An article by Sarah Bergsen, Erik Meester, Paul Kirschner and Anna Bosman

So-called ‘educational innovations’ in which the teacher assumes the role of ‘facilitator, mentor or coach’ do not appear to be very successful. Nevertheless, ‘constructivist’ ideas are still popular in education, as evidenced by the everlasting large number of minimally guided instructional practices. Sarah Bergsen, Erik Meester, Paul A. Kirschner and Anna Bosman say: “We could and should know better by now.”

Constructivism is not a pedagogy

Philosophers have enriched mankind with many new and meaningful insights, but as time progresses, new research might show us that some of these insights are flawed. For example, our physical world is not built from the four elements earth, air, fire and water but from atoms, and the appearance of organisms isn’t drawn from a transcendent world of Forms but from our genome. In other words: not all philosophical ideas are later confirmed by empirical evidence. This also applies to constructivism, which made its way from a theory of knowledge to a philosophy of education, and doesn’t seem to provide a sound basis for pedagogy.

Constructivism is a theory of knowledge emphasising that knowledge is the result of active construction of reality and not of passive representations of it. Proponents of this theory state that each individual maintains their own interpretation of their surrounding reality. Knowledge is thus a man-made construct in which the components of a complex idea are assembled into a concept (Bednar et al., 1991). The manner in which an individual sees and interprets reality depends on their own knowledge and personal history.

In educational settings, these concepts are then usually validated through social interactions with fellow students or the teacher; this is referred to as social constructivism (Ertmer & Newby, 2013). This results in the idea that knowledge cannot be directly transferred, leaving the value and meaning of explicit teaching of knowledge and skills within this philosophy unclear.

The rise of ‘the constructivist classroom’

Since the sixties, constructivist ideas have become more popular in education (see ‘Sputnik crisis’ below). This has led to a fertile environment for different recipes and formats of what is sometimes called ‘the constructivist classroom’ (see for Dutch examples, among others, Gerrits, 2004; Kok, 2003; Schouwenburg, 2015). At the core of the constructivist classroom, we often find project-based, problem-based or experience-based learning approaches. School concepts such as teaching via maker-spaces, open learning plazas, experiential learning, natural learning, personalised learning and learning centres are regarded as ‘educational innovations’. The common denominator is that these innovative schools (mostly) abandon classroom-based and teacher-directed learning environments and are moving more towards what they call a ‘learner centred’ approach.

The Sputnik Crisis

An unexpected factor, the Cold War, accelerated the introduction and dissemination of constructivist pedagogy. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, the Sputnik 1. This was a great shock to the west, and especially to the United States, which had hitherto considered itself to be scientifically superior to the Soviets (and of course the rest of the world). Subsequently, they felt that they had to quickly educate and deliver scientists and engineers. Educational policymakers assumed – without any concern as to whether their ideas were correct – that the best pedagogy was to copy the work methods of scientists and engineers (Kirschner, 2000).

This approach to learning and ‘teaching’, can, for example, be organised in the form of projects around a complex problem or issue. In this approach each project focuses on a certain topic or ‘big idea’. A group of students will then study this topic and then work out an assignment together, which they will eventually present to others. The assumption is that this will enable them to tap into – and further develop – generic or ‘broad’ skills, such as collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. The reasoning is that you learn more from the process or ‘experience’ than from learning specific knowledge and skills (which, according to some, are supposed to ‘have become obsolete in the rapidly changing 21st century world’).

What does this process actually entail? The students must actively explore complex topics and ’authentic’ (working) environments on their own. In this way, they are expected to learn to think like an expert in a certain domain (or even worse: interdisciplinary). Learning objectives are therefore not so much of a substantive nature, but more focused on the process of ‘constructing’. It is important that the student is able to effectively monitor, evaluate and update this self-directed process. The instructor focuses on designing and offering a rich learning environment in which the student can gain the necessary authentic experiences: “The goal of instruction is not to ensure that individuals know particular facts but rather that they elaborate on and interpret information” (Ertmer & Newby, 2013).

In short, the role of the teacher changes from a knowledgeable expert to a kind of facilitator, by providing a rich learning environment. (S)he can then take on the role of coach who follows the students, interjects her-/himself into the learning process when thought necessary and is available for consultation on request. In this way, the student and her/his ability for self-management are prioritised and it is assumed that a better transfer to other (work) situations will take place.

