Alex Johnstone’s 10 Educational Commandments

My thanks to Prof Tina Overton for alerting me to the fact that these exist. I subsequently happened across them in this article detailing an interview with Prof Johnstone (1), and thought they would be useful to share.

Ten Educational Commandments 

1. What is learned is controlled by what you already know and understand.

2. How you learn is controlled by how you learned in the past (related to learning style but also to your interpretation of the “rules”).

3. If learning is to be meaningful, it has to link on to existing knowledge and skills, enriching both (2).

4. The amount of material to be processed in unit time is limited (3).

5. Feedback and reassurance are necessary for comfortable learning, and assessment should be humane.

6. Cognisance should be taken of learning styles and motivation.

7. Students should consolidate their learning by asking themselves about what goes on in their own heads— metacognition.

8. There should be room for problem solving in its fullest sense (4).

9. There should be room to create, defend, try out, hypothesise.

10. There should be opportunity given to teach (you don’t really learn until you teach) (5).

Johnstone told his interviewer that he didn’t claim any originality for the statements, which his students called the 10 educational commandments. Rather he merely brought together well known ideas from the literature. But, and importantly for this fan, Johnstone said that they have been built into his own research and practice, using them as “stars to steer by”.


  1. Cardellini, L, J. Chem. Educ., 2000, 77, 12, 1571.
  2. Johnstone, A. H. Chemical Education Research and Practice in Europe (CERAPIE) 2000, 1, 9–15; online at
  3. Johnstone, A. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1993, 70, 701–705
  4. Johnstone, A. H. In Creative Problem Solving in Chemistry; Wood, C. A., Ed.; Royal Society of Chemistry: London, 1993.
  5. Sirhan, G.; Gray, C.; Johnstone, A. H.; Reid, N. Univ. Chem. Educ. 1999, 3, 43–46.