How Student-Centered Learning and Teaching can Obscure the Importance of Knowledge in Educational Processes and why it Matters

In this chapter, I examine how student-centered learning and teaching (SCLT) characterizes teaching-learning processes in higher education (HE). I argue that, while SCLT is an important corrective to traditional teacher-centered approaches to HE, by centering students’ learning processes it can obscure the educational character of HE. I argue that there are three aspects to this that are all related to the role of knowledge in the educational process. First, it obscures the ways in which students are transformed by their engagement with knowledge; second, it obscures the importance of the expertise of teachers in designing an environment that provides students with access to knowledge; and third, it obscures the role of educational institutions in providing a context in which this transformation can take place. I argue that as a whole, the obscuring of the educational nature of students learning processes can have the unintended consequence of undermining a commitment to H