1 An Introduction to the

Learning Sciences
R. Keith Sawyer

The learning sciences (LS) is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching

and learning. Learning scientists study a variety of settings: not only school
classrooms, but also the more unstructured learning that takes place at home,
in communities and families, on the job, with peers, and while using apps on
computers, smartphones, and web browsers. The goal of LS is to better
understand the cognitive and social processes that result in the most effective
learning and to use this knowledge to redesign classrooms and other learning
environments so that people learn more deeply and more effectively. The
name “learning sciences” is pluralized with an “s” because the field is interdis-
ciplinary: it draws on cognitive science, educational psychology, computer
science, anthropology, sociology, information sciences, education, design
studies, instructional design, and other fields. In the 1980s and 1990s,
researchers who were studying learning from these various perspectives real-
ized that they needed to develop new scientific approaches that went beyond
what their own discipline could offer, and they began to collaborate with other
disciplines. The collaboration among disciplines has resulted in new ideas,
new methodologies, and new ways of thinking about learning. LS was born in
1991, when the first academic conference was held and the Journal of the
Learning Sciences was first published. The conference and the journal grew in
size and influence during the 1990s. In 2002, the professional society was
formed, the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). In
2006 the first edition of this handbook was published, followed by the second
edition in 2014, and this third edition in 2022.
By the twentieth century, all major industrialized countries offered formal
schooling to all of their children. When these schools took shape in the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries, scientists did not know very much about how
people learn. Even by the 1920s, when schools became the large bureaucratic
institutions that we know today, there still was no sustained study of how
people learn. As a result, the schools we have today were designed around
commonsense assumptions that had never been tested scientifically:
• Knowledge is a collection of facts about the world and procedures for how to
solve problems. Facts are statements like “The earth is tilted on its axis by
23.45 degrees” and procedures are step-by-step instructions like how to do
multidigit addition by carrying to the next column.

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 2 r. k ei t h saw y er

• The goal of schooling is to get these facts and procedures into the student’s
head. People are considered to be educated when they possess a large collec-
tion of these facts and procedures.
• Teachers know these facts and procedures, and their job is to transmit them
to students.
• Simple facts and procedures should be learned first, followed by progressively
more complex facts and procedures. The definitions of “simplicity” and
“complexity” and the proper sequencing of material is determined either by
teachers, by textbook authors, or by asking expert adults like mathemat-
icians, scientists, or historians – not by studying how children actually learn.
• The way to determine the success of schooling is to test students to see how
many of these facts and procedures they have acquired.
In the 1960s, this traditional vision of schooling was critically analyzed by
the Brazilian education theorist Paolo Freire, who metaphorically called it the
“banking” concept of education – because knowledge is “deposited” in the
learner’s head like money in a bank account (Freire, 1968). Learning scientists
often refer to this traditional pedagogy as instructionism following a similar
critique of it by Seymour Papert, the pioneering constructionist theorist and
the creator of the Logo programming language for children (Papert, 1993).
Instructionism was designed to prepare students for the industrialized econ-
omy of the early twentieth century by ensuring they would become compliant
and efficient workers (see Chapter 33, Conclusion). In 1900, about 95 percent
of jobs were low-skilled and required workers to follow simple procedures that
were designed by others. By 2020, in advanced economies, less than 10 percent
of jobs were like this. Many working-class factory jobs have been taken over
by computers and robots (Sawyer, 2019). A century ago, in a world without
communication technology – without phones and the Internet – it was not
easy to find someone else who knew the information you needed; you had to
know it yourself. Memorizing information was a large part of being educated.
With today’s Internet, everything that can be memorized is a quick search
away. Instructionism fails to educate students to participate in this new kind
of society.
Economists and organizational theorists have reached a consensus that today
we are living in a creative age, an economy which is built on knowledge work
(Bereiter, 2002; Drucker, 1993). In the creative age, memorization of facts and
procedures is not enough for success. Educated graduates need a deep concep-
tual understanding of complex concepts and the ability to work with them
creatively to generate new ideas, new theories, new products, and new know-
ledge. They need to be able to critically evaluate what they read, to be able to
express themselves clearly both verbally and in writing, and to be able to
understand scientific and mathematical thinking. They need to learn to engage
with diverse populations within their country and internationally. They need to
learn integrated and usable knowledge, rather than the sets of compartmental-
ized and decontextualized facts emphasized by instructionism. They need to be

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 3

able to take responsibility for their own continuing, life-long learning. They
need to develop creativity, because uncreative tasks can be automated. As
Freire (1968) put it, “knowledge emerges only through invention and re-
invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men
pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other” (p. 57). These abilities
are important to the economy, to the continued success of participatory dem-
ocracy, and to living a fulfilling, meaningful life (Partnership for 21st Century
Skills, 2015; Sawyer, 2019; Trilling & Fadel, 2009).
Beginning in the 1980s, a new science of learning was born – based in
research emerging from psychology, computer science, philosophy, sociology,
and other scientific disciplines. As scientists closely studied children’s learning
and adult learning, both inside and outside of school, they discovered that
instructionism was deeply flawed. By the 1990s, after about twenty years of
research, learning scientists had reached a consensus on the following basic facts
about learning (Sawyer, 2019):
• The importance of deeper conceptual understanding: Expert knowledge
includes facts and procedures, but simply acquiring those facts and proced-
ures does not prepare a person to use that knowledge creatively. Factual and
procedural knowledge is only useful when a person knows which situations to
apply it in and how to modify it for each new situation. Instructionism results
in a kind of learning that is difficult to use outside of the classroom. When
students gain a deeper conceptual understanding, they learn facts and
procedures in a much more useful and profound way that transfers to
real-world settings.
• Connected learning: Each small piece of knowledge is linked to many others,
in the same subject and also across disciplines, in a network of related
knowledge. Scientific expertise is organized into complex bundles of know-
ledge, not a simple list of isolated facts (Sawyer, 2019; diSessa, Chapter 6 in
this volume).
• Focusing on learning in addition to teaching: Students cannot learn deeper
conceptual understanding simply from teachers instructing them better.
Students can only learn this by actively participating in their own learning.
The new science of learning focuses on student learning processes.
• Designing learning environments: The job of schools is to help students learn
the full range of knowledge required for expert adult performance: facts and
procedures, of course, but also the deeper conceptual understanding that will
allow them to reason about real-world problems. LS has identified the key
features of those learning environments that help students learn deeper con-
ceptual understanding, including adults, teachers, and a variety of tools and
materials. The tools may be as simple as paper and pencil or as complex as
augmented-reality goggles.
• The importance of groups and contexts: Students often learn more effectively
when they participate in collaborative activities with peers and the teacher,
with the teacher guiding an improvisational knowledge-building process

