A Q&A on Learning Science with Dr. Robert Feldman

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending a dinner in Chicago alongside a group of leading researchers in the wide-ranging and evolving field of “learning science.”

Members of a panel we’ve assembled at McGraw-Hill called the “Learning Science Advisory Board," come from fields as diverse as psychology, data analytics and online learning. What brings them together in collaboration is a shared passion for understanding how people learn and how we can help students learn better.

The chair of our Learning Science Advisory Board is Robert Feldman, a longtime McGraw-Hill author and now Special Advisor to the Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And just this week, McGraw-Hill released a new book edited by Dr. Feldman – a collection of articles on learning science topics written by some of the top minds in the field, several of whom are on our board: Learning Science: Theory, Research, & Practice.

Given the release of this new book, I took the opportunity to ask Bob a few of my own questions about learning science.

Q: Could you define “learning science” for us?

Feldman: Learning science is a cross-disciplinary field that focuses on the scientific principles underlying learning, teaching, and educational practice. It’s a very broad and diverse discipline, one that encompasses psychology, data science, cognitive science, sociology, anthropology, and more. It also draws on a diverse array of methodologies, including adaptive learning, machine learning, and data analytics. The common thread is that learning science takes a scientific approach to understanding the learning process.

Q: In the opening to your preface of Learning Science: Theory, Research, & Practice, you say this is an exciting time for learning science. What makes it exciting?

Feldman: In a sense, learning science is in its adolescence as a field—not quite fully formed, and representing a period of turbulence and exploration of different identities as it begins to coalesce into a mature science. But I’d argue this dynamism is a very good thing, because it is the breadth of the field that gives it incredible energy as a variety of approaches, not always coordinated, are brought to bear on education issues. So even though there is a lack of agreed-upon theoretical approaches, boundaries, and research methodologies, researchers and theorists have free reign to draw upon a variety of approaches, which can produce rapid advances in learning science.

Q: Each chapter of the book is written by an individual or team of learning scientists. What are some common threads or themes that you saw woven throughout the chapters?

Feldman: First, it is clear that adaptive technologies, driven by advances in artificial intelligence and computational technologies, offer enormous promise in helping students to learn more effectively, efficiently, and deeply. Already we are seeing teaching technologies that not only respond to students’ success and failure and provide personalized learning pathways, but also take into account their affective and emotional states as embodied in the responses that they make.   

In addition, we’re developing a better understanding of what goes on in the classroom between students and teachers. By developing fine-grained analyses of the variables that affect student performance, not only will we be able to address the underpinnings of student success and how teachers can facilitate it, but we will be in a better position to promote teacher behaviors that address educational inequity.   

Finally, we’re also beginning to see ways in which a wide variety of scientific advances are filtering into the classroom and even influencing the way that future teachers are trained. I find it enormously heartening that educators are becoming increasingly adept at incorporating technology into their classrooms and are beginning to understand basic scientific principles of instruction.

Q: What do you hope the impact of this book will be?

Feldman: I am hopeful that the advances in learning science highlighted in the book will serve as an inspiration not only to researchers and educational theorists and policy-makers, but to everyday practitioners—instructors, curriculum designers, teacher trainers—who are on the frontlines of education. As I say in the book, we are on the cusp of a new era in education, and the potential and promise of learning science seems boundless as we address one of the most important questions of our time: How do we most effectively educate students to reach their full potential?