Most people are familiar with the term “Didactics” in well-structured teaching arrangements. Hopefully each one of us remembers at least one brilliant teacher or coach who delivered excellent trainings at a high didactic quality.

In future, however, we will not only need competent teachers and trainers but also competent learners.

Factual knowledge is retrievable everywhere on earth (provided a reasonable internet connection) which means that “teaching factual knowledge” in the old-fashioned way is not the best idea to create successful and exciting learning settings. Teachers, trainers and consultants must understand that learning (as knowledge creation) is a constructive process and we have to transform this into appropriate training and learning concepts.

Hence, we should view teaching and learning as two sides of the same coin- but this is not at all a new idea.
Already Comenius, who developed the concept of “Didactics” as the “Art of Teaching” also coined the term “Mathetics” as the “Art of Learning” in the middle of the 17^th century.

Mathetics is an educational concept that fits like no other in today’s world because it shifts the focus from the teacher/trainer to the learner. In the third decade of the Millennium our societies are facing fundamental changes which will also affect our professional and educational lives. Mathetics, as a way to facilitate self-learning, may become a key approach to teaching and learning in 2030. (we wrote these sentences in late 2019 – probably 5 months later Corona gave us anther very strong argument on the necessity to create new ways of learning, teaching and training) …

In its projects the blinc community has always promoted user-centred and demand driven learning, training and consulting, which is very much in line with the Mathetics concept. Two inventions led us to re-focus on Mathetics as concept which is probably more up-to-date then ever since its creation in the 17^th century: The latest developments in Neuroscience and the upcoming Design Thinking methodology.

Neuroscience research in recent years has clearly proven that the affective (emotional and non-cognitive) dimension of learning is of utmost importance for the learning process. Feelings, attitudes and values are crucial for learning, especially for the development of social and personal competences – which we consciously promote and validate with LEVEL5. This affective dimension is one cornerstone for a learner centred (“mathetical”) and demand driven development offered in our COL&V approach.

A second development is the introduction of Design Thinking approaches, tools and instruments in business development and (slowly but steadily) also in education. We realised in a number of large-scale business-academia projects that students and staff members in CPD perform better if we only induce and accompany their individual and team processes and let them work and develop individually or in self-organised groups. The more meaningful the tasks, the more self-sustainable they are and the more serious we take them as collaborators the better their results will be.

In a nutshell:

Related to personal learning our mathetical approach means more “support and navigation” on the individual leaning pathway and less pre-determined content and programmed learning.

In collaborative learning we aim at innovation and team development, combining competence-oriented learning and validation with design thinking approaches and state-of-the-art learning technologies.

Mathetics – the art of learning – requires a competence-oriented learning and training approach. It is aiming for self-development and empowerment of the learners rather than their formal qualification and on the support of team processes rather than on competitive individual performances.

In 2016, in the framework of a number of R&D projects we decided to bundle our practice-research activities which promote a learner centred education under the label “MATHETICS”.