Sense in Teaching: A Fregean Framework for Effective Instruction

Why do some explanations produce genuine understanding while others, conveying the same information, leave students confused? Meta-analyses consistently show that instructional modality (online versus face-to-face) produces no significant difference in learning outcomes—yet students reliably report that certain explanations "click" while others do not. This paper offers a philosophical reinterpretation and unification of existing findings in instructional design under Gottlob Frege's concept of sense—the mode of presentation that makes meaning graspable. Drawing on Frege's philosophy of language and contemporary research in cognitive load theory, I argue that effective teaching operates at the level of sense rather than at the level of signs and referents alone, and that a teacher's primary responsibility is threefold: (1) to provide multiple, rich concepts of a subject's sense, rather than merely delivering definitions and facts; (2) to communicate these senses through story-driven narrative; and (3) to anchor new knowledge to the learner's existing conceptual network, particularly to their simplest and most familiar ideas. The Fregean lens does not replace existing accounts of instructional effectiveness but provides a unifying vocabulary that clarifies what well-established design principles achieve when they succeed. This framework explains why the best educational content succeeds regardless of medium and offers practical principles for improving instruction.