Fostering Learner-Centered Teaching in Higher Education

Fostering Learner Centered Teaching in Higher Education focuses on how and to what degree, according with the students’ perspectives, faculty in Italian universities engage students in participatory and learner-centered teaching and learning methods and the related implications for the work related learning. The chapter is informed, first, by European documents on the modernization and innovation process of the higher education system (Commission of the European Communities, 2006, 2008, 2009; European Commission, 2011, 2013, 2016), and, second, by several bodies of literature including leaner-centered teaching (Cranton, 2016; Weimer, 2013), personalized learning (Hartley, 2003, 2007; Shaikh & Khoja, 2012; Waldeck, 2007), student voice (Cook-Sather, 2002; Czerniawski & Kidd, 2011; Fielding, 2004, 2012; Flutter & Rudduck, 2004) and work-related learning (Cooper, Orrell, & Bowden, 2010; Dirkx, 2011; Gardner & Barktus, 2014) forming the rationale for exploring how and the ways faculty engage students in the higher education classroom. Based on a literature review of recent university teaching and learning method trends, the researchers created a questionnaire to obtain insight about teaching in Italian higher education across a variety of students, disciplines, settings, and universities. A larger aim of this study is also to identify and present essential ways to improve and modernize university didactics through engaging student voices, to overcome the dichotomy between the university and work setting, to develop and reinforce the skills of university students to more effectively enter the labor market, and to create solid research results as basis to promote faculty development in Italy.