ABSTRACT

Universities are regularly lambasted for not providing the skills future workers in the knowledge economy will need, skills which, ironically, are often at the same time said to be changing rapidly. In ones educational lifetimes, the increasing specialization of knowledge is a defining condition that educators especially in concept-rich domains like science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) simply have to adapt to. Increasing specialization entails an ever-increasing addition of new knowledge and with it, an ever-increasing rise of the cognitive demand bar at each level of the educational ladder. Traditionalism in the sphere of STEM has meant an approach to knowledge as either a form of rationalism which elevates theory and hence the theoretical disciplines; or a form of empiricism which elevates propositional knowledge. Constructivism as a theoretical movement underlying pedagogic progressivism was a serious attempt to establish a sociological basis to debates about the curriculum.