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 4 r. k ei t h saw y er

(Scardamalia & Bereiter, Chapter 19 in this volume; Tabak & Reiser,

Chapter 3 in this volume).
• The importance of building on a learner’s prior knowledge: Learners are not
empty vessels waiting to be filled. They come to the classroom with precon-
ceptions about how the world works; some of them are basically correct, and
some of them are misconceptions. The best way for children to learn is in an
environment that builds on their existing knowledge; if teaching does not
engage their prior knowledge, students often learn information just well
enough to pass the test, and then revert back to their misconceptions outside
of the classroom (Pellegrino, Chapter 12 in this volume).
• The importance of reflection: Students learn better when they express their
developing knowledge – either through conversation or by creating papers,
reports, or other artifacts – and then are provided with opportunities to
reflectively analyze their state of knowledge (Winne & Azevedo, Chapter 5
in this volume).
The traditional role of educational research has been to tell educators how to
achieve their curriculum objectives, but not to help set those objectives. But
when learning scientists went into classrooms, they discovered that schools were
not teaching the deep knowledge that underlies intelligent performance. By the
1980s, cognitive scientists had discovered that children retain material better,
and are able to generalize it to a broader range of contexts, when they learn
deep knowledge rather than surface knowledge, and when they learn how to use
that knowledge in real-world social and practical settings (see Table 1.1).
Learning scientists take many different disciplinary approaches and use a
variety of methodologies. But regardless of the approach, LS research is rigor-
ous and scientific. Learning scientists gather data using rigorous methodologies
that have been validated by a community of scholars. They analyze and
interpret data using scientific argumentation and reasoning. They interpret
research findings using theoretical frameworks that enable generalizations
beyond the specific research site. Of course, a single research study can examine
only a small phenomenon – one student, one learning outcome, one classroom,
or one community. But when the study is published, the researchers describe
how the findings from this one context can be generalized beyond that context
to have relevance for the larger community of learning researchers. Studies are
considered to be more influential and impactful when they are generalizable to a
broader scope of learners, contexts, and learning outcomes. To the extent that
findings are claimed to be generalizable, those general findings are expected to
be reproducible in later studies. If the findings are not reproduced, the validity
of the original study must be examined more closely, or the generalizability
claims must be relaxed. Findings and interpretations are subject to continued
examination and elaboration.
The findings reported in these chapters have been demonstrated to apply
broadly across cultures, ethnicities, classes, and nations; both inside and outside
of schools; and at all ages. There is no evidence that different students will

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 5

Table 1.1 Deep learning versus traditional classroom practices

Learning knowledge deeply (findings Traditional classroom practices

from cognitive science) (instructionism)
Deep learning requires that learners Learners treat course material as
relate new ideas and concepts to unrelated to what they already know.
previous knowledge and experience.
Deep learning requires that learners Learners treat course material as
integrate their knowledge into disconnected bits of knowledge.
interrelated conceptual systems.
Deep learning requires that learners Learners memorize facts and carry out
look for patterns and underlying procedures without understanding how
principles. or why.
Deep learning requires that learners Learners have difficulty making sense of
evaluate new ideas, and relate them to new ideas that are different from what
conclusions. they encountered in the textbook.
Deep learning requires that learners Learners treat facts and procedures as
understand the process of dialogue static knowledge, handed down from an
through which knowledge is created, all-knowing authority.
and they examine the logic of an
argument critically.
Deep learning requires that learners Learners memorize without reflecting on
reflect on their own understanding and the purpose or on their own learning
their own process of learning. strategies.

benefit from different pedagogy as a result of different “learning styles”

(Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2008). The existence of “learning styles”
is a popular myth in the United States (not usually encountered outside the
USA); the disproven claim is that each student has a unique and preferred style
of learning and that specialized instruction should be provided to each student
to match their learning style. Specifically, there is no evidence that some
students might learn better from instructionism. Freire (1968) argued that those
working toward social justice should reject instructionism: “The revolutionary
society which practices banking education is either misguided or mistrusting of
men . . .. Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in
its entirety” (p. 64). All students benefit from pedagogy aligned with the
research findings presented in this handbook – an active, participatory, con-
structivist pedagogy that Freire referred to as “problem-posing” education
(p. 68), a model of inquiry-based learning that has been supported by decades
of LS research.
The LS research community is extremely multicultural and multinational.
Across the three editions of this handbook, chapter authors come from fifteen
countries and four continents. The multicultural nature of LS – with research
conducted and applied across countries with dramatic cultural variations, from

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 6 r. k ei t h saw y er

the USA to Finland to Singapore – demonstrates how broadly applicable these

findings are across nationalities and cultures. The 2014 second edition has been
translated into Chinese and Japanese, countries with cultures dramatically
different from those found in the USA and in Europe. The editors of these
two translations report that these findings, even from research done in Western
countries, apply to their diverse cultures. Dr. Jun Oshima, translator of the
Japanese second edition, reports “the findings in the learning sciences are
generalizable to Japanese culture, schools, and students” (personal communi-
cation). Dr. Xu Xiao-dong, translator of the Chinese second edition, writes:
The results of the learning science research in this handbook established by
researchers in countries with different cultures from China, such as the United
States and Europe, have had a profound impact on the education and teaching
of Chinese primary and secondary school students in the upper grades (ages
from 8 to 18) and college students. It can be said that it has universal value for
practice in these areas . . . not only learners of different age levels, but also
learners of different cultural levels . . .. In China, compared with the ethnic
difference, regional and cultural differences are very large . . . the learning
principles and methodology established by learning scientists have universal
value across culture and ethnicity. (personal communication)

