Personalia
Paul A. Kirschner, born in New York City, USA, in 1951. Ph.D. from Open University of the Netherlands. Distinguished University Professor at Open University of the Netherlands.
NSvP-Fellow (1 Sept 2016 – 31 Jan 2017)
Education for Nonexistent / Not Yet Existing Professions: Information Skills as Basis
Research Question
This research studies two main questions:
• How can youth (and workers) optimally be prepared for the unknown and unpredictable labour market of the future?
• What is the role of information skills (primarily information literacy and information management) in that preparation?
Project Description
The worlds of working and learning are rapidly changing. Following a course of study today is no guarantee that the profession you’ve studied for will still exist and/or stay. Also, new professions will pop up that we cannot imagine today and thus that we cannot train for. An important, if not the most important cause of this is the rapid development of technologies that have an increasing influence on how we work, and more importantly what and how we learn. This project is meant to lay bare the newest insights with respect to preparing our youth to make good (effective and efficient) use of information skills to optimally function in tomorrow’s labour market.
Selected Publications
1) 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, 46(2), 75-86.
2) Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2013). Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education. Educational Psychologist, 48(3), 1-15.
3) Kirschner, P. A. (2015). Facebook as learning platform: Argumentation superhighway or dead-end street? C, 621-625.
4) Kirschner, P. A. & Kester, L. (2016). Towards a research agenda for Educational Technology Research. In N. Rushby & D. Surry (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Learning Technology (pp. 523-541). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.