I recently chaired a national Task Force on Student Learning appointed by the American Association for Higher Education, the American College Personnel Association and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. The charge to the task force was to be proponents for stronger collaborations between academic- and student-affairs offices on behalf of student learning. In doing its work, the task force put together some observations about learning based on our review of multiple disciplinary perspectives on the subject. We summarized these observations in the ten "principles" shown below.  We then explored their implications for teaching, for learning materials and curricula, for the creation of effective learning environments and for the assessment of learning. I offer these principles as the starting point for a conversation about these implications, and how they might be transformed into concrete activities that could shape our work as teachers and our students' educational experiences as learners.

In light of these principles, how can we become a more learning-centered university?

THE PRINCIPLE OF A COMPELLING SITUATION: Learning is enhanced by taking place in the context of a compelling situation that balances challenge and opportunity, stimulating and utilizing the brain's ability to conceptualize quickly and its capacity and need for contemplation and reflection upon experiences.

THE PRINCIPLE OF AN ACTIVE SEARCH FOR MEANING: Learning is an active search for meaning by the learner-- constructing knowledge rather than passively receiving it, shaping as well as being shaped by experiences.

THE PRINCIPLE OF DEVELOPMENT AND HOLISM: Learning is developmental, a cumulative process involving the whole person, relating past and present, integrating the new with the old, starting from but transcending personal concerns and interests.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION: Learning is done by individuals who are intrinsically tied to others as social beings, interacting as competitors or collaborators, constraining or supporting the learning process, and able to enhance learning through cooperation and sharing.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE LEARNING CLIMATE: Learning is strongly affected by the educational climate in which it takes place: the settings and surroundings, the influences of others, and the values accorded to the life of the mind and to learning achievements.

THE PRINCIPLE OF FEEDBACK AND USE: Learning requires frequent feedback if it is to be sustained, practice if it is to be nourished, and opportunities to use what has been learned.

THE PRINCIPLE OF INCIDENTAL LEARNING: Much learning takes place informally and incidentally, beyond explicit teaching or the classroom, in casual contacts with faculty and staff, peers, campus life, active social and community involvements, and unplanned but fertile and complex situations.

THE PRINCIPLE OF GROUNDEDNESS: Learning is grounded in particular contexts and individual experiences, requiring effort to transfer specific knowledge and skills to other circumstances or to more general understandings and to unlearn personal views and approaches when confronted by new information.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-MONITORING: Learning involves the ability of individuals to monitor their own learning, to understand how knowledge is acquired, to develop strategies for learning based on discerning their capacities and limitations, and to be aware of their own ways of knowing in approaching new bodies of knowledge and disciplinary frameworks.