What is critical to the development of domain-specific 'learning-to- learn' capabilities?

Abstract

To enhance the global competitiveness of citizens, increasingly more economies recognise the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and prioritise the development of appropriate educational programmes at different levels to enhance students’ competence in these areas. Many governments have invested huge amount of resources on some new initiatives, such as making coding a mandatory part of the primary/elementary school curriculum, promoting the learning of robotics among young school children, scaling up the use of information and communication technology in education, etc. To formulate a successful policy on STEM education, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of whether the programmes in schools and universities are effective and to scrutinise how it works in various educational settings.

In particular, it is important to find out what aspects of learning and teaching are critical, not only for better learning but also for better continued, lifelong learning. Given today’s increasingly complex and fast-changing world, no teacher can clearly specify the situations that students will face in the future and thus help them learn how to make sensible and well-informed decisions in each and every instance. Instead, students need to be equipped with a “lens” which will empower them discern and focus on the critical aspects of each situation and to learn from the novel situations encountered. By drawing upon the findings of a research project on developing financial literacy which was funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, this presentation will critically examine the nature of domain-specific “learning-to-learn” capabilities and identify what it takes to succeed in helping students develop the capabilities.