The ability to learn at a high level from quality, research-based pedagogy is a

common, shared feature of humanity. Professor Mark McDaniel, a coauthor of
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Brown, Roediger, &
McDaniel, 2014), reports that “the scientific principles of learning almost cer-
tainly hold universally across cultural groups” (personal communication). John
Dunlosky, coeditor of The Cambridge Handbook of Cognition and Education
(Dunlosky & Rawson, 2019), notes that “There is substantial evidence that many
findings in cognitive psychology and education are culturally universal. When
non-Western cultures are studied, the findings are essentially identical to the
findings from Western populations” (personal communication).
No studies have found that the research-based pedagogies in this handbook
result in less effective learning with one or another cultural group, ethnicity, or
nationality. All students learn better with these pedagogies. In addition, multiple
studies of US students in STEM classes have found that LS-based pedagogies are
more effective specifically with underrepresented minorities and reduce the
achievement gap with their majority-culture peers (Haak, HilleRisLambers,
Pitre, & Freeman, 2011; Theobald et al., 2020). Pedagogies based on LS research
improve learning outcomes for all students and contribute to equitable outcomes
for all students. Readers in all of the world’s countries, regardless of ethnicity or
cultural background, can benefit from the research presented in this handbook.

1.1 The Goals of Education and the Nature of Knowledge

In response to climate change, how can we reduce carbon emissions
while at the same time bringing millions of people out of poverty, which is likely

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 7

to increase their energy use? Should we allow genetically modified organisms to

be planted in third-world countries where they are likely to reduce the millions
of annual deaths caused by malnourishment and starvation? How should
society determine whether to approve a vaccine against a deadly virus, when
a handful of recipients seem to become sick after taking it, and yet if the vaccine
is not approved, thousands more will die? Today’s public debate about such
controversial issues shows a glaring lack of knowledge about scientific practice.
As a result, too often these issues are resolved through politics and uninformed
opinion rather than scientific discourse.
By the early 1900s, major industrial countries had all realized the import-
ant role that science and engineering played in their rapid growth, and many
scholars began to analyze the nature of scientific knowledge. In the first half
of the twentieth century, philosophers came to a consensus on the nature of
scientific knowledge: scientific knowledge consisted of statements about the
world and logical operations that could be applied to those statements. This
consensus was known as logical empiricism (McGuire, 1992; Suppe, 1974).
Logical empiricism combined with behaviorist psychology to provide a
scientific basis for the traditional instructionist approach to education: scien-
tific knowledge consisted of facts and procedures – that is, statements about
the world and logical operations that could be applied to those statements –
and teaching was thought of as transmitting the facts and procedures to
students.
Beginning in the 1960s, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists
began to study how scientists actually did their work, and they increasingly
discovered that scientific knowledge was not simply a body of statements and
logical operations. In this new view, scientific knowledge is an understanding
about how to go about doing science, combined with deep knowledge of
models and explanatory principles connected into an integrated conceptual
framework (Scardamalia & Bereiter, Chapter 19 in this volume; Songer &
Kali, Chapter 24 in this volume). Learning scientists often refer to these
different conceptions of knowledge as different epistemologies. The practice
of science involves experimentation, trial and error, hypothesis testing, debate
and argumentation. Science involves frequent encounters with peers in the
scientific community. Scientists evaluate other scientists’ claims and think
about how best to support and present their claims to others. Learning
scientists refer to these different ways of using knowledge, acquiring know-
ledge, and applying knowledge as epistemological practices. In Table 1.1, the
two columns describe two different epistemologies, two different conceptions
of knowledge and learning.
In this new view, scientific knowledge is contextualized, it emerges from
historically and socially determined professional activities, and it is collabora-
tively generated. Newcomers become members of a discipline by learning how
to participate in all of the practices that are central to professional life in that
discipline. The traditional science classroom, with its lectures and step-by-step
lab exercises, leaves out these elements of science. But this kind of knowledge

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 8 r. k ei t h saw y er

would be extremely useful to the general public as they read reports of an

experimental drug in the daily paper, as they discuss with their doctor the
potential risks of an upcoming surgery, or as they evaluate the health risks of
a proposed industrial development near their neighborhood.
Increasingly, cutting-edge work in the sciences is done at the boundaries of
disciplines; for this reason, students need to learn deep and connected know-
ledge – the underlying models, mechanisms, and practices that apply across
many scientific disciplines. It is almost impossible to learn this sort of deep
understanding from the disconnected and isolated short-term units that are
found in instructionist science classrooms – moving from studying the solar
system to studying photosynthesis to studying force and motion, without ever
learning about connections among these units.
This new view of scientific knowledge has been extended beyond science to
other forms of expert knowledge work. For example, literacy scholars have
discovered that advanced literacy involves much more than knowing which
sounds correspond to which letters; literacy involves knowing how to partici-
pate in a complex set of literate practices – like cooking while reading a recipe,
searching the Internet to learn whether you should buy a particular product, or
writing an email to a colleague (Smagorinsky & Mayer, Chapter 27 in this
volume). The chapters in Part V, “Learning Disciplinary Knowledge,” focus on
the nature of deep knowledge in each discipline and on how LS findings can
help students attain those learning outcomes.
One of the most important findings of LS is that students learn deeper
knowledge when they engage in activities that are similar to the everyday
activities of professionals who work in a discipline. Authentic practices are
the keystone of many recent educational standards documents in many
countries. In history, for example, reforms call for learning history by doing
historical inquiry rather than memorizing dates and sequences of events:
working with primary data sources and using methods of historical analysis
and argumentation that are used by historians (Carretero & Perez-
Manjarrez, Chapter 26 in this volume; the US National Center for History
in the Schools, 1996). In science, the US Next Generation Science Standards
call for students to engage in the authentic practices of scientific inquiry:
constructing explanations, preparing arguments, and communicating and
justifying those explanations (Songer & Kali, Chapter 24 in this volume;
National Research Council, 2012).
Studies of knowledge workers show that they almost always apply their
expertise in complex social settings with a wide array of technologically
advanced tools along with old-fashioned pencil, paper, chalk, and black-
boards. These observations have led LS researchers to a situativity view of
knowledge (Engeström, Chapter 7 in this volume). “Situativity” means that
knowledge is not just a static mental structure inside the learner’s head;
instead, knowing is a process that involves the person, the tools and other
people in the environment, and the activities in which that knowledge is being
applied. This view takes us far away from thinking of learning as a solitary