Constructivist thinking has also influenced many other areas, including ethics, theology, art and mathematics. For higher education, it was mainly Von Glasersfeld (1984) who played a central role in the natural sciences (Matthews, 1998). Von Glasersfeld also used the work of the well-known developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, although, remarkably enough, there are no indications at all that the latter thought that reality was unknown and that any constructed view of reality was correct. Piaget once said “Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.” (Klahr & Nigam, 2004). It’s important to note that, Piaget, as a developmental psychologist, has never been concerned with learning or designing lessons or a curriculum, so the question is whether he really assumed that we could or should only learn by discovering things by ourselves. His opinion was that offering education to children who are not yet ready for it was pointless. But that doesn’t equate to not offering them anything at all.

Constructivist policies

In the Netherlands, the introduction of the ‘Second Phase’ [Tweede Fase] and the ‘Study House’ [Studiehuis] in 1998 was a forerunner of the constructivist approach to education. Ten years later, the devastating report ‘Tijd voor Onderwijs’ [Time for Education] by the parliamentary committee led by former Labour Party Member of Parliament Jeroen Dijsselbloem about the ill-considered implementation of this ‘new way of learning’ was published: “The inner circle of policymakers was insufficiently open to criticism and warnings. Experience rather than scientific research formed the basis for the pedagogical innovations that were implemented. There was a lack of proper pilots and experiments.”

The advice to the government was not to interfere with the method of instruction – the ‘how’ – but only with the content – the ‘what’. It seems that the Dutch ministry of education has since followed that advice. An important part of the educational field (i.e. the school boards) has, however, relentlessly continued to ‘innovate’ – or rather ‘change’ – the education system. Policies based on constructivist ideas are still common, although up until 2019 there is still no evidence that the teacher who takes a step back and puts the control of learning in the hands of the student is more effective and efficient than the teacher who provides explicit instruction (see, for example, Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006; Mayer, 2004). This was recently confirmed (yet again) by OECD PISA research results: “Perhaps surprisingly, in no education system do students who reported that they are frequently exposed to enquiry-based instruction score higher in science” (OESO, 2016). And: “What happens inside the classroom is crucial for students’ learning and career expectations. In almost all education systems, students score higher in science when they reported that their science teachers “explain scientific ideas,” “discuss their questions” or “demonstrate an idea” more frequently” (ibidem).

In other words, when we take empirical science into account, the constructivist philosophy of education does not appear to be a sound basis for educational design and making day-to-day educational choices. Nevertheless, minimally guided instructional practices, such as discovery learning, enquiry-based learning and problem-based learning, remain popular. It is understandable that the famous educational psychologist Jerome Bruner recommended these practices in the 1960s, as little was known about human cognitive architecture at that time. Until then, the psychology of learning was dominated by behaviourism; cognitive psychology was still in its earliest stages. But nowadays, we could and should know better.

Epistemology is not pedagogy

The term ‘constructivism’ encompasses much more than we can discuss here, but most educational professionals are familiar with constructivism as a theory of knowledge or epistemology. Epistemology explores how we can acquire ‘true’ knowledge and what it means to know something (Steup, 2005). This discussion about the nature of knowledge is a recurring phenomenon in the history of philosophy. But since the rise of cognitive psychology in particular, we have more scientific insights with an empirical basis than ever that can help point us in the right direction in this discussion. Furthermore, from the point of view of cultural anthropology, the idea that one cannot transfer knowledge directly – as constructivist philosophy implies – is actually very strange. On the contrary, it is generally accepted that the transmission of our cumulative culture to future generations is what makes man as a species (homo sapiens) unique (Haidle et al., 2015).

In 1992, Paul Kirschner explained for the first time that there was an important fallacy in the world of education. Pedagogy – the method of instruction – is about the empirical science of teaching: supporting the student in her or his learning process by applying effective and scientifically proven instructional strategies. A theory of knowledge – and this is what constructivism is – is not pedagogy. The majority of cognitive psychologists are of the opinion that learning is the active (re)construction of knowledge; we ourselves create the cognitive schemas in our long-term memory, add new information to those schemas, broaden and deepen those schemas or create new (sub)schemas, and – when necessary – actively adapt those schemas to new information and experiences. In other words, according to cognitive psychology we do construct our own knowledge! However, it is wrong to assume that the way in which people process information and acquire knowledge can be translated directly into a teaching method or educational policy.

