ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the productive tensions of efforts to look at learning, development, and expertise from individual "in the head" as well as socio-cultural perspectives. It draws on the importance of looking at multiple systems in which learning occurs, in particular the neural system and the motor/kinesthetic system reflected visibly in action and gesture. The book focuses on the increasing consideration in the learning sciences of the purposes and goals for which people interact with and try to make sense of the various forms of information that are ubiquitous in the 21st century. It describes approaches to designing learning environments that support learners' engagement in ways that lead to knowledge and dispositional outcomes that prepare them to be able subsequently to use what they have learned in conditions different from those of the original learning.
