Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl
Contact
Connect
Location
Room 4215
610 E. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259
Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl, Ph.D. is a Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Michigan. She is also a faculty member in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology. She is a developmental psychologist and learning scientist who is fascinated by how people learn. She brings a holistic, critical sociocultural approach to examining how people learn concepts, develop practices, and transform their participation in activities that matter to them. Dr. Herrenkohl’s current research focuses on human learning and pedagogical practice inside and outside of school, particularly in science related learning contexts.
As a designer of learning environments, Dr. Herrenkohl supports powerful learning that is conceptually rich, personally meaningful, and culturally relevant and sustaining. She creates learning environments inside and outside of school settings and then studies how people learn within them. In order to do this work, she partners with practitioners. These collaborations give her a deep appreciation for the need to integrate theory and practice and to conduct iterative research to better understand the impact of particular approaches and strategies.
One ongoing collaboration, STUDIO: Build Our World, was launched with support from the National Science Foundation in 2013. STUDIO is an afterschool STEM program that provides low income, immigrant, and refugee youth opportunities to develop interests, identities, and motivations to pursue further STEM learning. STUDIO built upon an existing youth leadership program within a multiservice community-based organization and is situated at the heart of a public housing community that provides many health, education, and job training services to youth and their families. University of Washington STEM undergraduates serve as mentors within STUDIO and attend a weekly seminar as part of their undergraduate studies. Dr. Herrenkohl has presented about the STUDIO model in many venues including conferences, NSF webinars, and the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. In 2015, she was invited to the White House for a Summit on Next Generation High Schools.
A current research project undertaken in the context of STUDIO (with colleagues Drs. Calabrese Barton & Davis) is a one-year study to document how youths, educators, and mentors learn the science of COVID-19 in real time. This includes how people activate their scientific knowledge towards informed decision making, how these processes change over time, and how this is shaped by equity concerns and contextual factors alongside other forms of knowledge. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Another current project (with colleagues Drs. Ball, Garcia, and Shaughnessy) is a five-year study focused on teachers’ facilitation of equitable discussions across the curriculum in elementary school contexts. This project investigates the impact of targeted teacher professional learning opportunities focused on leading equitable discussions on teachers’ pedagogical practices as well as their perceptions of their learning and practice. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Herrenkohl serves on the editorial board for the American Educational Research Journal, Cognition & Instruction, and Science Education. Her publications appear in Educational Researcher, Cognition & Instruction, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, Science Education, and Teachers College Record, among other outlets. She received her M.A. (1991) and Ph.D. (1995) in psychology from Clark University.
Courses
| Number | Course Name | Location | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EDUC 591 | Learning about How People Learn
This course would provide an introduction to major theories of learning and how they have guided educational practice historically and currently. Students will read texts written by featured theorists, and then analyze educational artifacts and learning environments to look for traces of various learning theories. In addition, students will explore how existing artifacts and learning environments might be altered to better align with different theoretical perspectives on learning. |
Selected Publications
"From a Social Constructivist to a Critical Decolonizing Sociocultural Approach: Unsettling Power, Privilege, and Oppression and Imagining the Future of Human Learning"
Herrenkohl, L. R., Jackson, A, Ten Brink, J., Easley, K., & Dellavecchia, G., Palincsar, A.S (in press). From a Social Constructivist to a Critical Decolonizing Sociocultural Approach: Unsettling Power, Privilege, and Oppression and Imagining the Future of Human Learning. Handbook of Educational Psychology. Oxford University Press.
"Community Infrastructuring as Necessary Ingenuity in a Pandemic"
Greenberg, D., Calabrese Barton, A., Hardy, K., Roper, A., Williams, C., Herrenkohl, L.R., Davis, E.A., & Tasker, T. (2020). Community Infrastructuring as Necessary Ingenuity in a Pandemic. Educational Researcher. DOI:10.3102/0013189X20957614
"Learning in community for STEM undergraduates: Connecting a learning sciences and a learning humanities approach in higher education"
Herrenkohl, L.R., Lee, J, Kong, F. Nakamura, S., Imani, K., Nasu, K. Hartman, A., Pennant, B, Tran, E., Wang, E., Eslami, N., Whittlesey, Daniel, Whittlesey, David, Huynh, T., Jung, A., Batalon, C., Bell, A., Taylor, K.H. (2019). Learning in community for STEM undergraduates: Connecting a learning sciences and a learning humanities approach in higher education. Cognition & Instruction. DOI: 10.1080/07370008.2019.1624549
"Navigating Fragility and Building Resilience: A School-University Partnership to support the Development of a Full Service Community School"
Herrenkohl, L.R., Napolitan, K, Herrenkohl, T., Kazemi, E., McAuley, L., & Phelps, D. (2019). Navigating Fragility and Building Resilience: A School-University Partnership to support the Development of a Full Service Community School. Teachers College Record, 121 (12), https://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 22922.
