Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/How Students Learn


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. If people want to pursue a merge, that can be discussed on the talk pages. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

How Students Learn

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Doesn't meet WP:NBOOK or WP:GNG. Could possibly redirect, as one of its two editors is notable, but that could be misleading as article contains nothing on the book and he is only one of the editors. Boleyn (talk) 08:02, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 08:36, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 08:36, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:26, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. Notability (books) says: "A book is notable if it verifiably meets, through reliable sources, at least one of the following criteria:The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. This can include published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries, bestseller lists, and reviews. This excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the book." Here are reviews and other sources:    </li> <li></li> <li></li> <li></li> </ol>

<ol> <li> The review notes: "Picking up a book to read published by the National Research Council is not something every classroom practitioner of Clio might do. But the title of this work 'How Students Learn: History in the Classroom' intrigued this reader who was trained and mentored to be a career educator-historian. Classroom teachers, no matter what grade level, need to be experts in at least two fields—content and pedagogy. Building on the research on learning conducted in the 1990s, the editors of this volume shift their attention away from general learning research theory to a more focused one on history. The reader is informed that 'this volume highlights different approaches to addressing the same fundamental principles of learning.' The introductory and concluding chapters, penned by learning researchers, examine the learning environment, the design of instruction, and the intent and organization of the book. The reader is introduced to three large blocks of content: Understanding History, Teaching and Planning, and Applying the Principles of 'How People Learn' to work in the elementary, middle, and high school environment. Gary Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and the cast of thousands involved in the History Standards movement in the 1990s might see this work as an extension of their chapters on historical thinking skills. Much of the terminology, strategies, and concepts used in 'How Students Learn' will be familiar to the Standards makers. ... How Students Learn: History in the Classroom got me thinking about how teachers learn history and historical methodology. Unfortunately, unless teachers were exposed to great scholars who made them think while they were learning their profession whether content or pedagogy, today's classroom practitioners may well have been poorly taught and so have a deep hole out of which to climb. The National Research Council and this particular group of authors should be commended for producing a thought-provoking volume. Even those educators who already do a good job 'teaching history' can benefit by understanding the process of learning that is outlined in this book."</li> <li> The review notes: "This volume is the latest product from a sustained program of scholarship. The first book in the series—How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (NRC, 1999a)— was a broad, in-depth review of what is known about human learning and its implications for teaching. This was accompanied by How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (NRC, 1999b), which identified the research and development that was still needed in respect of classroom teaching and learning and suggested ways in which the outcomes could be communicated to teachers. The next step was the identification of “examples of how the principles and findings on learning can guide the teaching of a set of topics that commonly appear in the K-12 curriculum” (p. vii) at three levels (elementary, middle, and high school) and their publication in How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom (NRC, 2005). The present volume is a subset of the latter, concerned only with science, preceded by the Introduction and followed by the concluding chapter from the larger publication. It is accompanied by a CD-Rom that gives the full text of that volume. Before beginning a review of the present volume, it is worth remarking that science teachers would be well advised to look also at the material on history and mathematics. Given Jerome Bruner’s maxim that it is the task of pupils to extract an education from a course of instruction, teachers’ awareness of what is going on elsewhere in the curriculum is to be strongly encouraged. ... This volume contains many ideas and, indeed, an overall structure that can make a valuable contribution to science education. Although primarily intended (quite properly) for the U.S. market, it could inform other educational systems by a process of analogy. However, it will be difficult for the individual teacher to see how to apply its principles in a particular context. The book might therefore be used to greatest effect where mentoring support is available, e.g., in preservice, teacher-education programs. Alas, the volume is a second-order derivative from a larger enterprise. Thus there is a great deal of overlap between the first two chapters, while the last chapter is largely superfluous. Had the work of providing such a volume been seen as a first-order task, the space saved could have been more fruitfully used in the fuller exposition of some ideas, e.g. the presentation of illustrations of multicycles of inquiry. Moreover, it might have enabled the guiding structure of the volume to be more extensively illustrated in each chapter, perhaps allowing neglected themes, e.g. conceptual development or community-centeredness, to be addressed. While interview-based data are included in the text to good effect in developing ideas, other research is consigned to text boxes that will be ignored by many readers. The issue of how to communicate research findings to teachers has evidently not yet been solved."</li> <li> The review notes: "Three fundamental learning principles provide the framework for this text: (1) engaging prior understanding, (2) the essential role of factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks in understanding, and (3) the importance of self-monitoring. After introducing these principles in chapter 1, the remaining chapters describe effort so apply them in teaching K-12 mathematics. The goal of How Students Learn is not to prescribe methods or curriculum but to help teachers reflect on their practice through the principles of learning. Specific examples describe how various curriculum developers have done this in core mathematical topics such as the teaching of whole numbers, rational numbers, and functions. The accompanying research demonstrates the positive effects associated with using the principles in planning, implementing, and reflecting on mathematics instruction. Although certain chapters would be useful for preservice and in-service K-12 teachers (i.e., the whole numbers chapter for elementary teachers), the entire book is most appropriate for professional developers and teacher educators. I found the introductory chapters most useful and have already incorporated the principles and several referenced resources into my lessons for both preservice and in-service teachers with success. Although it was informative to read about how the authors of later chapters used the principles to inform the development of their curricula, thus far I have found these chapters to be less influential in my own practice. Still, I would highly recommend How Students Learn to anyone involved in the professional development of teachers at any level."</li> <li> The review notes: "How students learn was published in 2005. It takes the Principles and Framework from “How people learn”, and works them through in the context of three school subject areas (science, mathematics and history). Separate books have been published for each subject area, though the Preface and Introduction is the same in each book. Furthermore, the volume addressing science includes a CD‐ROM which contains the mathematics and history content. ... The real strength of this book is the way in which fundamental insights about science learning and teaching have been illustrated through examples of the practice of science teaching. Research reports of the design and evaluation of teaching in the academic literature would benefit from a similar approach. Throughout the book, the quality of the writing is excellent. I can imagine using the book to stimulate thoughtful, productive discussions with science teachers through professional development activities. ... Each set of authors give background references on the research that they drew upon, though the treatment of content is given rather little attention in the chapters. Unsurprisingly, the cited literature derives mainly from the USA."</li> <li> The review notes: "This book examines practical implications of research related to teaching and learning mathematics at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. It illustrates classroom- and curriculum-based examples of three fundamental principles of learning: that learning should engage students' existing understandings and preconceptions; that learning requires integration of both factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks; and that self-monitoring, or metacognition, facilitates learning. ... Although this book is quite complex, it is worth reading, especially the chapter by Fuson, Kalchman, and Bransford on mathematical understanding and Griffin's extensive consideration of whole-number knowledge and conceptual frameworks. These thoughtful commentaries begin to build an important link between what research tells us about how students learn, and what we can do in our classrooms to facilitate that learning."</li> <li> The review notes: "This article also engages with the research presented by Donovan and Bransford in ‘How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom’. As one of their three foundational principles, they write ‘new understandings are constructed on a foundation of existing understandings and experiences’ (Donovan & Bransford 2005:4). In order to construct the new understandings, it is crucial to investigate what the foundational understandings are. This follows from a broadly constructivist theory of learning (Scott & Hargreaves 2015:37–38). I argue that where the foundational understandings are imbued with ideology, this will impact all new understandings built."</li> <li></li> </ol>

