Chapter 3: Positive Concepts of Seamless Learning
Mohamed Osman El-Hussein and Helga Hambrock
Background and Introduction
The positive concepts of the study include the aspects that would have a positive effect and increased motivational experience for the students in terms of their learning environment, interaction with the content, workplace experience, and global interaction. These experiences are important to capture the interest and attention of the students with the aim of improving their knowledge retention. Each of the positive concept components that were identified in the initial study (Hambrock & De Villiers, 2022) are unpacked and explained in this chapter.
3.1 Student-Centered Approach
The first positive concept, student-centredness, is to foster the acquisition of knowledge and skills of students. This includes the development of character, of progressive views, and of scientific vision in order to support commitment to the upholding of national—and on some levels international —aspirations and culture heritage. Students who are being trained as competent professionals are expected to excel in their careers and to enhance the image of their profession. These are important goals for universities and other educational institutions.
The student-centred approach has come under criticism (Bayne et al., 2020; MacKenzie et al., 2022) for its implicit deprofessionalization of teaching, its devaluing of the non-human elements involved in education, and the overvaluing of the products of the educational process—of which the learner is one additional product to be consumed in the workforce. Although we acknowlege these important arguments, some aspects of student-centredness remain important in a practical sense: students at post-secondary institutions attend because they seek to acquire skills and knowledge that will position them better in their chosen occupations as well as other aspects of their lives including their social and political experiences and for their own personal enjoyment of learning.
The importance of a student-centered pedagogy with a life-long learning and task-centered approach is described by McDonald and West (2021) as
dealing with current and future developments in the job market requires that educational programs produce lifelong learners who are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to deal with familiar and unfamiliar complex tasks in their domain. The way these programs are designed must therefore match this goal of creating learners who are able to transfer their knowledge from the learning to the professional setting. Task‐centred instructional design models such as the 4C/ID model stimulate this process by prescribing learning methods that lead to a rich knowledge base allowing for creative applications of knowledge in new and innovative settings. (McDonald & West, 2021, p. 25)
Further motivation for a student-centered approach is supported by Alessi and Trollip (2001), proponents of the constructivi