Learning to read

Consider the way we learn to read. Learning to read in first grade is characterised by sounding out each letter (or grapheme) of a word, like in /mmmmm/…, /a/…., /t/…../mat/. After a couple of months, the same child will respond to the written word MAT almost instantaneously with /mat/, without sounding out each letter separately. This behaviour is characteristic of experienced or expert readers. In the past, reading method developers made the mistake to take the fluent reading behaviour as the way to teach children. In the so-called whole-word approach, children were told to read the entire word in one glance. Without teaching each of the letters in for example, MAT, MAP, MAL, MAN, MAR, MASS, MAST, MAD, children were asked to make the distinction between these words that are visually quite similar, but their readings are clearly distinct. To learn each word individually requires a long and laborious training. The fact that our writing system is based on a set of 26 letters and that each word can be written with these letters is an amazing parsimonious system. It is therefore that we teach children the building blocks (i.e., the letters), such that after some time they are capable of reading all words, words they haven’t seen or heard before, and even pseudowords, such as KLARP. The reading behaviour of the beginner is necessarily different from that of the expert, but develops into expert reading behaviour after practise.

This example demonstrates that the way in which experienced readers read is not a good guideline for reading instruction. However, this misleading view seems to have become commonplace in education, as evidenced by certain textbooks that have been promoted (e.g. Fry, Ketteridge & Marshall, 2009) and the one-sided emphasis on constructivism as the ideological basis of education (Kok, 2003). Educational researcher Piet van der Ploeg warned Dutch Universities about this as early as 2005. “By blindly betting on constructivism, initial teacher training is at risk of wandering around theoretically. It is more fruitful to return to developmental psychology.” (Van der Ploeg, 2005, p. 13). Does this mean that constructivism has no value at all for education?

Experts learn differently

On the basis of much empirical research, we know that novices – which most students are – benefit most from explicit, direct instruction with guided practice and relevant feedback (Becker & Gersten, 2001; Stockard et al., 2018). Experts, on the other hand, are the ones who have reached the borders of knowledge in their field of expertise. There are few who can teach them; after all, they themselves are the experts. The only route they can take to expand their knowledge is to try to find new theoretical connections or to carry out an experiment or research; they are completely self-directed. Of course, this will often include consultations with other experts in their field or in allied fields.

Scientists are in that position. They have no other option but to take a constructivist approach when it comes to discovering something new; that is their epistemology. But this differs greatly from the way a beginner learns. A biologist carries out research (she or he does science), a student in a biology class learns how to carry out research (she or he learns science). This is a crucial difference. Applying a discipline is not the same as learning that discipline: “A student, as opposed to a scientist, is still learning about the subject area in question and, therefore, possesses neither the theoretical sophistication nor the wealth of experience of the scientist. Also, the student is learning science – as opposed to doing science – and should be aided in her/his learning through the application of an effective pedagogy and good instructional design” (Kirschner, 2009).

The difference lies in both the quality and the quantity of the knowledge available to novices and experts (see Table 1). The guild system is another good example of the age-old and proven distinction between an expert (the master) and his novices (the apprentice and the somewhat more advanced, c.q. intermediate, journeyman).

expertnovice

Table 1: Differences between novice and expert (adapted from Didau, 2019)

Research within domains such as chess (De Groot, 1946, 1965; see frame ‘Thought and choice in chess ‘), physics (Chi, Feltovich & Glaser, 1979) and air traffic control (Van Meeuwen et al., 2014), shows that experts have other so-called schemata in their long-term memory than novices. These schemata not only contain more knowledge but the knowledge is also better-organised. The expert’s knowledge enables her or him to recognise the in-depth structure of a problem rather than being confused by the surface features.

These more extensive (that is, complicated, deep, rich) schemata that experts rely on, ensure that they have less trouble than beginners with the limitations of working memory. They do not see an incoherent collection of pieces of information, but well-organised chunks and/or related units or patterns of information. Experts can also use alternative problem-solving strategies that are more effective, more efficient, easier to apply and less cognitively demanding.

