How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice

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I gained some satisfaction from knowing that I am already applying many of the ideas presented here.

The authors have produced a text that will aid teachers to appreciate and correctly use the science necessary to improve their practice. Kirschner is Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands as well as Guest Professor at the Thomas More University of Applied Science in Belgium.

Ultimately, the kind of rigidity you need to pump millions of students through the school system every year is the antithesis of the kind of flexibility that nurtures inspiration. As for books, he is co-author of How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology, Evidence Informed Learning Design, Urban Myths about Learning and Education and More Urban Myths about Learning and Education as well as of the highly successful book Ten Steps to Complex Learning, and editor of two other books (Visualizing Argumentation and What we know about CSCL). It’s no surprise that one of the most popular videos about him on YouTube has the words “fun” and “imagine” in the title. The misconceptions are correct and the criticisms sound, but the refutations are largely unsupported by references.

There are some “famous” (in the realms of educational psychology at least) academics here: Sweller, Rosenshine, Wiliam and Black; and there are some not so famous, such as Rothkopf and Pintrich.The information offered alongside each seminal article, with ready links to external resources, does a wonderful job of providing practical guidance on how these well-established findings might be used to inform teaching practice and design and develop the best learning experiences for students.

is Emeritus Professor Educational Psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands, Guest Professor at the Thomas More University of Applied Science in Mechelen, Belgium, Honorary Doctor (Doctor Honoris Causa) at the University of Oulu, Finland, and owner of kirschner-ED which carries out educational consultancy, masterclasses for teachers, school heads and educational policy makers, and keynotes/presentations at conferences and other educational get-togethers.

Kirschner and Hendrick bring together 28 of these works and their most important discoveries, as independently verified in the wider scientific community. This is done by breaking down each key work into sections on why you should read it, the abstract, the article conclusions and implications, how to use it in your teaching and lastly, the key takeaways. But, unless we stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before us, each generation is doomed to rediscover what their ancestors painstakingly uncovered. It will be adored by many and I hope it introduces some to the complexity of psychology and the study of cognition.