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 9

student memorizing facts while listening to a teacher or while reading a book

in a library. In a situativity perspective, learners are always participating in
social practices, and learning occurs when patterns of participation in collab-
orative activity change over time (Rogoff, 1990). This perspective has led LS
to a focus on how children learn from collaboration (as discussed in the
chapters in Part IV, “Learning Together”).
Of course, students are not capable of doing exactly the same things as highly
trained professionals; when learning scientists talk about engaging students in
authentic practices, they are referring to developmentally appropriate versions
of the situated and meaningful practices of experts. One of the most important
goals of LS research is to identify exactly what practices are appropriate for
students to engage in and how learning environments can be designed that are
age-appropriate without losing the authenticity of professional practice.

1.2 Processes Involved in Learning

LS studies the small details of what is going on in a learning environ-
ment and exactly how they contribute to improved student performance. The
learning environment includes the people in the environment (teachers, learners,
parents, peers, and others); the computers in the environment and the roles they
play; the architecture and layout of the room and the physical objects in it; and
the social and cultural environment. Key questions include: How do different
learning environments contribute to learning, and can we improve the design of
learning environments to enhance learning? How can cultural and community
knowledge be enlisted to foster learning of students from diverse backgrounds
(Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in this volume)? How can we design materials and
activities that keep students motivated and sustain their engagement (Renninger
& Järvelä, Chapter 30 in this volume)?
Some researchers work on specific components of the learning environ-
ment – software design, the roles that teachers play, or the specific activities
each student performs. Chapter 2 refers to this type of research as elemental
because it examines the separate elements of the learning system (Nathan &
Sawyer, Chapter 2 in this volume). Other researchers examine the entire
learning environment as a system, and focus on more holistic questions:
How much support for the student should come from the teacher, the com-
puter software, or from other students? How can we create a classroom culture
where learners support each other? How can we ensure that the social prac-
tices of the classroom are aligned with the community-based repertoires of
practice (Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in this volume) that different groups of
children bring to the classroom? Chapter 2 refers to this type of research as
systemic. Learning scientists conduct research at both the elemental and the
systemic level of analysis, sometimes in the same research project.
The following research topics are discussed in many of the handbook chap-
ters, but especially in the chapters in Part I, “Foundations.”

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 10 r. k ei t h saw y er

1.2.1 How Does Learning Happen: The Transition from Novice to

Expert Performance
One of the legacies of early cognitive science research was its close studies of
knowledge work. During the 1970s and 1980s, artificial intelligence (AI)
researchers began to interview and observe experts with the goal of replicating
that expert’s knowledge in a computer program. Before it is possible to simulate
expertise in a program, the researcher has to describe in elaborate detail the
exact nature of the knowledge underlying that expertise. When AI researchers
became interested in education, they had to consider a new twist: How do
experts acquire their expertise? What are the mental stages that learners go
through as they move from novice to expert? This question was the purview of
cognitive development research, a group of researchers that combined develop-
mental psychology and cognitive psychology. Cognitive development has been
an important foundation for LS, including the influential theories of twentieth-
century psychologists like Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget (Nathan & Sawyer,
Chapter 2 in this volume). These researchers study how novices think and what
misconceptions they have; then, they design curricula that leverage those mis-
conceptions appropriately so that learners end up at the expert conception in
the most efficient way (diSessa, Chapter 6 in this volume).

1.2.2 How Does Learning Happen: Using Prior Knowledge

One of the most important discoveries guiding LS is that learning always takes
place against a backdrop of existing knowledge. Instructionist curricula were
developed under the behaviorist assumption that children enter school with
empty minds, and the role of school is to fill up those minds with knowledge.
But students do not enter the classroom as empty vessels, waiting to be filled;
they enter the classroom with half-formed ideas and misconceptions about how
the world works – sometimes called “naïve” physics, math, or biology (diSessa,
Chapter 6 in this volume). Many cognitive developmentalists have studied
children’s theories about the world and how children’s understanding of the
world develops through the preschool and early school years. The basic know-
ledge about cognitive development that has resulted from this research is critical
to reforming schooling so that it is based on LS.

1.2.3 Promoting Better Learning: Scaffolding

LS is based in a foundation of constructivism (Kafai, 2006). LS has convin-
cingly demonstrated that when children actively participate in constructing
their own knowledge, they gain deeper understanding, more generalizable
knowledge, and greater motivation. LS research has resulted in specific findings
about what support must be provided by the learning environment in order for
learners to effectively construct their own knowledge.
To describe the supports that promote deep learning, learning scientists use
the term scaffolding (Tabak & Reiser, Chapter 3 in this volume). Scaffolding is

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 11

support given to a learner that is tailored to that learner’s needs in achieving

their goals of the moment. The best scaffolding provides this support in a way
that helps children discover the answer on their own. Telling a child how to do
something, or doing it for them, may help them get the correct answer, but it is
not good scaffolding because the child does not actively participate in con-
structing that knowledge. Effective scaffolding provides prompts and hints
that help learners to figure it out on their own. Effective learning environ-
ments scaffold students’ active construction of knowledge in ways similar to
the way that scaffolding supports the construction of a building. When con-
struction workers need to reach higher, additional scaffolding is added, and
when the building is complete, the scaffolding can be removed. In effective
learning environments, scaffolding is gradually added, modified, and removed
according to the needs of the learner, and eventually the scaffolding fades
away entirely.

