Editorial Transforming Higher Education Teaching and Learning Environments – Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

To facilitate meeting the requirements of student-centered learning in the 21st century, it is important to strengthen higher education teachers’ digi-pedagogical skills, and to consider novel ways of teaching and learning. This necessitates the development of pedagogical thinking, technical infrastructures, and learning environments. The obvious need for meeting the needs of 21st century learning comes from changing societal expectations as the knowledge society itself and the labor market are undergoing considerable change. This means that teachers need to consider new ways of teaching, as well as novel ways the utilizing technology in their work and in learning environments. Moreover, the learning of the content itself is increasingly insufficient as learning generic (e.g. Pitman & Broomhall, 2009) or 21st century skills (e.g., Voogt & Pareja Roblin, 2012) such as collaboration, technological proficiency and creativity grow in importance. Thus, novel ways of considering and developing higher education teaching, learning and learning environments are required. Importantly, for these tasks, rigorous assessment and research are needed to consider the outcomes and future orientations in the higher education development as well as in informing policy at various levels. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.13.1