"Higher education should adopt a concept of learning which emphasizes the co-construction and sharing of knowledge"

Universities are often asked how they're preparing learners for the future. One way to respond to that is to look at new trends in how people learn in their professional life and see if it's possible to identify best practices for higher education. As a professor at the University of Twente, I carried out a number of research projects in the corporate sector. Corporate people are interested in the potential efficiency and increased flexibility that technologies can bring to learning. I worked in the Anglo-Dutch multinational Shell, whose employees are under constant pressure to update their learning. I'm talking about top professionals here, including physicians, geologists and petroleum engineers, some of whom have PhDs. That doesn't mean they don't need to keep up to date though. We created a model for ICT-supported knowledge building and sharing within the organization, because some of its professionals frequently work in very isolated locations, such as oil platforms, and in a very rapidly changing environment. Over the course of my eight years at Shell, I also studied best practices in other workplace contexts, to be as informed as possible, and I identified certain differences between corporate learning best practices and good practice in higher education. For instance, Shell's team members have different experiences in the field and they come from all over the world. They have to deal with wide-ranging, complex problems and are under high pressure to meet deadlines. In short, they need to quickly strike up a mutual understanding with people from other disciplines. Consequently, there's a shared responsibility for other people's learning. In order to aid students' transition to this kind of productive functioning in a professional workplace, course designers in higher education should adopt a concept of learning which emphasizes the co-construction and sharing of knowledge across a professional community. I think engaging learners has always been a problem. We still need to find learning activities that involve them in an active way, where, no matter what their age, they make something that other students can learn from. I think creating a "product" or "artefact" that other learners can use and reuse is a very good idea. For example, instead of producing a report, handing it in to a lecturer and then taking it home, they could produce their report with a digital resource and combine their work with that of other students to make a digital collection. And it doesn't end there! Another learning activity might be to compare all those "learning products" from students' different perspectives, with a view to mutual enrichment. There's a certain degree of scope for using entertaining experiences as part of learning activities, for increasing motivation for example, but I don't think it's wise to try to make learning fun, because good learning involves difficult moments, and that's part of dealing with complexity. To use a metaphor, learning activity is like a champagne glass. The top of the glass has sparkling, bubbling content, related to engagement, motivation, curiosity and fun. Then there's the middle part, where the glass gets narrower and things get harder and more serious, related to execution, doing something with what you've learned, exercises. The bottom of the glass is where the sediment of knowledge lies, the part you can present to others to help them learn and arouse their curiosity. There's no particular need to familiarize children with technology, it's already part of their life. My granddaughter is much better able to use my iPhone than I am! That's not much of a concern. What we do need to do though is teach them to use technology constructively. It's easy to use new technology in a social way, but less so for serious learning. They need to develop critical thinking skills, a questioning attitude. We have to endeavour to make them critical in relation to finding information. That'll be a profession in the not-too-distant future. It's an activity that's much harder now than before because there's so much information out there. Mobile devices allow for more flexible learning. They make it possible to contact people, to call up resources, etc. It's part of an educator's job to know how to turn mobile devices into a learning tool, so we have to find the right learning activity for them. For example, if students are learning geometry, let them capture objects and designs in the street with their digital camera as part of homework in the field. Later, in the classroom, they can share, compare and criticize their work.