van Aalst, JCW

Biography

I am best known for my research on students' self-assessment of knowledge building, in collaboration with Carol Chan and our research group. One of the most important claims of knowledge building is that teachers do too much cognitive and metacognitive work of which students are capable, and it aims to put at least a substantial amount of this work in the hands of students. Evidence from "formative assessments" about how students are doing becomes an important component of developing students' so-called epistemic agency. Our research in this arena has received several prizes. A second theme is my work in classrooms: studies that develop and study knowledge-building pedagogy in primary and secondary schools. This work has been more developmental and applied, but has made an important contribution to the growth of knowledge building around the world. My current interest is more in the learning sciences in general and putting its findings into practice in education.