Advancing Higher Education Pedagogy – Meaningful Learning Experiences at the Forefront

The future of higher education pedagogy is being shaped now — boldly, collaboratively, and through research-based development. This thematic issue offers critical reflections, practical insights, and concrete ideas for the advancement of teaching and learning in higher education.

In This Issue: Building the Future of Higher Education Pedagogy

Higher education pedagogy in Finland is undergoing significant transformation. Rapid societal shifts, increasing pressures on student wellbeing, and technological advancement challenge traditional models of teaching. Yet these very dynamics also present a unique opportunity to construct a more flexible, impactful, and responsive form of higher education. Institutions must reinforce pedagogical agility, foster a sense of community, and support structures for lifelong learning.

This edition of the UAS Journal (2/25) explores topical issues in higher education pedagogy through practical reviews, a podcast, and applied expert articles.

Anticipatory pedagogical competence has emerged as a vital skill. Educators’ ability to recognize early signals of change and adapt learning processes accordingly is crucial. Concurrently, students’ ability to study has become a national concern. It is essential to consider how pedagogy can bolster students’ resilience and sense of purpose.

The role of community requires rethinking, especially in hybrid and distributed learning environments. Higher education institutions must strike a balance between individual flexibility and a cohesive sense of belonging. Pedagogy that bridges different educational levels, such as pathway studies that support transitions from secondary education to universities of applied sciences, is particularly valuable.

Integrating research, development, and innovation (RDI) activities into teaching is a central theme. Although the need for integration is widely recognized, few institutions have adopted RDI as a pedagogical model. Effective integration requires investments in time, organization, and competence. When successful, it deepens learning and enhances the relevance and impact of teaching.

Innovative teaching methods — such as the finance-themed escape game WorryEscape —demonstrate the pedagogical potential of gamification. These experiments raise an important question: how can we systematically develop more engaging and motivating learning experiences?

Student-driven credentialing and digital badges represent emerging trends that support personalized and flexible learning pathways. These developments reflect a vision of the future university — one in which learning is increasingly individualized and competency-focused.
While the development of online learning has been rapid and initially reactive, it is now increasingly guided by sound pedagogical understanding. Even large-scale classes can foster high-quality learning, provided the pedagogical design supports interaction and student engagement.

Crafting Learning Experiences Across Diverse Contexts

The intentional construction of learning experiences — in collaboration with students and workplace partners — has become a cornerstone of higher education. In a digital and AI-saturated world, the mere transmission of knowledge is no longer sufficient. Students’ expectations and the evolving demands of working life call for meaningful, participatory environments that integrate critical thinking, argumentation, dialogic skills, and lifelong learning alongside subject expertise.

Learning experience is commonly defined as a student’s interaction with the teaching and learning environment (Ning & Downing, 2011), or more broadly, as encompassing all emotions and outcomes experienced during engagement with the learning environment (Liu, 2022).

The cognitive basis of meaningful learning experiences consists of several interrelated elements. Emotional engagement forms the foundation for information processing and retention (e.g., Elmi, 2020), while systematic repetition and practice reinforce learning. Recognizing conceptual models and making interdisciplinary connections promote deeper processing. Collaboration, self-efficacy, motivation, and satisfaction enhance the effectiveness of the learning process. Simultaneously, the creation of personal relevance and connections to the learning content strengthens the overall experience, integrating new knowledge into the learner’s world. In universities of applied sciences, work-integrated learning is especially supportive of meaningful learning experiences (e.g., Ferns et al., 2024).

Higher education pedagogy underpins the design of high-quality learning experiences. It informs the development of inclusive and effective learning environments and promotes interaction and collaboration. It encompasses goal-oriented guidance methods, technologies, and materials that enable active participation, idea exchange, and feedback—all of which significantly shape the quality of the learning experience.

The boundaries between higher education and working life are increasingly blurred as more learning takes place within real-world work contexts. This trend is evident in curricula emphasizing project-based learning and work-oriented theses. Studies show that pedagogies focused on career-relevant competencies also enhance students’ employability (Schauer et al., 2025). Meanwhile, the line between human and technological competencies is becoming less distinct, as collaboration with generative AI reshapes both learning and expert work. Nevertheless, research confirms that students continue to value meaningful interpersonal relationships and student–teacher interactions at all educational levels (Wang, 2023; Evans et al., 2021).

Higher education pedagogy stands before an enduring paradox: it must prepare students for a future that cannot be precisely predicted. The solution is not to try to guess what lies ahead, but rather to develop pedagogical approaches that strengthen students’ capacity to learn and to find meaning in change. Only through such reciprocal adaptation can we build the competencies needed for an uncertain future—one in which the most valuable skill may be the capacity to continually reimagine the meaning of learning itself (Potkalitsky, 2025).

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