Knowing When, Where, and How to Study Student Learning

Ann Brown modeled the process of determining when, where, and how to study student learning. This chapter illustrates how her work influenced the knowledge integration research program in a series of projects that she advised. The research carried out by the Computer as Learning Partner project (Linn & Hsi, 2000), the Knowledge Integration Environment project (Linn, Davis, & Eylon, 2004), and the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (Linn, 2006; Linn, Clark, & Slotta, 2003; Linn, Davis, & Bell, 2004) drew on Brown’s expertise to enable communities of learners to successfully integrate their ideas about scientific topics. This research program has, as a central goal, the promotion of knowledge integration – defined as the process of generating, adding, evaluating, and sorting out ideas (Linn, 2006).