Today I had a very interesting peer-to-peer session with my colleagues in the department, and I was pleased with their interest and reactions. We discussed the relevance of Gibbs's pedagogical approach to university teaching: teaching to enable students' competencies rather than delivering educational experiences that force them to memorise. In other words, teaching so that students understand and perform at the same time.
The core question was whether our educational context allows us to facilitate competency-based pedagogies, which are designed to enrich students' experience and prepare them not only for work but for a sustainable lifelong venture.
The teacher's engineering ability, designing and developing thriving learning environments, seems to be the most demanding criterion in this enterprise. Integrating the experiential model into instruction is another hurdle to clear. Continuous professional development can help instructors lead a competency-based approach to teaching and learning.
All in all, leadership and management support is essential to activate this approach. Without reducing the useless administrative burden and twisted bureaucracy that so often inhibit educational success, at student, faculty and institutional level alike, it will be difficult to implement this important part of the scholarship of teaching and learning.
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