1.2.4 Promoting Better Learning: Externalization and Articulation

LS has discovered that when learners externalize and articulate their
developing knowledge, they learn more effectively (Collins & Kapur,
Chapter 8 in this volume; Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in this volume). This is
more complex than it might sound, because it is not the case that learners
first learn something and then express it. Instead, the best learning takes
place when learners articulate their unformed and still developing under-
standing and continue to articulate it throughout the process of learning.
Articulating and learning go hand in hand in a mutually reinforcing feed-
back loop. In many cases, learners do not actually learn something until they
start to articulate it – in other words, while thinking out loud, they learn
more rapidly and deeply than studying quietly.
This fascinating phenomenon was first studied in the 1920s by Russian
psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1970s, when educational psychologists
began to notice the same phenomenon, Vygotsky’s writings were increas-
ingly translated into English and other languages, and Vygotsky is now
considered one of the foundational theorists of LS (see Engeström,
Chapter 7 in this volume; Nathan & Sawyer, Chapter 2 in this volume).
Vygotsky’s explanation for the educational value of articulation is based in
a theory of mental development that is both social and psychological: he
argued that all knowledge begins as visible social interaction and then is
gradually internalized by the learner to form new thoughts and concepts.
The exact nature of this internalization process has been widely debated
among learning scientists; but regardless of the specifics of one or another
explanation, most learning scientists believe that collaboration and conver-
sation contribute to learning because they allow learners to benefit from the
power of articulation.
One of the most important topics of LS is how to support students in this
ongoing process of articulation. Learning scientists have discovered that

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 12 r. k ei t h saw y er

articulation is more effective if it is scaffolded – channeled so that certain kinds

of knowledge are articulated in ways that are most likely to result in useful
reflection (Tabak & Reiser, Chapter 3 in this volume). Students need help in
articulating their developing understandings; they do not yet know how to think
about thinking or how to talk about thinking. The chapters in Part IV,
“Learning Together,” describe several examples of learning environments that
scaffold effective learning interactions.

1.2.5 Promoting Better Learning: Reflection

One of the reasons that articulation is so helpful to learning is that it makes
possible reflection or metacognition – thinking about the process of learning at
the same time that you are learning (Winne & Azevedo, Chapter 5 in this
volume). Learning scientists have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of
reflection in learning for deeper understanding. Classrooms designed on LS
principles foster reflection by providing students with tools that make it easier
for them to articulate their developing understandings. Once students have
articulated their developing understandings, learning environments should sup-
port them in reflecting on what they have just articulated.

1.2.6 Promoting Better Learning: Building from Concrete to

Abstract Knowledge
One of the most well-known findings of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget
is that the natural progression of learning starts with more concrete information
that gradually becomes more abstract. For example, Piaget’s influence in
schools during the 1960s and 1970s led to the widespread use of “manipula-
tives,” blocks and colored bars to be used in math classrooms. Not every
important abstract idea that we teach in schools can be represented using
colored blocks, but the sophistication of computer graphics allows even abstract
concepts to be represented in a visible form.
LS has taken Piaget’s original insight and has developed computer software
to visually represent a wide range of types of knowledge. Even very abstract
disciplinary practices have been represented visually in the computer; the
structure of scientific argument can be represented (Andriessen & Baker,
Chapter 21 in this volume) and the step-by-step process of scientific inquiry
can be represented. One of the central benefits of museum learning, for
example in interactive science museums, is the presence of physical exhibits
that foster inquiry and exploration (Pierroux, Knutson, & Crowley,
Chapter 22 in this volume).
In the process of making the abstract concrete, well-designed software can
scaffold students in the articulation of rather abstract conceptual knowledge.
Their articulation can be visual or graphic rather than simply verbal. In many
cases visual and spatial understandings precede verbal understandings and can
be used to build verbal understanding.

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 13

1.3 Sociocultural Studies

After the burst of activity associated with 1970s AI and cognitive
psychology, by the 1980s many of these scholars had begun to realize that
their goal – to understand and simulate human intelligence in the computer –
was still very far off. The 1980s disillusionment with AI was so severe that it
was informally known as “the AI winter.” Researchers began to step back and
think about why the cognitive sciences had not been more successful. The
most influential answer was provided by a group of interrelated approaches
including the sociocultural, situative, and distributed cognition approaches
(Engeström, Chapter 7 in this volume; Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in this volume).
Socioculturalists began with the observation that all intelligent behavior was
realized in a complex environment – a human-created environment filled with
tools and machines, but also a deeply social environment with collaborators
and partners. Early sociocultural research unfolded in roughly four strands of
scholarship, each analyzing learning outside of formal schooling. The first
examined socialization – how children learn the norms and conventions of
their culture, or the valued social practices of their community. A second
strand of research focused on informal apprenticeship learning in non-
Western societies without formal schooling (diSessa, Chapter 6 in this volume;
also see Cole, 1996; Lave, 1988; Rogoff, 1990; Saxe, 1991). A third strand
examined the socially distributed nature of knowledge work – including
studies of navy ship navigation (Hutchins, 1995), of London Underground
control rooms (Heath & Luff, 1991), of office systems (Suchman, 1987), and of
air traffic control centers (Hughes, Shapiro, Sharrock, Anderson, & Gibbons,
1988). A fourth strand studied learning in museums and science centers
(Pierroux et al., Chapter 22 in this volume). Learning in all four of these
settings generally includes multiple individuals in complex role relationships
different from the authoritarian structure of the classroom. In these environ-
ments learning is hard to understand if one thinks of it as a mental process
occurring within the head of an isolated learner (Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in
this volume).
These four influences led LS to expand beyond a purely cognitive focus on
individual learning to also study learning in groups and contexts (Yoon &
Hmelo-Silver, 2017). This is why LS research takes place at two distinct levels
of analysis: the individual, or elemental, level, and the sociocultural, or sys-
temic, level (Nathan & Sawyer, Chapter 2 in this volume). The chapters in Part
IV of this handbook, “Learning Together,” focus on how groups and social
interaction contribute to learning, but many other chapters also include studies
of groups and contexts. The inclusion of both individual and sociocultural
perspectives is a hallmark of research in computer-supported collaborative
learning (CSCL), a field that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to study the
new collaboration and communication tools enabled by the Internet (Stahl,
Koschmann, & Suthers, Chapter 20 in this volume). As Stahl and Hesse (2006)
put it in the 2006 inaugural editorial of the International Journal of Computer

