This study reviews theories supporting the construction of student knowledge and found they rely upon theoretical operations with few pragmatic applications. A new paradigm of learning needs to emerge which focuses on how students actually construct their own knowledge, based on reconstructing current/past knowledge or experience, and their interpretation of the world. Such a paradigm implies ways that would enable educators to facilitate students' problem solving, and gears to help students construct hypotheses, select and transform information, and finally make decisions. Implications for designing effective narrative cases for ill-structured problem solving are discussed. (Contains 1 table.)