Search

This paper reviews the literature on emerging adulthood with a focus on the implications of generational theory on teaching and learning in higher education. During the past 15 years, researchers have described personality traits, attitudes, and behaviors of emerging adults. Two very different views have emerged: one that is prosocial, citing qualities like optimism and confidence, while the other is quite negative, using narcissism and anxiety as descriptors. The authors of this paper contend that both views may be correct, and suggest that contextual or environmental factors play a role in eliciting certain characteristics. Several key educational theories are discussed, with an argument posed for how learner-centered education may offer the most developmentally appropriate context for today's emerging adults to thrive in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the idea that student-centred learning (SCL) is a concept and an approach that is internationally useful and transferable to a range of higher education settings. We present details of a British Council funded collaborative project between Hawler Medical University (HMU), in Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and the University of Glasgow (UoG) in Scotland, UK. The aim of this project was to support teachers within HMU to adopt SCL methodologies across the dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy curricula. We use experiences and evaluation from this project to explore the ways in which different teachers interpreted and enacted SCL. The project evaluation findings demonstrate that as a result of the SCL project, most teachers at HMU demonstrated a slight increase in their level of confidence as a teacher, their level of understanding of SCL and confidence in their own skills to undertake SCL. There was a willingness from most participants to try to adapt their teaching practice towards an SCL approach. However, some participants did not fully understand the shift in conceptualisation necessary in adopting a student-centred approach and some were uncomfortable with the need for a shift of power from teacher to student implied within SCL. We conclude by highlighting the key lessons learned from this project related to the translatability of SCL from one global context to another, highlighting the need to re-examine a range of Western educational concepts in the current context of increasing transnational higher education partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]