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 14 r. k ei t h saw y er

Supported Collaborative Learning, “We need theories of collaborative

interaction that are not necessarily based on individual learning models . . ..
We need methodologies that capture both micro-level interactions in
small groups and community-level developments as mediated by social prac-
tices” (p. 4).
Efforts to study cognition and culture together resulted in innovative meth-
odologies that allow the researcher to study situated social practices – visible
social and interactional patterns that combine people, cultural practices, and
material tools. Esmonde (2017) noted that this line of research studies how
learning “is distributed across the people, artifacts, and social relations in a
given context” (p. 13). The focus on situated social practice allows the
researcher to consider both individual and culture at the same time without
separating the two theoretically or methodologically.
Like the findings of cognitive psychology, the findings of sociocultural
research also have broad applicability to learning across countries, societies,
and cultures. In Chapter 29, “Learning as a Cultural Process,” Nasir et al.
report that LS findings contribute to our understanding of how learning inter-
acts with culture, noting the applicability across cultural contexts of LS research
on informal learning (Pierroux et al., Chapter 22 in this volume), scaffolding
(Tabak & Reiser, Chapter 3 in this volume), and making knowledge visible
(Collins & Kapur, Chapter 8 in this volume). And yet, although the processes
of learning are universal, the content of learning varies by culture and a
learner’s preexisting cultural knowledge impacts their learning trajectory.
A fascinating example is reported in Nasir et al. (Chapter 29 in this volume),
suggesting how LS research on argumentation (Andriessen & Baker,
Chapter 21 in this volume) can help to explain a culturally situated argumenta-
tion practice in Haiti known as bay odyans (p. 436) even though this practice is
very different from a Western “scientific” style of argumentation. When this
discourse practice was enlisted in a science classroom, it supported the learning
of biology and physics among Haitian-American youth. As a second example,
LS research showing the importance of articulation in metacognition implies
that learning is more effective when the classroom scaffolding of articulation is
aligned with the discourse practices that students use in their communities
(Nasir et al., Chapter 29 in this volume, in Question 3, “structuring occasions
for meta-level analysis,” pp. 587–588). Because different cultures may have
quite different discourse practices, equitable learning environments should be
designed not to favor any one set of cultural practices.
People always learn in social and cultural contexts, and explanations at both
the cognitive and the sociocultural levels of analysis can enhance our full
understanding of learning (Nathan & Sawyer, Chapter 2 in this volume). One
of the historical reasons that learning scientists began to expand their study
beyond the individual level of analysis is that they study all contexts where
learning occurs – not only in schools, but also with friends, families, and
communities. In these learning environments, “learning should be studied as
it occurs in everyday life” (Esmonde, 2017, p. 10).

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 15

1.4 Social Justice and the Learning Sciences

In most of the world’s countries there are structural features of
schooling that result in inequitable learning outcomes across different social
groups – whether ethnic, religious, racial, or socioeconomic class. In schools
that bring together students from different classes and cultural groups, many
school subjects are taught in ways that result in less effective learning for
students from non-dominant groups. The LS foundation in sociocultural frame-
works has made it a receptive home for scholars studying how schooling
reproduces social inequity and how pedagogy can be reformed to further social
justice and equity. LS research can help to explain the mechanisms whereby
learning environments result in inequitable learning experiences for members of
different groups. The cultural knowledge associated with one’s home culture is
often referred to as “repertoires” or “funds” of knowledge (Nasir et al.,
Chapter 29 in this volume). LS studies of situated social practice have found
that when a student’s repertoires of knowledge are not recognized and enlisted
in school practices, students of that culture will learn less effectively than
students whose funds of knowledge are aligned with the culture of the school.
As Vossoughi and Gutiérrez (2017) write, unequal social conditions are repro-
duced by “devaluing the cultural practices of historically marginalized groups,
thereby predicating academic success on cultural assimilation” (p. 142).
LS has been contributing its research to further goals of social justice for
many years. A first major contribution was in 2014, when the Journal of the
Learning Sciences published a special issue titled “Social Justice Research in the
Learning Sciences” (Tabak & Radinsky, 2014). Also in 2014, the International
Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) annual conference hosted a sym-
posium that later resulted in the 2017 book Power and Privilege in the Learning
Sciences: Critical and Sociocultural Theories of Learning (Esmonde & Booker,
2017b). In 2017, the annual learning sciences conference (CSCL 2017) had as its
theme “Making a Difference: Prioritizing Equity and Access in CSCL.” In
2020, shortly before the publication of this third edition, the International
Society of the Learning Sciences created the “Equity and Justice Committee.”
As committee cochair Kris Gutiérrez explained, there is “a long history of
learning sciences research on culture, identity, and social relations”
(Gutiérrez, 2020). Of the many fields that study teaching and learning, “the
learning sciences is uniquely positioned” to analyze interactions between learn-
ing and power, equity, and social justice, because of LS’s long-established
sociocultural foundation. The sociocultural tradition in LS “offers promise to
integrate a critical understanding of power with an analysis of learning”
(Esmonde & Booker, 2017a, p. 2). In 2020, just before this third edition was
published, the Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning (Nasir, Lee,
Pea, & de Royston, 2020) appeared; two of the editors are among the coauthors
of Chapter 29.
These important developments indicate that scholars who study inequities in
educational opportunity are finding value in a deeper understanding of the

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 16 r. k ei t h saw y er

science of how people learn. LS is necessary to design classrooms and schools in

ways that foster inclusion and equity. As summarized at the beginning of this
chapter, research shows that LS findings apply equally to all nationalities and
cultural groups, and that when LS-based pedagogies are used, they reduce the
achievement gap between privileged and nonprivileged students. We can no
longer justify providing inferior education – instructionist, scripted, and
authoritarian – to marginalized or nondominant groups on the grounds that
they are not able to learn from the research-based pedagogy presented in this
handbook.

