Mirjam Neelen & Paul A. Kirschner

 Most of us agree that the workplace (and thus jobs) is changing rapidly and that this has consequences for both workers and employers. Interestingly, this agreement evaporates when it comes to what the consequences of those changes are, such as what skills people need to ACQUIRE and how they should acquire them.

Something that looks like a sure bet is that cognitive tasks that must be carried out by people will become increasingly complex (also see our blog on complex skills). It’s also likely that these cognitively-complex task-focused skills will include problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making. To achieve this, complex learning is called for. The tricky bit here is that, when dealing with complex learning, the whole is more than the sum of its part and the question is: How do we design effective, efficient, and enjoyable learning experiences for this?