Chapter 1, page 3
Waggoner, Chinn, Anderson, & Yi, 1995), on improving students’ thinking and writing in sixth- and
eighth-grade social-studies classes (Chinn & Flynn, 1999), and on improving students’ science
achievement in elementary and middle schools (Chinn, Duschl, Duncan, Pluta, & Buckland, 2008b; Pluta,
Buckland, Chinn, Duschl, & Duncan, 2008a). In each of these projects, teachers, principals, and
supervisors have been enthusiastic about the new, research-based ways of teaching that we have
introduced. The teachers working with us have found that their students are capable of far higher levels of
performance than they had imagined. Indeed, when a group of seventh grade teachers participating in my
most recent project presented some of their students’ work at a recent state science convention (Ambos,
Buckland, & Hung, 2007; Robbins, Piegaro, & Chinn, 2007), some of the middle-school teachers in the
audience expressed amazement (and even disbelief!) that the work had been done by seventh graders,
rather than by older students.
The research literature is filled with many, many examples of how classrooms and schools can be
transformed through applying the findings of contemporary educational research (e.g., Britt & Aglinskas,
2002; Chinn, in press-a; Hapgood, Magnusson, & Palincsar, 2004; Langer, 2001; Lehrer & Schauble,
2004; R. Slavin, in press; C. L. Smith, Maclin, Houghton, & Hennessey, 2000; Wilkinson, in press; T.
Wood & Sellers, 1996). Many studies document the high levels of student learning and engagement that
result when teachers apply instruction grounded in educational research. Educational researchers have
developed ideas that can transform teaching and make a tremendous difference in the lives of their
students. In writing this textbook, my overarching goal is to help you master many of these ideas so that
you can apply them to your own teaching.
THE STRUCTURE OF THIS TEXTBOOKThis textbook has four units: theories of learning and development (chapters 2, 3, and 4),
influences on learning (chapters 5, 6, and 7), instructional goals and assessment (chapters 8 and 9), and
creating effective learning environments (chapters 10 through 15). This organization of units and chapters
has grown out of my thinking about what teachers need to know to be effective teachers. We’ll discuss the
rationale for this organization in this section.
Unit 1: Theories of Learning and Development
Immediately after this introductory chapter, we begin Unit 1, which presents an overview of
theories in three main areas: theories of learning, theories of cognitive development, and theories of social
development. Theories in all of these areas can inform educational applications to teaching. There is no
one-to-one relationship between theories of learning and educational applications. Most of the educational
applications we discuss in this book are closely related to two or more of the theories of learning and
development. For example, recommendations about the best study strategies for students to use are closely
related to theoretical ideas developed within several different theories of learning and development. My
goal is to help you see how important educational applications are related to multiple theories.
To achieve this goal, we will first set the stage by examining the important theories of learning
and instruction. Later we will examine how the theories are jointly applied in educational applications.
The first three chapters provide a basic overview of theories of learning, theories of cognitive
development, and theories of social development. In later chapters, we will note how different educational
applications are related to one or more of the theories that you have studied in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. For
instance, when we discuss instructional methods for using groups effectively in Chapter 16, we will note
how different methods are related to the different theories of learning that we have examined in Chapter 2,
different theories of development examined in Chapter 3, and different theories of social development
examined in Chapter 4.
One of the features of this textbook is especially designed to help connect educational applications
to the theories in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. This feature is the “Link to Theories” feature that recurs