Student Based Learning In A Multicultural Environment

Considerations of student based teaching and learning programmes must inevitably concentrate on the two questions of fundamental importance to the student, namely who is responsible for your learning and who owns your time? In discussions with colleagues at engineering conferences about the learning and teaching methods used on the European Project Semester (EPS) and when explanations are given of the concept on which it is based, in attempting to achieve the maximum involvement of the individual student, the same question is asked again and again; how did you manage to do it? The answer is fairly simple: Don’t overfill syllabuses. Most learning programmes fill the subjects with too much information, they continually add to the contents but never seem to take anything out of the course description. The result is well known: Factually overloaded students and frustrated lecturers and professors. They simply cannot cope with this situation any longer. It is necessary to move away from the situation where the professor dispenses wisdom in the classroom in front of the students and they absorb it. This is no longer appropriate as the main concept of teaching. Many years ago the EPS course team realized that to break down traditions and to move away from formally taught courses is difficult; but it must be done in order to be able to cope with the fast growing field of new technology.