21st century skills, problem based learning and the university of the future

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the ‘university of the future’, and in particular we aim to explore what the role and relevance of PBL might be in this imagined university of the future. We explore the potential of PBL in the development of 21st century skills in a higher education environment that is on the brink of profound changes, and that consequently requires a continuously adaptive approach to education renewal at all levels. Of course many of these changes are already underway. We appear to be in the midst of profound disruptions to higher education, not in the least due to fast changing technologies and the possibilities they afford. The internet and the World Wide Web have had huge impacts, which in turn have influenced the social fabric of our lives through the growing ubiquity of social media and mobile media tools. In education in general, and in higher education in particular, these changes have ushered in an age characterised by a rapidly increasing evolution of online learning with integration of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning, and most recently, phenomena such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the rise of big data analytics driving learning, and personalised learning. Each of these developments have the potential to cause major disruptions in the way we operate in higher education. It is important to recognise and respect that these changes are here to stay, some evolutionary, some revolutionary. So we need to respond in adaptive and agile ways, and importantly, with imagination and creativity. In this paper, we explore the potential of PBL to address some of the unknown and uncertain challenges of the 21st century.