting is inadmissible. Additionally, proper citation is what makes a book reliable and gives the author credibility; while the contrary is exactly what debunks an author's research. If a scholar would rely only on School for Thought to make an educated assessment with regard to the viability of cognitive science, they would find them unable to make a dependable statement.

In addition to the lack of citations, I found this book poorly organized, redundant at best in its expository tactic and less than interesting. The author repeats himself numerous times stating what already stated over and over, and in an unorganized manner. His thoughts do not appear to be clearly translated on paper in a homogeneous discourse. School for Thought was difficult to read because there was not a fluid process linking the concepts exposed and what I found most ironic is the fact that the author uses himself as an example to exemplify the use of metacognintio in writing when he clearly has not done a good job at all at it.

Finally, the author fails to provide more concrete solutions to a "better teaching" than stating general and intuitive directions that are for the most part common knowledge. John Bruer states from the first pages of the book that a system to enhance teaching and to greatly improve learning performance is the aim of this book but the closest to it he comes is in saying that we still have a lot to learn and we have not quite yet figured out who to systematically apply cognitive science to the classroom.

I am sorry to say that my review of this book is highly negative and I would not recommend it to anybody: nor a novice like myself who would find themselves at a loss reading it, neither an educated reader of the subject who would probably want to have access to the sources in an effort to further their knowledge in any of the researches or facts stated throughout the book.