Beyond learning: Students’ Responsibility for their Knowledge

The claim that students should take responsibility for their learning is challenged through the alternative claim that students should be expected to take responsibility for their knowledge. It is argued that students can reflect on responsibilities for knowledge and teachers can support this in an everyday academic discourse regardless of discipline, whereas responsibility for learning is difficult to grasp without an elaborate learning theory. Further, the suggested shift from learning to knowledge will widen the scope to issues beyond learning, explicating a more nuanced student role. Through the focus on knowledge, students’ responsibilities relates to educational purposes, and points to expectations on critical thinking as well as the students’ academic freedom. It also makes it possible to discuss the mutual responsibilities of students and teachers with the same conceptual framework. This can also support the notion of students as co-creators of knowledge