When does offloading become outsourcing? With Paul Kirschner

Are smartphones and laptops enabling or impeding students’ progress in class? On the plus side they give access to a wealth of resources, but they can also kill interaction and provide any number of distractions. Today we dig into the research on devices in class with educational psychologist Paul Kirschner.

Paul also clears up the confusion around cognitive offloading, what it really means and what’s actually happening when we use AI. Is it really just another tool like a calculator?

We talk about these and a range of other learning tech topics, including future research directions for multimedia assessment, and what we can reasonably ask of practitioner research.

Check out Paul's Substack via the link below, and the posts for today's conversation on phones in the classroom and cognitive offloading vs outsourcing.

https://substack.com/@paulkirschner173727 

Guest bio

Paul Kirschner is one of the most influential voices in the national and international education debate. For decades, he has done research on and has been translating scientific insights about learning, memory and teaching into clear applications for education.

Paul is professor emeritus at the Open University of the Netherlands, honorary doctor (Doctor Honoris Causa) at the University of Oulu (Finland), visiting professor at the Thomas More University of Applied Sciences in Flanders and owner of the educational consultancy kirschner-ED. Previously, he worked as a teacher of Science, Chemistry and Mathematics in secondary education and was active in school boards and participation councils of both secondary and secondary education.

He is regarded worldwide as a leading expert in his field and has published approximately 450 scientific articles, in addition to several hundred popular science contributions and blogs for teachers and school leaders. In addition, he is the first or co-author of several influential and widely read books, including Instructional Illusions, How Learning Happens, How Teaching Happens, Evidence-Informed Learning Design, Ten Steps to Complex Learning, Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking and Urban Legends about Learning and Education.

Further reading 

Sungu, A., Choudhury, P. K., & Bjerre-Nielsen, A. (2025). Removing phones from classrooms improves academic performance. Available at SSRN: ssrn.com/abstract=5370727 or dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5370727