Paul Kirschner on Urban Legends in Educational Innovation
 | Tuesday evening, 1 juni 2010, Paul Kirschner will give a Science Café lecture. During the lecture he will discuss four urban legends about educational innovation from a scientific point of view. |
Mark Twain once said: 'In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing'.
Unfortunately this also seems the case in the case of educational innovation. The consequence? Bad education, among other things. Tuesday evening, 1 juni 2010, Paul Kirschner will go into four urban legends about educational innovation during the Science café in Heerlen.
Faith
Educational technologies, educational scientists, education and curricula designers, educational reformers, school managers, politicians, educational advisors... They all line up to show how innovating and progressive the can be. They say all kind of things, they buy and implement to their heart's content. But their words and decisions are not based on good science, but mainly on faith, filosofies and some persistent urban legends. The consequence is bad education, innovation weariness, and dissatisfied teachers, parents and learners.
Scientific perspective
Paul Kirschner will from a scientific perspective go into four urban legends on innovation in education from a scientific perspective. Stories that spread like wildfire through society, even in groups of people that should know better.
About Paul Kirschner
Paul A. Kirschner is a professor Educational psychology and directs the Learning & Cognition programme of the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies (CELSTEC) of the Open Universiteit. He is extremely critical about the unthinking use of ict in education.
Science café
To make scientific knowledge accessible for a larger audience every month a researcher of the Open Universiteit gives a lecture in Café Pelt on the Pancratiusplein in Heerlen. The lectures begin at 20.00 hours, take approx one hour and entrance is free.