Another important argument for regarding almost all students as beginners is ironically, also based on Piaget’s work. In his stages theory of cognitive development, he initially assumed that children between the ages of twelve and fifteen pass from the concrete-operational stage to the formal-operational stage. In his limited sample of children he saw this transition in thinking, but later it turned out that the majority of capable adults did not reach the formal-operational stage. Only in the area of their expertise do they appear to think and act in a formally operational manner (Chiapetta, 1976; Tricot & Sweller, 2014). Piaget erred on this point, something he himself observed later in his career (Piaget, 1972). Maturation does not explain everything, because the transition to the latter stage requires targeted and domain-specific efforts.

Thought and choice in chess The Dutch psychologist Adriaan Dingeman de Groot published his dissertation on chess in 1946. In his research, chess grandmasters and lesser chess players were shown a chess position for five seconds, after which they had to reproduce it. Some positions were common (positions known in chess) and meaningful to them, others were random (positions that would never arise in a chess match). Unlike the lesser chess players, the grandmasters were able to reproduce almost all common chess positions effortlessly. See Figures 1 and 2, in which a chess grandmaster and a lesser chess player had to reproduce the same chess position (De Groot, 1946, p. 258). But if the chess grandmasters were presented with a random chess position, they could place just as many chess pieces in their original position on the board as the lesser chess players.

This shows that experts act on the basis of knowledge and known patterns stored in their long-term memory, which they have obtained from playing and studying tens, if not hundreds of thousands of chess games. This allows them to quickly select the best solutions and apply them to problems.

De Groot’s research led to a revolution in cognitive psychology. It demonstrated that experts are not necessarily more ‘intelligent’ or better at ‘problem-solving’. The amount of knowledge (and/or erudition) determines whether someone within a complex domain – in this case chess – can demonstrate problem-solving ability.

 

GrandMaster                  

1. Grand Master                                                                             2. Amateur

So far, we have refuted the common misconception that students are some sort of junior experts and that they can solve complex ‘real-life’ problems without intensive instruction and guidance from the teacher, as experts do. But we don’t have to go back to a ‘factory model education’, like some people frame it, as it was a century ago either. There is a very appealing alternative.

Responsive teaching

In the educational context, you can (hopefully) assume that students are beginners and teachers are experts. Students, especially at the start of their courses and studies, are still building, expanding, deepening, and strengthening their knowledge. The chance of successfully solving a complex problem depends on the amount of domain-specific (prior) knowledge at the disposal of students (Willingham, 2002). In most cases, this (prior) knowledge is not yet present or insufficiently present. In this case, the teacher has the important task of lending their knowledge to the student, so to speak, and of ensuring that this knowledge ends up in the long-term memory of the student. We call this the borrowing and reorganising principle (Bartlett, 1932; Sweller & Sweller, 2006).

However, this does not happen by itself and it requires an explicit and responsive approach to teaching. The teacher is advised to offer new information in small steps and to ask a lot of thought provoking questions at each step, in order to check the students’ understanding on the one hand and to strengthen what has been learned on the other. The teacher has to demonstrate a lot while explaining how you do something and why, preferably with supporting visuals. The ongoing interaction between teacher and students enables the teacher to give targeted and timely feedback in order to gradually phase out guidance until the students mastered the content and thereby are able to successfully fulfil the relevant problems, projects or tasks without support (Rosenshine, 2012).

Initially, it’s important for the student to pay attention to the important basic knowledge that is needed to be able to effectively understand and perform the complex tasks in the long term; in this way, you prevent students with a lot of prior knowledge from being the only ones who can understand and perform these complex tasks. The feeling of self-efficacy (c.q. competence if you will) is the result of good education and will eventually give them the confidence to start working as a junior expert after finishing their studies (Willingham, 2009).

This doesn’t mean that there is no room at all for the aforementioned minimally guided instructional practices. There are also disciplines, for example in ICT, in which developments are so rapid that even teachers (i.e., experts) may find it difficult to keep up with the latest insights and skills. In such situations, students will have to solve problems by experimenting and testing their effectiveness. This is what is called the ‘randomness as genesis’ principle (Sweller & Sweller, 2006).

