Helping students to develop a sense of responsibility for their learning is widely recognized as a key goal of higher education. OECD identifies 'taking responsibility' as one of the three critical transformative competencies that every student should develop to navigate the unpredictable societal, economic, and environmental challenges of the future. Yet, taking responsibility, particularly in the context of learning, is a complex construct as it carries multiple meanings, interpretations, and implications.

TU Delft's IDEE (Innovation in Delft Engineering Education) Initiative aims to address these complexities within the Students Taking Responsibility for Their Own Learning Process theme. This book, which is one of the early outputs of this initiative, presents our initial findings and lays the foundation for future research. ... Read more

Tackling today’s and tomorrow’s societal, technological, and environmental challenges demands expertise that extends beyond the boundaries of any single discipline. Architects and engineers, in particular, must integrate knowledge and skills across domains while effectively communicating with professionals from diverse fields. In response, interdisciplinary education has gained momentum in built environment education, aiming to prepare students for this complexity by engaging them in challenges that mirror real-world problems. However, if experienced professionals struggle to navigate such complexities, how can students be expected to thrive in similarly demanding learning environments? This chapter addresses this question through the lens of self- and socially shared regulated learning (S-SRL). We begin by introducing a commonly used S-SRL model to provide a foundation for understanding how students regulate their learning individually and collectively. Building on this model, we explored the typical challenges students may encounter at various stages of interdisciplinary learning tasks. Furthermore, we review instructional tools and highlight their core design principles that help students overcome these challenges, while supporting the development of essential regulatory skills. In doing so, we offer educators practical insights into fostering personal and group responsibility for learning as well as the collaboration needed to achieve successful interdisciplinary education. ... Read more

Health professions educators are increasingly encouraged to implement desirable difficulties in their instruction, such as interleaved practice. In practical context, however, there is limited empirical evidence regarding the (meta)cognitive benefits of desirable difficulties, and interleaved practice in particular, posing a challenge to theoretical propositions. In this quasi-experimental field study, we examined the effectiveness of interleaved practice in auscultation training for second-year nursing students, with a focus on their learning outcomes and relative monitoring accuracy. Over 3 weeks, we measured participants' immediate and delayed-test scores, monitoring accuracy, and metacognitive knowledge of blocked and interleaved practice. Results revealed that interleaved practice yielded better auscultation performance than blocked practice. Regarding metacognitive accuracy, however, we found no statistically significant benefit of interleaving. Many students were unaware of the learning benefits of interleaved practice and found it more effortful than blocking. Our findings indicate that interleaved practice is a viable instructional method that can be utilized in authentic environments. ... Read more