Lemmens The Virtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education Bernd Wächter (ed.) Aca papers on International Cooperation in Education The V irtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education

parts in order to see the whole picture. According to Jerome Bruner, this could
be perceived as an established cultural belief, where the teacher is an autho-
rity “who is supposed to tell the child what the general case is, while the child
should be occupying herself with memorising the particulars” (Bruner 1999:5).
In the project Productive Learning Cultures, this paradigm is being questioned.
In a learning age, we should ask questions like these: What if the process of
learning is not cumulative and linear? What if we do not learn by placing
building blocks next to or on top of each other? What if the teaching process
is more like reading a novel or looking at a picture being slowly focused, as
we gradually see new relations and connections? What if learning is a pro-
cess presupposing reorganisations and restructuring while we learn?
Such questions lead us to constructivism or pragmatism, focusing on the
practical implications of an idea or theory. Knowledge is being perceived as
the (dialectical) product of evidence, argument and construction rather than
of authority (Bruner 1999:13). Knowledge is justified true belief (Plato),
shared within discourse, within a context or a “textual” community. A con-
structivist perspective on learning supposes that construction of knowledge
takes place when groups of people interact in practical problem solving
within a cultural community. Adult learning is for instance typically characte-
rised by trial and error – by approaching the object being investigated from
various angles. We ask when we do not understand. The question immedia-
tely involves us in a dialogue.
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Teacher
Subject matter
Student
Figure 2.0: Traditional lecturing paradigm

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Interactive learning
Web-based learning relies on a structure that makes it possible to structure
one’s own learning process. Web-based learning also challenges the traditio-
nal instructional mode, and it emphasises individual tuition for each student
as well as collaborative group work. In this project, we try to make a “didac-
tical turn” on the traditional teaching paradigm by establishing the medium
(ICT) as a pedagogical meeting place for students and teachers. This meet-
ing place constitutes a context where knowledge is being constructed in a
joint effort. An important supposition in the project is that in interactive and
“dialogical” learning processes the traditional knowledge regime is under
pressure. This challenges established power structures and relations, and it
opens new perspectives for the student’s own activity in his or her own learn-
ing process:
We strongly believe that web-based learning must be web-based learning,
not traditional instruction via a new medium. The interactivity should be per-
ceived as a possible meeting place for the construction and reconstruction of
knowledge. It should investigate the possibilities brought forward by the new
medium: Interactivity, the visual dimension, possibilities for active learning,
trial and error. The learning process is also adapted to the individual learner
(follow up, tuition).
In short, what we wish to achieve in this part of the project is to use a new
medium for teaching and learning to learn more about learning.
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