"Towards Teacher Preparation 3.0"
Napolitan, K., Traynor, J., Tully, D., Carney, J., Donnelly, S., & Herrenkohl, L.R. (2019). Towards Teacher Preparation 3.0. Teachers College Record, 121 (12), https://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 22922
"Learning within and beyond the disciplines"
Herrenkohl, L.R. & Polman, J. (2018). Learning within and beyond the disciplines. In Fischer, F., Hmelo-Silver, C.E., Goldman, S. R., & Reimann, P. (Eds.). International Handbook of the Learning Sciences. Routledge.
"Using Peer Feedback to Improve Students’ Scientific Inquiry."
Tasker, T. & Herrenkohl, L.R. (2016). Journal of Science Teacher Education, 27, 35-59.
Herrenkohl, T., Herrenkohl, L.R., Proulx, M., Benner, J., & Calvo, N. (2016). In SAGE Research Methods Cases. London, United Kingdom: SAGE Publications, Ltd.
"Learning and becoming in practice: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS)"
Morozov, A., Herrenkohl, L.R., Shutt, K., Thummaphan, P., Vye, N., Abbott, R.D., and Scalone, G. (2014). Emotional Engagement in Agentive Science Learning Environments. In Polman, J. L., Kyza, E.A., O'Neill, D. K., Tabak, I., Penuel, W. R., Jurow, A. S., O'Connor, K., Lee, T., and D'Amico, L. (Eds.) (Volume 2, pp. 1152-1156). Boulder, CO: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
"Learning and becoming in practice: The International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS)"
Gottlieb, E. Herrenkohl, L.R., Wortham, S., Rhodes, C., Packer, M.J., Gonzalez, M.R., and Sfard, A. (2014). Connecting Learning and Becoming: Studying Epistemologies and Identities as Interconnected, Dynamic Systems. In Polman, J. L., Kyza, E.A., O'Neill, D. K., Tabak, I., Penuel, W. R., Jurow, A. S., O'Connor, K., Lee, T., and D'Amico, L. (Eds.). (Volume 3, pp. 1247-1253). Boulder, CO: International Society of the Learning Sciences.
"The International Handbook of Collaborative Learning (pp. 333-350)."
"Cornelius, L. Herrenkohl, L.R. & Wolfstone-Hay, J. (2013). Organizing Collaborative Learning Experiences Around Subject Matter Domains: The Importance of Aligning Social and Intellectual Structures in Instruction. In Hmelo-Silver, C. E., O’Donnell, A.M., Chan, C. and Chinn, C. A. (Eds.) New York, NY: Taylor and Francis."
"Investigating Elementary Students’ Scientific and Historical Argumentation"
Herrenkohl, L.R. & Cornelius, L. (2013). Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22(3), 413-461.
"Developing Classroom Cultures of Inquiry and Reflection Using Web of Inquiry"
"Herrenkohl, L.R., Tasker, T., and White, B.Y. (2011) Cognition and Instruction, 29(1), 1-44."
"How students come to be, know, and do: A case for a broad view of learning"
Herrenkohl, L.R. and Mertl, V. (2010). Cambridge UK, New York City: Cambridge University Press.
"Inside AND Outside: Teacher-researcher collaboration."
Herrenkohl, L.R., DeWater, L.S., and Kawasaki, K. (2010). The New Educator, 6(1), 74-91.
"The comparative understanding of school subjects: Past, present, and future."
Stevens, R., Wineburg, S., Herrenkohl, L.R., and Bell, P. (2005). Review of Educational Research, 75(2), 125-157.
"Power in the Classroom: How the Classroom Environment Shapes Students’ Relationships with Each Other and with Concepts."
Cornelius, L. and Herrenkohl, L.R. (2004). Cognition and Instruction, 22, 467-498.
"Developing scientific communities in classrooms: A sociocognitive approach"
Herrenkohl, L.R., Palincsar, A.S., DeWater, L.S., and Kawasaki, K. (1999). Journal of the Learning Sciences, 8, 451-493.
"Participant structures, scientific discourse, and student engagement in fourth grade, Cognition and Instruction"
Herrenkohl, L. R., & Guerra, M. R. (1998). 16, 433-475.