Working Towards Best Teaching and Learning Practices in a Holistic Curriculum for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

To equip millennial students with twenty-first century competencies, universities around the globe have designed a holistic curriculum that aims to teach students the necessary disciplinary and twenty-first century knowledge/skills. Substantial research reveals that the successful teaching and learning of twenty-first century competencies must be scaffolded in a holistic curriculum that includes two strands of programs: multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary courses and cocurricular activities. The courses in this curriculum should be reinforced by effective evidence-based learning theories and pedagogies. The idea of creating a staff-student partnership in co-designing a curriculum and co-assessing students’ work has been suggested as an effective way to facilitate learning because it can raise students’ meta-cognitive awareness and increase students’ engagement in the learning.

Though effective, the implementation of such a program has imposed challenges on both teachers and students in terms of time constraints, insufficient required disciplinary expertise and pedagogical knowledge, and assessments of students’ disciplinary and twenty-first century knowledge/skills.

This chapter argues that the successful adoption of teacher-student partnerships in co-creating tasks and assessments requires the university management to re-evaluate teachers’ and students’ workload; assist teachers in acquiring interdisciplinary and pedagogical knowledge; and support teachers and students in co-designing the learning objectives/tasks in a curriculum, and co-construction and co-assessment of students’ disciplinary and twenty-first century knowledge/skills.