Towards a Student Centered

Learning culture

- ambitions and realities

SIU conference, Gardermoen, 17 June 2011

• This title raises a some questions…

• What is Student Centered Learning?

• Is it necessary? (Status today…)

• Are ongoing processes (like QA and/or EQF) a step in the right direction?

• What should we do to achieve our goal(s)? • …depending of course on what our goal is…

Goal: A culture for Student Centred Learning

…meaning not only is the teaching and learning student centred, but the culture in HEIs (including both students and staff) continuously encourages further development of such teaching and learning methods.

Humboldt's ideal – ambition? (Tight finances and high demands to effectivity). A culture for SCL – a realistic approach?

What is Student Centered Learning (SCL)?Bologna-process: re-thinking higher education course content in terms of learning outcomes

SCL: a possible learning approach (even long before the first Bologna declaration in 1999).

Conventional teaching predominantly places its focus on the design, organisation and follow-through of the perspective of the academic teacherSCL: represents a shift in focus from academic teaching staff to the learner - The learner is at the centre

T4SCL: ESU and EI, funded by the EU through the Lifelong Learning Program (LLP).

What is Student Centered Learning (SCL)?”By its very nature, SCL allows students to shape their own learning paths and places upon them the responsibility to actively participate in making their educational process a meaningful one”.”it is precisely active learning which helps students to learn independently”. ”SCL was created as a concept within the field of educational pedagogy (…). Whilst the concept of ”student-centered” learning is relatively new, the idea of looking at the way in which teaching is conducted and how learning processes work has spanned over almost two centuries”.

T4SCL: ESU and EI, funded by the EU through the Lifelong Learning Program (LLP).

Status today? General conclusion: It’s not too bad…

But: It could be a lot better!

Up until now, the structural conditions have enouraged and stressed the importance of research more than that of education.

For 200 years the status of science has been superior to the status of education at HEIs.

NOKUT-conference for HE in april 2010, John Peter Collett (professor at UiO and leader of Forum for University history)

How does this influence culture in HEIs?

Quality barometer 2010September 2010 – survey done by NOKUT (Norwegian QA Agency) amongst academic staff in Higher Education.

Satisfied with the quality aspects in their own courses: 70 – 80% Main challenge for quality in education: Lack of effort from students.Students are not qualified enough when they begin their studies.Students evaluations of courses not important in further developing the quality of a course.

Media perspective: ”Students are lazy!”

Student survey 2010 National union of students in Norway (NSO) og Universitas (Student newspaper in the region of Oslo), a survey among students (oktober – november 2010)

What is the main challenge to improve quality in education?

Improving pedagogical competences amongst academic staff (49%)

Student survey 2010Volume of teaching and guidance – 33%

Improving forms of assessment and evaluation – 30 %

Rooms, equipments and aids – 30 %

Administration, information, study environment – 25 %

Students effort – 20 %

Dropout survey at UiO

University of Oslo: 2/3 of all bachelor candidates at the faculty for social sciences and the faculty for humanities have never spoken to a professorSimilar situations at NTNU in Trondheim and at the University of Bergen.

Student parliaments react – and we get the “Hug a professor-day” in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim

Culture• The way we teach or how we structure our study

programs...• These are the foot prints of a culture in higher education

• This culture is of course also influenced by structures in in the higher education system

Culture and structure in Higher EducationStructure elements:

LawsRegulationsManagement structureEconomic models

Culture elements:

KnowledgePerceptionsValuesMyths

So how do we change a culture?

Quality culture in Quality Assurance• Quality Assurance systems exist and fulfil minimum

standards. • How should we go from fulfilling minimum standards and

towards a quality culture of continuous improvement? • The supervision by the QA Agency includes both being a

controller and giving assistance to the institutions in their quality development work.

• Centres of Excellence in Higher Education (SFU)• Quality enhancement through research, evaluation and

analysis (done by the QA Agency)

Quality culture in the (National) Qualification frameworkDescribing learning outcomes:

Shift of focus from teacher to learner (essential in the SCL perspective)

A holistic approach: The learning outcomes should be adjusted to fit the fields/studies they are formulated for, and hence the academic community might feel more ownership to them.

Learning outcomes should come as a result of conscious choices of relevant ways of teaching and evaluating.

Towards a culture for quality… Is ongoing processes (like QA and/or EQF) a step in the right direction?

If we start with the structures, we might get somewhere? Creating an infrastructure for developing both competences and a possible change (over time) in the culture in higher education

Central governmental bodies have focused their efforts on the structural macro measures. The development of a culture (knowledge, understanding, values) has been canalised/related to these measures, together with the resources (time, work, motivation). The quality culture manifests itself on the lowest level, hence it is also mainly developed bottom-up. This means that a feeling of ownership towards the structural tools offered is essential, to make the structural changes lead to the cultural changes (which is the goal).

What can be done? Leadership in Higher educationCentres of Excellence in Higher Education (SFU)Skills in teaching be more important when hiring academic staffContinuous possibilities to update pedagogical competences for academic staffTeaching and assessment based on research done on teaching and assessment methodsPeer reviews of lectures Give students challenges and responsibility SCL is not created by the teachers aloneInteraction, feedback, guidance, variation, challenges Make room for critical thinkingStudents participate in research

Main conclusionIf structural changes should have any effect on the quality in education, it depends on attitudes, values, perception and knowledge…

It all comes down to……do we really want a change towards a SCL culture?Academic staff don’t see it as necessary (?)Students see it as necessaryKey: To reach a common understanding.