Building a Culture of Learning in the 21st Century: Confronting Some Assumptions Preventing Us from Realizing the Promise of the Learning Paradigm

Abstract

In the past 20 years some educators have given greater attention to a broadened conception of learning that highlights processes and a diversity of learning modalities. But higher education has yet to broadly embrace the potential for developing a real culture of learning. As interactive technologies and experimental research provoke us to re-examine our teaching practices, this essay challenges educators to confront their own assumptions about expertise and the ways we apply and align those principles of expert learning to the design of undergraduate education.