Hosting Collective Learning: Students Being There For the Other

In this paper, we argue that the current focus on study success is detrimental for the development of an in-class ‘culture of learning.’ In many higher education institutes (HEI’s), the primary goal of teaching is to transfer knowledge from lecturers to individual students, preparing them for successful assessment performance. Students are thus encouraged to gather knowledge only to set and achieve individual learning goals. In turn, this leads to a ‘culture of competition’ in which students work by themselves and effectively hide their intelligence from other students. If the aim is to shape the future of education, then a shift is required. Current teaching practices should be innovated to stimulate so-called ‘collaborative learning environments’ for students (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2014). This would enable a movement toward achieving a culture of learning. How HEI’s can make the shift toward such a culture is explored toward the end of the paper.