However, this principle does not apply to a majority of disciplines. Therefore, these practices should not be used as the basis for the entire curriculum design but only seem fit for students whose expertise has reached the required level. Until that point, teachers should provide well-structured cumulative subtasks, in which the aforementioned instruction strategies are applied (Ericsson, 2006; Kalyuga, Rikers, & Paas, 2012). As a teacher, you should certainly not avoid complexity, but it is important to work towards it carefully. We know this since Charles Reigeluth’s (1979, 1983) elaboration theory. This idea is also long and well-known as ‘scaffolding’ and applies to various levels: within a course or subject and within a discipline or total study program.

Rely on craftsmanship

The advancement of the educational sector can be supported by the use of empirical sciences, such as cognitive psychology, in addition to philosophical and normative pedagogical views, which in essence are not verifiable. Research in cognitive psychology gives us a verifiable theory about how people learn and how we can best help students in their learning processes (the goal of education; Mayer, 2004; Weinstein, Sumeracki, & Caviglioli, 2018). ‘Without an understanding of human cognitive architecture, instruction is blind’ (Sweller, 2017). We have illustrated this by means of constructivist philosophy: it is not a pedagogy or method of instruction and, as such, should not be used as a guideline for instructional policies or practices.

Unstructured and minimally-guided instructional situations certainly do not appear to be very successful and can strongly contribute to:

(1) a lower probability of an effective learning process for – in particular – vulnerable students,

(2) a less important role for the instructor, which can potentially damage the profession, and

(3)  the widening of the so-called achievement gap, because students with more prior knowledge have more opportunities than students with less prior knowledge (Christodoulou, 2014).

Quality education starts with a good teacher, not with a facilitator, guide, or coach. Apart from the learner her- or himself, the teacher is the most important factor when it comes to academic success (Hattie, 2003). In education, we should therefore continue to focus on and rely on the craftsmanship of teachers, rather than organising education in a way that bypasses them.

Sarah Bergsen

is an independent educational consultant and trainer at Mastery Learning, the Netherlands.

Erik B. J. Meester

is a teacher of Pedagogical Sciences in Primary Education at Radboud University, the Netherlands.

Paul A. Kirschner

is emeritus professor of Educational Psychology at the Open Universiteit, Guest Professor at Thomas More University of Applied Science, Belgium and Honorary Doctor (doctor honoris causa) at Oulu University, Finland.

Anna M.T. Bosman

is professor of Dynamics in Learning and Development at the Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud Universiteit, the Netherlands.

 

This article, originally titled ‘Constructivisme is een slechte raadgever’, was first published in TH&MA (October, 2019).

References[1]

Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: An experimental and social study. Cambridge (VK): Cambridge University Press.

Becker, W.C. & Gersten, R. (2001). Follow-up of Follow Through: the later effects of the direct instruction model on children in fifth and sixth grades. Journal of Direct Instruction, Winter, 57-71.

Bednar, A.K., Cunningham, D., Duffy, T.M. & Perry, J.D. (1991). Theory into practice: How do we link? In G.J. Anglin (red.), Instructional technology: Past, present, and future. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited.

Chi, M.T.H., Feltovich, P.J. & Glaser, R. (1979). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science 5, 121-152. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0502_2

Chiapetta, E.L. (1976). A review of Piagetian studies relevant to science instruction at the secondary and college level. Science Education, 60, 253-261.

Christodoulou, D. (2014). Seven myths about education. Routledge.

*Didau, D. (2019). Making kids cleverer. A manifesto for closing the advantage gap. Wales: Crown House Publishing Limited.

Dijsselbloem, J. (2008). Parlementair onderzoek onderwijsvernieuwingen. ’s-Gravenhage: Sdu.

*Dunlosky, J. (2013). Strengthening the student toolbox: Study strategies to boost Learning. American Educator, 37(3), 12-21.

Ericsson, K.A. (2006). The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In Ericsson, K.A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P.J. & Hoffman, R.R. (red.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance, 38, 685-705.

Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement quarterly, 26, 43-71.

Fry, H., Ketteridge, S. & Marshall, S. (2009). A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education. New York: Routledge.

Gerrits, J. (2004). De school op de schop. Het nieuwe leren. ’s-Hertogenbosch: KPC Groep. https://nivoz.nl/uploads/2012/04/De_school_op_de_schop.pdf

Groot, A.D. de (1946). Het denken van den schaker. Den Haag: Noord Holland. http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/groo004denk01_01/groo004denk01_01.pdf

Groot, A.D. de (1965). Thought and choice in chess. Den Haag: De Gruyter Mouton.