1.5 Educational Technology

LS research often involves computer technology in some way. The
chapters in Part III, “Grounding Technology in the Learning Sciences,” each
focus on technologies with great promise to enhance student learning. These
chapters describe cutting-edge innovations that have been developed by learn-
ing scientists for research use and that are not yet available for widespread use
in schools. These are “proof of concept” prototypes that demonstrate the
potential of LS findings for the future of educational technology in schools.
The interest in the potential of computer technology to benefit learning extends
back to the founding of the field in the late 1980s and 1990s. In the 1991 first
issue of the Journal of the Learning Sciences (JLS), the inaugural editorial
anticipated articles on AI and computational models (Kolodner, 1991), and a
substantial proportion of the articles that have been published in JLS since then
involve learning environments that include computer hardware or software. In
a 2014 survey of 253 LS researchers, Yoon and Hmelo-Silver (2017) asked them
to list their areas of interest, and about two-thirds of them listed “learning
technologies” as one of their areas – the single most-listed area of interest. In a
2018 analysis of the concepts being taught in seventy-five LS graduate programs
internationally, 76 percent of the programs taught “Using technology to sup-
port learning,” which was the most widely taught concept (Sommerhoff et al.,
2018, pp. 333–334).
Learning scientists have found that computers only benefit learning when
they take into account what we know about how children learn, and when
they are designed to be closely integrated with teacher and student inter-
actions in the classroom. Educational software has too often been based on
instructionist theories, with the computer performing roles that are tradition-
ally performed by the teacher – with the software acting as an expert
authority, delivering information to the learner. Automated assessments –
whether grading of multiple-choice tests, or AI text-recognition to grade
brief one-sentence answers – likewise focus on the superficial learning of
instructionism; it has been incredibly difficult to automate assessments of
deep learning. In contrast, LS suggests that the computer should take on
more of a facilitating role, helping learners have the kind of experiences that

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 17

lead to deep learning – for example, helping them to collaborate or to

externalize and reflect on their developing knowledge.
Many of the chapters in this handbook describe the next generation of
educational software and technology – solidly based on the sciences of learn-
ing and designed in close collaboration with teachers and schools. Computers
are only used as part of overall classroom reform and only where research
shows they will have the most impact. Computer technology is central in LS
because the visual and processing power of today’s computers supports deep
learning:
• Computers can represent abstract knowledge in concrete form.
• Computer tools can allow learners to articulate and reflect on their developing
knowledge in a visual and verbal way.
• Computers can allow learners to manipulate and revise their developing
knowledge in a complex process of design that supports simultaneous articu-
lation, reflection, and learning.
• Internet-based networks of learners can share and combine their developing
understandings and benefit from the power of collaborative learning.
Over half of these chapters discuss technology but none of them are about
technology alone; the chapters situate technology in complex learning environ-
ment designs and LS theory. For example, the chapter on augmented reality
(AR) – which is new with this third edition – begins by introducing the technical
features of this exciting new technology (Schneider & Radu, Chapter 17 in this
volume). But this chapter also provides examples of how AR can be integrated
within complex learning environments and how AR can help us think differ-
ently about learning beyond just that one technology. The chapters situate
technology within new teaching strategies, alternative ways of bringing students
together in collaborating groups, and new forms of curriculum that cross
traditional grades and disciplines.
In Chapter 33, the conclusion chapter, I discuss the trajectory of techno-
logical innovation over the period from the 1991 founding of the field to the
publication of this third edition and what LS research suggests about the future
of schooling.

1.6 Methodologies
Learning scientists ask questions like: How can we measure learning?
How can we determine which learning environments work best? How can we
analyze a learning environment, identify the innovations that work well, and
separate out those features that need additional improvement? In other words,
how can we marshal all of our scientific knowledge to design the most effective
learning environments? These questions are fundamental to scientific research
in education (Shavelson & Towne, 2002). The chapters in Part II,
“Methodologies,” each describe a scientific methodology that has been widely

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 18 r. k ei t h saw y er

used in LS research. Several of these methodologies were developed primarily

by learning scientists and are closely associated with research in LS.
In education research, one common methodology is the experimental
design, in which students are randomly assigned to different learning environ-
ments. Many education studies are also quasi-experimental – rather than
randomly assigning students to environments, the researcher identifies two
existing classrooms that are similar on most variables but different on the one
variable being studied. For example, two otherwise similar classrooms may
use two different teaching methods, and the researcher can analyze which
classroom’s students learn more and better (Shavelson & Towne, 2002).
Experimental and quasi-experimental designs can provide educators and
policy makers with important information about the relative merits of differ-
ent approaches. But they cannot tell us very much about why or how a
teaching method is working – the minute-by-minute structure of the classroom
activity that leads to student learning. If we could study those classroom
processes, we would be in a much better position to improve teaching methods
by continually revising them.
The chapters in this book use a diversity of methodologies: experimental
comparisons of classrooms, experiments in cognitive psychology laboratories,
studies of social interaction using the methodologies of sociology and anthro-
pology, and a new hybrid methodology known as design-based research (Barab,
Chapter 9 in this volume). In a 2014 survey of 253 learning scientists, only about
20 said they used exclusively quantitative methods, which include experimental
designs. The rest said they used either exclusively qualitative methods or a
mixture of both. The chapters in this handbook generally emphasize qualitative
methodologies, but also hybrid approaches that blend quantitative and
qualitative methods.
Learning scientists have discovered that deep learning is more likely to occur
in complex social and technological environments. To study learning in rich
social and technological environments, learning scientists have drawn on eth-
nography (from anthropology), ethnomethodology and conversation analysis
(from sociology), and sociocultural psychology (from both anthropology and
developmental psychology). Anthropological methods have been influential
since the 1980s, when ethnographers began to document exactly how learning
takes place within the everyday activities of a community (Hutchins, 1995;
Lave, 1988; Scribner & Cole, 1973; Suchman, 1987).
Many learning scientists study the moment-to-moment processes of learning,
typically by gathering large amounts of videotape data, and they use a range of
methodologies to analyze these videotapes back in the laboratory – a set of
methodologies known as interaction analysis (Enyedy & Stevens, Chapter 10 in
this volume). Interaction analysis is used to identify the moment-to-moment
unfolding of three things simultaneously: (1) the relations among learners, their
patterns of interaction, and how they change over time; (2) the practices
engaged in by the learners – individual and group procedures for solving
problems, and how they change over time; and (3) individual learning.

