S3E21: Paul Kirschner on “Let’s Talk Evidence” and the Latest Debates Over Inquiry Learning

Welcome back to Progressively Incorrect and to the season 3 Finale of this podcast. In this final episode before I take a break for the summer, we are going out with a bang by bringing back one of the most respected and influential cognitive psychologists in the world, Paul Kirschner.

Before we go over to Paul, I wanted to thank all of you for supporting me and this show. This season, I was able to interview 31 fabulous guests, and I hope that their insights and research helped you grow and perhaps even improved your teaching. You’ll be happy to know that, along the way, the number of listeners of Progressively Incorrect has grown exponentially, which has led to a lot of opportunities for me. John Catt from Hodder Education became a sponsor of this show, and at about the same time I signed with them to write a book. It may be too early to share this, I don’t know, but the book is titled, “Just Tell Them” and it is all about how to model and explain your content area explicitly and directly. If you go to the show notes of this episode, you will find an early design of the cover art, which has a nice pop art vibe that I really like. Look out for the release of “Just Tell Them: The Art and Science of Explanation” sometime next school year.

Just Tell Them is undergoing edits from the publisher, more updates to come!

My other announcement is that, after taking a long walk into the meadow, I’ve decided to quit my day job to give full-time consulting a try. Schools have been asking me for the past two years to help them bring evidence-informed practice to their teachers, but I’ve been unable to accommodate all the requests while also having to report to a brick and mortar building. While it was hard to say goodbye to my middle school and all the wonderful people there, I am excited about the new adventure ahead of me. My August is already packed with training gigs in North Carolina, Colorado, and New York, and I will be keynoting at researchED Chile in the fall, among several other opportunities. In shifting my time and energy to this work, I hope to be able to play a larger role in improving learning and instruction across this country.

Alright, that’s enough from me, please join me in welcoming Dr. Paul Kirschner back onto the show to update us on the latest debates over inquiry and explicit instruction.