Haidle, M.N., Bolus, M., Collard, M., Conard, N.J., Garofoli, D., Lombard, M.. & Whiten, A. (2015). The nature of culture: an eight-grade model for the evolution and expansion of cultural capacities in hominins and other animals. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 93, 43-70.

Kalyuga, S., Rikers, R. & Paas, F. (2012). Educational implications of expertise reversal effect in learning and performance of complex cognitive and sensorimotor skills. Educational Psychology Review, 23, 313-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9195-x

Kirschner, P.A. (1992). Epistemology, practical work and academic skills in science education. Science and Education, 1, 273-299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00430277

Kirschner, P.A. (2000). The inevitable duality of education: Cooperative higher education. Inaugurele Rede, Universiteit Maastricht.

Kirschner, P.A. (2009). Epistemology or pedagogy, that is the question. In Tobias, S. & Duffy, T.M. Constructivist instruction: Success or failure? 144-157. New York: Routledge.

Kirschner, P.A., Sweller, J. & Clark, R.E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75-86.

Klahr, D. & Nigam, M. (2004). The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction. Effects of direct instruction and discovery learning. Psychological Science, 15, 661-667.

Kok, J.J.M. (2003). Talenten transformeren. Over het nieuwe leren en leerarrangementen. https://onderwijsdatabank.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/talententransformeren.pdf

Matthews, M.R. (1998). Constructivism in science education. Dordrecht: Springer.

Mayer, R.E. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? American Psychologist, 59, 14-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.14

Meeuwen, L.W. van, Jarodzka, H., Brand-Gruwel, S., Kirschner, P.A., Bock, J.J. de & Merriënboer, J.J. van (2014). Identification of effective visual problem solving strategies in a complex visual domain. Learning and Instruction, 32, 10-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2014.01.004

OESO (2016). PISA 2015 Results (Volume I-II): Excellence and Equity in Education. Parijs: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264266490-en

Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development, 15, 1-12.

Ploeg, P. van der (2005). PABO’s varen blind op constructivisme. VELON, Tijdschrift voor Lerarenopleiders, 26(2), 13-19.

Reigeluth, C. M. (1979). In search of a better way to organize instruction: The elaboration theory. Journal of Instructional Development, 2(3), 8-15. Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226063833_The_elaboration_theory_of_instruction_A_model_for_sequencing_and_synthesizing_instruction_11

Reigeluth, C. M., & Stein, F. (1983). The elaboration theory of instruction. In C. Reigeluth (ed.), Instructional Design Theories and Models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243768474_The_elaboration_theory_of_instruction_19

*Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know. American educator, 36(1), 12-20.

Schouwenburg, F. (2015). Scholen om van te leren. Zoetermeer: Kennisnet. https://www.kennisnet.nl/artikel/scholen-om-van-te-leren

Steup, M. (2005). Epistemology. In E. N. Zalta (red.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/epistemology

Stockard, J., Wood, T.W., Coughlin, C. & Khoury, C.R. (2018). The effectiveness of direct instruction curricula: A meta-analysis of a half century of research. Review of Educational Research, 88, 479-507.

Sweller, J. (2017). Cognitive load theory: Without an understanding of human cognitive architecture, instruction is blind. Presentation at ACE Conference / researchED, Melbourne, Australia. Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOLPfi9Ls-w

Sweller, J. & Sweller, S. (2006). Natural information processing systems. Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 434-458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/147470490600400135

Tricot, A. & Sweller, J. (2014). Domain-specific knowledge and why teaching generic skills does not work. Educational Psychology Review, 26, 265-283.

Von Glasersfeld, E. (1984). An introduction to radical constructivism. In P. Watzlawick (Ed.), The invented reality (17-40). New York: Norton.

Weinstein, Y., Sumeracki, M. & Caviglioli, O. (2018). Understanding how we learn: A visual guide. New York: Routledge.

Wikipedia (2019). https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennistheorie.

*Willingham, D.T. (2002). Ask the cognitive scientist. Inflexible knowledge: The first step to expertise. American Educator, 26(4), 31-33.

*Willingham, D.T. (2009). Why don’t students like school? A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. New York:

[1] For the interested reader with little time, we recommend the literature that we have marked with an *.