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow How Students Learn to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 08:30, 30 March 2020 (UTC)</li></ul>
 * Keep, meets WP:NBOOK, as having been reviewed by multiple independent sources. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Query: is this a single book or three separate books? Reviews #1–5 listed by Cunard above refer to three distinct books, How Students Learn: History in the Classroom, How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom and How Students Learn: Mathematics in the Classroom, though #6 cites a single work entitled How Students Learn History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom and #7 appears to do the same, though I can't access it. WorldCat lists all four. Can anyone shed any light on this? If, as seems likely, these are three books that were also published simultaneously as an omnibus edition, is this a common format in this field and, if so, how do we deal with such works? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom (2001) is the 1st title published and covers all the subjects, the other three titles - How students learn: History in the Classroom (2005), How students learn: Mathematics in the Classroom (2005), and How students learn: Science in the Classroom (2005), are more specific (as the titles imply). a "Publication history" section could be added to cover these, also a "Reception" section could differentiate the various reviews for each title. Coolabahapple (talk) 06:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Having looked into it a bit more, it seems that you're right (though the 2001 date is incorrect – per the sources and WorldCat, How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom was published in 2005 and the others in the same year). As such, only two of the source identified by Cunard (#6 and #7) are directly relevant, the other sources being about closely-related but nonetheless different books. Source #6 contains significant discussion of this book, but we require multiple sources, so whether or not the book is notable would seem to depend on what source #7 has to say about it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to access that source or find out anything about it. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, agree about it being published in 2005, i based the 2001 year on the worldCat entries here but it looks like that it may have been the year of the individual contributions within the book, anyway i still reckon this is wikinotable, maybe the article could be reworked ie. "How Students Learn is a series of books ....." with reception section reflecting this etc etc. Coolabahapple (talk) 03:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that "How Students Learn is a series of books ....." is the best way to present the material about these books. Cunard (talk) 08:30, 5 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge to How People Learn. Even if this is an independently notable book or series of books, it is still clearly a spinoff of the other, and combining the information from both currently short and stubby articles will create a single more informative article. BD2412  T 20:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.