Preface

This volume is based on papers presented in June 1999 at the 30th Carnegie Symposium on Cognition. This particular symposium was unusual in that it was conceived in reference to the 1974 symposium entitled Cognition and Instruction (Klahr, 1976). The central question for that symposium was not so different from the basic question that we all still face: “What contributions can current research in cognitive psychology make to the solution of problems in instructional design?” Speakers discussed a variety of topics, including innovative strategies for instructional research, process and structure in learning, processes for comprehending instructions, and the development of what Robert Glaser dubbed “a linking science—a science of instructional design.”

A lot has happened since then, as the cognition and instruction components of the developing field have forged a reciprocal relation in which researchers and teachers have (a) applied cognitive science theories and methods to the complex world of the classroom, (b) built on advances in cognitive science to improve education, and (c) enriched cognitive science by studying effective instruction experimentally (Larkin, 1994).

Institutional developments have further strengthened the field. We have seen the establishment of interdisciplinary journals, teacher education courses, research funding initiatives, and research institutes with graduate training programs. In 1984, the journal Cognition and Instruction was founded as a vehicle for sharing cognitive investigations of instruction and learning, specifically cognitive analyses of instructionally relevant tasks and performance, theories of skill and knowledge acquisition, and theoretical analyses of instructional interventions. In 1991, the new Journal ofthe Learning Sciences initiated a multidisciplinary forum for presenting cognitively oriented research and discussion related to changing our understanding of learning and the practice of education. During this same period, many teacher-educators began to offer preservice courses that emphasized the links between theory, research, and practice.

The cognition-instruction link was substantially strengthened in 1987 when Jill Larkin of Carnegie Mellon and John Bruer of the James S. McDonnell Foundation initiated their innovative program in Cognitive Studies in Educational Practice (CSEP). CSEP offered large multiyear grants to encourage the development of collaborations between “bench psychologists” and educational researchers and teachers. CSEP further fostered such collaborations by holding annual miniconferences during which teams of grantees could interact with each other, to share both research advances and ideas for accomplishing the difficult task of close interdisciplinary collaboration. The two volumes resulting from the CSEP program (Bruer, 1993; McGilly, 1994) represent the type of synergy that promises to sustain the emergent field of Cognition and Instruction. After nearly 15 years of supporting this kind of research—both financially and intellectually—the McDonnell Foundation decided to terminate the CSEP program, suggesting that researchers in this now well-established field seek funding from the better endowed government agencies—such as the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. Indeed, the interest of these agencies in the new field is evidenced by the fact that they both enthusiastically supported the symposium on which this volume is based.

Although Robert Glaser's Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) provided an institutional venue for this kind of work long ago, several more recent institutional innovations have produced university research institutes and centers aimed at both encouraging exchange and collaboration among researchers, and training graduate students in this emerging interdisciplinary field. Such centers can be found at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Wisconsin—to name just a few.

So, with all of this activity … where is the field of Cognition and Instruction? How much progress have we made in 25 years? What remains to be done? The goal of this volume is to propose and illustrate some exciting and challenging answers to these questions. In choosing contributors, we sought a balance between senior researchers who participated in the original 1974 symposium, other established researchers who joined the field after that time, and new investigators with innovative and promising research programs. Finally, we decided to emphasize the challenges that we must face in the next 25 years and the inclusion of perspectives beyond what is commonly called Cognition and Instruction work. Chapters 6, 7, and 13 through 17 are based on the comments of discussants (Robert Siegler and Earl Hunt) and other invited speakers (Herbert Simon, Timothy Koschmann, Paul Cobb, Sam Wineburg, and Robert Glaser) that highlight research questions, methods, and contexts that will most productively expand and advance the field in the years to come.

This book is organized into five sections according to the primary focus of the chapter. Discussant comments and other invited addresses are included in the order they occurred to preserve the references between contributions that occurred at the symposium.

PART I: DEVELOPMENT AND INSTRUCTION

This section of the anniversary volume includes the topics most similar to the original symposium. In the past 25 years, detailed analyses of tasks, subjects' knowledge and processes, and the changes in performance over time have led to new understanding of learners' representations, their use of multiple strategies, and the important role of metacognitive processes. New methods for assessing and tracking the development and elaboration of knowledge structures and processing strategies have yielded new conceptualizations of the process of change. Kalchman, Moss, and Case (chap. 1) and Klahr, Chen, and Toth (chap. 3) extend their theoretical stances on cognitive development and their empirical findings in laboratory studies to the creation of effective instructional approaches. Kalchman, Moss, and Case focus mainly on preschool and elementary mathematics instruction, and Klahr, Chen, and Toth address problems of basic scientific reasoning among elementary school children. Lehrer, Schauble, Strom, and Pligge (chap. 2) have also moved from laboratory studies of isolated aspects of thinking to complex, embedded instructional procedures with an emphasis on model-based reasoning in mathematics instruction in elementary school.

