Creating Significant Learning Experiences, Revised and Updated

CHAPTER THREE

DESIGNING SIGNIFICANT LEARNING EXPERIENCES I

Getting Started

The first two chapters of this book have presented two key ideas: all teaching should strive to create significant learning experiences, and it is useful to have a taxonomy—a language and set of concepts—for identifying what constitutes such experiences. If one accepts the associated premise that higher education is and ought to be moving toward a learning-centered approach, then the question arises, “How can teachers do a better job of creating significant learning experiences for students?”

The answers to this question obviously have several important components but it is clear that if professors want to create courses in which students have significant learning experiences, ...