Changing the Titanic’s trajectory: Introducing heutagogy to in-service teachers via the flipped classroom

Abstract

The passive learning phenomenon continues to thrive in high school classrooms as traditional teacher-centred pedagogy remains the norm. This article investigates how a learning-centred pedagogic intervention can address learners’ need for competency, relatedness and autonomy (collectively known as self-determined behaviours), thereby initiating a move across the ‘Pedagogy-Andragogy-Heutagogy’ (PAH) continuum. The pedagogic intervention was implemented by in-service teachers across the Western Cape Province. Four datasets were drawn from including semi-structured online interviews, feedback questionnaires, a spontaneous response, and research diaries. The analysis reveals three primary factors that can either promote or deter the successful activation of learners’ self-determined behaviours, namely the complex relationship between learner autonomy and teacher control, teachers’ struggle to embrace alternative teaching methods, and learners’ readiness to shift across the PAH continuum. Growing self-determined behaviours will assist high school learners to become lifelong learners and ease transitioning from the Further Education and Training Phase into the sphere of Higher Education and Training and develop critical and necessary 21^st century skills.