PART II: TEACHERS AND INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Detailed cognitive analysis of expert teachers, as well as a direct focus on enhancing teachers' cognitive models of learners and use of effective instructional strategies, is another area that has seen tremendous growth and refinement in the past 25 years. Minstrell (chap. 4) is uniquely able to address the role of the teacher from the dual perspective of a teacher-researcher. Insights from his own learning process as a teacher studying cognitive science complement his research on diagnosing students' understanding and application of physics principles, and both highlight the key role of the teacher in the learning process. Palincsar and Magnusson (chap. 5) build on a long history of collaboration with teachers in the process of moving laboratory research relating cognition and instruction into the classroom, while maintaining both experimental control and ecological validity. They worked closely with educators to design and evaluate novel instructional materials and strategies to both model and support the development of scientific knowledge and reasoning.

Siegler (chap. 6) provides a sophisticated synthesis of the chapters in Parts I and II by focusing on their common “quest for meaning.” He suggests a research agenda that would provide evidence to support what he sees as important issues raised by the work described in those chapters: (a) how to assess “meaningful understanding of a domain,” (b) how to determine what levels of meaning are attainable by children at different ages, (c) how to inculcate a search for meaning in all children. Perhaps the answers to these questions will emerge in the next 25 years.

Herbert Simon in chapter 7, which is based on his keynote address at the symposium, articulates what is often an implicit—albeit fundamental—assumption in this area; “learning is one of the most important activities in which human beings engage, occupying a very large fraction of their lives and absorbing a substantial fraction of the national income” (p. 205). Then, having established the importance of the learning process, he reminds us of its location; “learning takes place inside the learner and only inside the learner” (p. 210). He then provides a concise history of methodological developments over the past 25 years or more that have enabled us to better understand the learning process— or, as he puts it, to “banish mysteries.” Some of the best of these tools are described in Part III.

PART III: TOOLS FOR LEARNING FROM INSTRUCTION

The impact of intelligent tutors, complex computer based instructional interfaces, internet and distance learning, and so forth, are an important feature of cognition and instruction research that did not exist in 1974. Anderson and Gluck (chap. 8), and Reiser, Tabak, Sandoval, Smith, Steinmuller, and Leone (chap. 9) demonstrate ways in which computer-based intelligent tutors have moved from being a laboratory research tool to a pragmatic instructional medium in several urban schools, with dramatic effects on learning. Lesgold and Nahemow (chap. 10), faced with the challenge of real-world training contexts, use computer technology to amplify and instantiate the venerable concept of learning by doing.

PART IV: SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF INSTRUCTION AND LEARNING

Both the shift to conducting a significant portion of the cognition and instruction research in real classrooms and the increased collaboration between academics and educators have brought the role of the social context to center stage. Lovett (chap. 11) emphasizes the importance of communication for successful multidisciplinary collaboration among her team of cognitive psychologists, statistics instructors, educational researchers, and instructional technologists whose goal it is to understand and improve undergraduates' statistical reasoning. Carver (chap. 12) discusses the large-scale integration of cognition and instruction at Carnegie Mellon's early childhood laboratory school. She suggests five cognitive “metaprinciples” that can be used to develop learning goals, program designs, and assessments for the preschool and kindergarten children, as well as ways in which the same principles can be applied to staff development, parent education, and undergraduate learning experiences.

Earl Hunt's comments (chap. 13) on Parts III and IV provide a cautionary note about the extent to which the science of cognition provides a basis for engineering instructional innovations. In addition, he suggests that we carefully examine many of the assumptions that underlie the “social engineering” that accompanies many instructional innovations in order to better understand the nature of collaborative work.

PART V: COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION: THE NEXT 25 YEARS

Koschmann (chap. 14) notes that, in the past 25 years, the community of psychologists interested in cognition and instruction has expanded substantially, such that the previously dominant “information processing” view is now challenged by quite a different perspective; that of “situated cognition,” and he utilizes a Deweyan framework to propose a resolution of the sometimes acrimonious debate among those who hold these different perspectives. Cobb (chap. 15) highlights and exemplifies the benefits of using design experiments, as opposed to traditional controlled experiments, within the social context of the classroom for developing theories of learning that account for the effects of broader factors, such as cultural diversity and institutional systems. Wineburg and Grossman (chap. 16) provide a case study of the significant ways that such factors affected their attempt to apply cognitive science principles to the development of a community among history and literature teachers who were planning to collaborate on developing curriculum materials for their urban high school students. Together, these chapters emphasize the challenges raised by the increasing integration of research and practice in the field of Cognition and Instruction. We look forward to the creative ways in which we and our colleagues will address these issues and advance the field in the next 25 years.

The final task, that of pulling it all together, would be overwhelming for most people. But, perhaps because he started it all over 40 years ago (Glaser, 1962/1965), Robert Glaser rises to the occasion in his concluding comments (chap. 17). He provides an interesting contrast between the first Cognition and Instruction volume (Klahr, 1976) and the present one, and he reiterates—with a more optimistic stance—Hunt's (chap. 13) theme of science-based engineering as the path to a future in which he anticipates a teaching profession empowered by modern knowledge of mature cognition and child development, and the related design of curriculum content and teaching methods.