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 19

Learning scientists usually study individual learning along with the first two
kinds of change.
These qualitative methodologies are time-consuming and it is impractical to
repeat such studies in multiple classrooms. But deep knowledge cannot be
learned in one class session, so learning scientists use other methodologies to
study longer-term learning over the entire school year and even from grade to
grade (Nathan & Sawyer, Chapter 2 in this volume, pp. 43–44). During the
course of a research study, learning scientists continually shift their focus
closer and then farther back, studying the microgenetics of one classroom
(Sherin & Chinn, Chapter 11 in this volume) and then analyzing how that class
session contributes to the longer-term development of deeper conceptual
understanding.
LS research is complex and difficult. A typical LS project takes a minimum of
a year as researchers work closely with teachers and schools to modify the
learning environment, allow time for the modification to take effect, and
observe how learning emerges over time. Some projects follow learners and
teachers for several years as that teacher introduces new activities and software
tools to each successive class. After the years of observation are complete, the
hard work continues, because the researchers have a huge amount of video
data – in some cases hundreds of hours – that needs to be closely watched
multiple times. A subset of the videos may be transcribed for even more detailed
analyses that may include quantitative coding and statistical analysis.

1.7 The Emergence of the Field of Learning Sciences

In the 1980s, many research centers, institutes, and universities in the
United States were drawing on cognitive psychology and AI to design software
that could promote better learning (e.g., Bobrow & Collins, 1975; Sleeman &
Brown, 1982). Roy Pea recounted the following history of LS in the United
States in Reflections on the Learning Sciences (Pea, 2016; also see Hoadley,
2018): In 1987, John Seely Brown and James Greeno were cofounders, along
with David Kearns, CEO of Xerox, Corp., of the Institute for Research on
Learning (IRL) in Palo Alto, California. At about the same time, Vanderbilt
University’s Center for Learning and Technology (Nashville, Tennessee) was
applying cognitive science to develop technology-based curriculum, and
Seymour Papert’s Logo group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT: Cambridge, Massachusetts) was building constructivist learning environ-
ments on the computer. There were several other research groups, and each
took a different approach: Bank Street (New York) and BBN (Boston,
Massachusetts) focused a bit more on technology; IRL and Xerox PARC
focused a bit more on sociocultural context; Pittsburgh’s Learning Research
& Development Center focused more on human development; Schank’s
Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwestern (Chicago, Illinois) focused on
corporate training systems (Pea, 2016).

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 20 r. k ei t h saw y er

During this period, these various researchers came together to start the
Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) conferences that are still held today.
In 1987, Northwestern University (Chicago) decided to make a major commit-
ment to this emerging field, and hired the prominent cognitive scientist Roger
Schank from Yale University to lead what became known as the Institute of the
Learning Sciences (ILS). In Summer 1989, Roger Schank, Allan Collins, and
Andrew Ortony began to discuss the idea of founding a new journal that would
focus on applying the cognitive sciences to learning. Janet Kolodner was chosen
as the editor of this new journal, and the first issue of the Journal of the Learning
Sciences was published in January 1991. In 1991, Roy Pea created the first LS
doctoral program at Northwestern University, with a focus on “Cognition,
Computing, and Context” (Pea, 2016, p. 53). LS doctoral programs grew in
number through the 1990s (Packer & Maddox, 2016). Also in 1991, the AI and
Education conference was held at Northwestern University, and Schank
renamed it the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (Birnbaum,
1991). But the newly formed LS community and the AI and Education com-
munity found that they had somewhat different interests, and the AI in
Education annual conference reverted to its name in 1992. The second LS
conference was held in 1996, this time independently of AIED. In 2002, the
ISLS was founded to bring together both LS and the field of CSCL.
After the ISLS formed in 2002, it sponsored separate conferences for each of
its two research communities: the International Conference of the Learning
Sciences (ICLS) conference (in even years) and the CSCL conference (in odd
years). Twenty years later, in 2021, the two conferences joined to become a
single unified ISLS annual conference, albeit with two distinct strands for the
two fields. This inaugural joint conference was hosted in Bochum, Germany
and was held virtually due to the danger posed by the highly communicable
Covid-19 virus.
The ISLS sponsors two official journals, one representing each of these
historical strands: the Journal of the Learning Sciences, founded in 1991, and
the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning,
founded in 2006. Although the above origin story for LS is centered in the
United States, these two affiliated research areas have been increasingly inter-
national since these early years: In 1997, the CSCL conference was first held
outside the USA, in Toronto, Canada, and in 2008, the ICLS conference was
first held outside the USA, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Since 2008, the annual
conference has met in different countries each year, with every other year hosted
in the USA. The 2006 first issue of the International Journal of Computer-
Supported Collaborative Learning had contributions from scholars in Brazil,
Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the
United States (Stahl & Hesse, 2006).
This is a rich history for a field that is only thirty years old. For newcomers to
the field – many of the readers of this book – thirty years may seem like a long
time ago. But compare this to other social science disciplines such as sociology,
anthropology, and psychology, which began to form in the nineteenth century.

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 An Introduction to the Learning Sciences 21

LS today is a fully formed academic discipline, and that is a sign of how rapidly
it has grown and how productive its scholars have been in the past thirty years.

1.8 Conclusion
The schools of the future must be based in LS research. Too often have
educational reforms been driven by social fads or political beliefs that are
disconnected from LS. Whereas politics makes things seem simple, science
reveals their true complexity. The scientific findings from LS research are rich,
complex, deep, and numerous. This handbook is 746 pages and it could have
been much longer – each chapter author had to work hard to identify the few
core ideas and the most representative case studies from among hundreds of
scientific publications on the topic.
The strength of LS is that it provides us with an understanding of the deep
and complex questions at the foundation of education. Learning scientists are
engaged in the hard work that has to be done before any educational reform or
innovation can be successful. Whether in an expensive private school or a free
public one; whether online or face-to-face; whether students communicate
through the Internet or by shouting to each other in a forest school; LS provides
the explanations for how learning takes place and provides recommendations
for how to design those environments to result in more effective learning.
Success for all students depends on the continuing advancement of the learning
sciences and the dissemination and implementation of its findings. The research
in this handbook can change lives.

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