An Innovative Perspective on Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in the 21st Century

Abstract

The current perspective on our society as a learning society implies that education must focus more than has been traditionally the case on fostering in students adaptive competence, i. e. the ability to apply meaningfully learned knowledge and skills flexibly in a variety of contexts. Based on the available research this article first discusses the question: What should students learn to acquire adaptive competence in a domain? It is argued that developing adaptive competence requires the acquisition of several cognitive, affective, and motivational components, namely a well-elaborated domain-specific knowledge base, heuristic methods, metaknowledge of one’s cognitive functioning, motivation and emotions, self-regulation skills for regulating one’s cognitive, motivational and emotional processes, and positive beliefs about oneself as a learner and about learning in different domains. Next the questions is addressed: What are characteristics of productive learning processes for acquiring adaptive competence? In this respect the view of learning is presented as an Constructive, Self-regulated, Situated, and Collaborative (CSSC) process of knowledge and skill building. From a teaching perspective this leads to the question: How can such CSSC learning processes be stimulated through instructional intervention? An illustrative powerful learning environment for improving learning proficiency in beginning university students is presented.