Didactics, sense making, and educational experience

Abstract

This article focuses on student participation in classrooms. It aims to demonstrate that effective cultivation of educational experience in schools will lead to a new perspective on the process of teaching and learning. There are no privileged methods of teaching and learning, but most of the teachers have in mind some fuzzy ideas of what good instruction is, and there is a great variety of how teachers involve their students and how students get involved in what happens in school. That is why the student's didactic competence should be used in the instructional process and teachers' and students' sensitivity for classroom participation and student involvement should be increased. Examples of how learners view their educational process, and how sense making can be identified and described, are given. Sense making is an individual affair, and what the teachers want is not necessarily in accord with the students' constructions. Therefore, it is not only of interest to examine how learners acquire knowledge and skills but also how they develop the ability to decide things for themselves and act responsibly in an increasingly complex and difficult world.