| dc.description.abstract | World-wide, 21st century higher education (HE) involves knowledge acquisition focused
on addressing societal challenges. Fundamentally valuable are high order skills, such as
critical thinking, creative problem solving, teamwork, evaluation, analysis, digital
literacy, adaptability, and communication which can be used to navigate across a wide
range of disciplines attributive to success in modern society. This is achievable through
quality teaching for quality learning and hence the need for modernized pedagogical
experience. In this regard, modern pedagogy in HE demands beyond routinized merely
teachers’ transmission of information versus students’ retention efforts. It delves into the
teaching of students on how to handle, address and interpret concepts, evidence and
ideas, how to think and act as experts and how to produce original insights and valuable
knowledge for the benefit of society, and ultimately, how to remain ahead of foreseeable
societal challenges. Due to this, universities should change pedagogical approaches from
fact-based traditional lecturing to interactive teaching with the aim of fostering deep
understanding and expert-mindedness for problem-solving. This would result in
graduates who fit the emerging economic, social and political situations that nations
experience. They should be able to; approach societal challenges given their grounded
curiosity, critical thinking and creativity, apply innovative skills in addressing real world
problems, display a strong sense of personal and professional identity, and portray a high
sense of self-efficacy. This paper is an attempt to explain how HE can give forth products
who are world leaders in their specific disciplines in respect of teaching, research and
community service. | en_US |
