Review by Choice Review
Phye has edited and contributed to a book that will be essential reading among those who study learning. More than explicating learning theories, as Gorden H. Bower and Ernest R. Hilgard's highly regarded Theories of Learning (1981) did for a generation of learning theory students, the contributors discuss the evolution of constructivist theories and explain their emergence and application. The foci include constructivist approaches to teaching the different K-12 disciplines, development of cognitive skills, and most unusually for books on learning, approaches to assessing both learning and the potential to learn. The inclusion of the assessment section makes this book particularly notable among texts on learning theory. That discussion, placed in the final section of the book, integrates well with the other topics partly because assessment issues are first raised much earlier in the fifth chapter. Some of the early reading is quite demanding, but all the sections fit well together, and the four parts of the book make up an important, comprehensive whole. The contributor (Williams) who voices concern that readers might err in "concentrating on individual bricks at the expense of the buildings" ought to feel reassured. Upper-division undergraduates and higher. D. E. Tanner; California State University, Fresno
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
