Understanding How We Learn ─ Applying Key Educational Psychology Concepts in the Classroom

This succinct, jargon-free, and user-friendly volume offers faculty an introduction to 35 concepts from educational psychology that illuminate what’s going through the minds of learners as they grapple with new information.

The concepts are conveniently grouped under major topics, each introduced by a summary of the field, its origins, the latest relevant research, and the implications for teaching: Cognition and Thinking, Memory, Learning, Perceiving and Living in the World, Working in Groups, Motivation, and Perceptions of Self.

Within each section Todd Zakrajsek and Donna Bailey provide summaries of each key concept, explaining the terminology, its background, relevance to student learning, and offering ideas and tips for immediate application in teaching.

As an example, the entry on Cognitive Load – the amount of information that the brain can process at any given time, and beyond which further input becomes hard to process, and usually induces errors – explains its constituent elements, intrinsic, extraneous, and germane, and how they are triggered. The authors conclude with specific tips to reduce cognitive load, and strategies to help students encountering difficulties with complex new material understand and accept the need to budget energy and time for certain tasks.

This is an illuminating book for teachers seeking to understand student learning, offering a foundational understanding of educational terms often tossed about in discussions of student learning, and a range of solutions to challenges they commonly encounter in the classroom.