ABSTRACT
This is the point of the book at which we come as close as possible to what goes on while a student is learning. It is not easy to penetrate the private world of someone coming to an understanding of an idea, and much of this chapter will discuss the ways this can be done, as well as what is found out. I once caught myself wishing I could attach electrodes to students’ heads to see what goes on when they learn. Never mind humanitarian principles of research investigation, or anti-reductionist beliefs about the nature of learning; it would be so wonderful to be able to see how their sense-making cognitive apparatus arrives at some of those weird outcomes. Retrospective interviews are a very unsatisfactory substitute. The fantasy deserves to be nothing more than that, but it does convey that sense of wanting to see the learning process from the students’ perspective, in all its complexity, and in such a way that we can make sense of it.
