Paul A. Kirschner & Mirjam Neelen

In the coming weeks, we’ll be publishing several blogs on generative and productive learning strategies. In short, generative learning isn’t just ‘being actively involved with the subject matter’, but rather doing something with what you have to or want to learn. It’s generative when you produce new things like making a concept map or a drawing about the subject matter. In this introductory blog, we discuss two studies examining the effectiveness of two generative strategies – explaining and producing questions.

In traditional learn-by-explaining research, explaining as a learning activity is usually about learners giving “instructional explanations” to their peers, with the explicit intention of giving them some sort of interactive lesson. Sometimes it involves learners at the same ‘learning’ level and other times it’s done with learners who are at different levels. If the latter is the case, older pupils who are one or…