What is Contributing Student Approach

This chapter examines why despite decades of research and overwhelming evidence questioning the pedagogical effectiveness of lecturing as a teaching and learning strategy, it remains the dominant pedagogical mode in most higher education institutions worldwide. The authors explore further why lectures are not the most appropriate teaching strategy in the current higher education climate for three main reasons: the way we now view ‘knowledge’; the information society in which we are currently immersed; and the diverse background and experience of today’s student population. The authors offer an alternative to the lecture which can achieve what a lecture aims to, but in a more student-centred way. Their alternative is informed by the contributing student approach, devised by Collis & Moonen (2001), whereby students collaboratively find, explore, share, and engage with the content which they would have otherwise received passively via a didactic lecture.