The Basis for a Learning View – Education, Experience and Practice

Abstract

This article tells about my own experiences as a student and professor in technical education in Norway and USA in the 1980s and 90s, and economic education in Norway the academic year 2000-01. In technical education in Norway in the 1980s it was not necessary to put that much effort into your studies get a good grade. In the United States, on the other hand, students had two work hard to keep up to get good results. Norwegian higher education, however, has become more like American higher education after the Bologna process. A fresh university professor is nothing more than an advanced student, in the beginning one sticks to the textbook, and any deviation from the plan can cause light panic. As time goes by, the professor gains experience and growing self-confidence, and can start to experiment. My journey in teaching control engineering ended up with flipped classroom, based upon sociocultural learning, where both students and professors participate with the knowledge they have. Learning happens best if people interact and construct new knowledge together. The participants in the learning environment extend their closest (proximal) development zone by collaborating with others.