Teaching for Meaningful Learning in Higher Education : Students as Reflective Change-Makers

This volume distinguishes itself by taking a broad and philosophical perspective on teaching and the process of learning, rather than proposing yet another algorithmic approach to learning. It is intended for teaching faculty and academic support staff who want to deeply reflect on and continuously develop teaching designs that combine knowledge and action. Motivated by a concern for the societal issues and global challenges facing us, we recognize that the current generation of students will need to be agentic citizens able to act to become authentic change-makers. If students are to become critically reflective active citizens, equipped for life in its broadest sense, then teaching must engage them with disciplinary knowledge and link this to authentic practices to make learning meaningful.

Meaningful learning is defined as linking knowledge-intensive processes of learning to the creation of value for others outside the university. This embodies students’ cognitive heads, conative hands, and affective hearts allowing them to become authentic change-makers. It makes the learning process holistic, embedded in the individual, and socially connected, without losing the connection to knowledge content. When a meaning-oriented format supports content and when content is enhanced through an outward-oriented format, students’ cognitive, affective, and conative domains are activated in a powerful interplay to trigger deep feelings of meaningfulness. A meaningful learning approach ensures that students become participative learners, able to reflect on their own values and combine disciplinary knowledge in collaboration with others to tackle some of today’s most pressing societal challenges.