October 2, 2026
Constructive, Collaborative, Contextual, and Self-Directed Learning
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) has shaped education at Maastricht University (UM) for more than five decades. Yet PBL is sometimes narrowly associated with one particular instructional format: the seven-step approach. Constructive, Collaborative, Contextual, and Self-Directed (CCCS) Learning at the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) takes a broader perspective. It presents the four CCCS learning principles as a flexible set of design principles for meaningful teaching, learning, and assessment. The booklet brings together more than thirty examples from across FSE. Organised around Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), the cases span educational levels from pre-university education to PhD training and cover a wide variety of formats, including tutorials, laboratories, projects, fieldwork, assessment, games, and technology-enhanced learning. Each case starts from an educational challenge, describes a concrete intervention, and reflects on the design through the CCCS lens. Readers encounter examples ranging from student-led mathematics tutorials and open-ended physics experiments to robotics projects, ecological fieldwork, co-created assessment, serious games, and authentic engineering challenges. Together, they demonstrate that student-centred learning can take many different forms while remaining academically rigorous and appropriate to the demands of STEAM education. Rather than prescribing a single method, the booklet inspires educators to rethink their own practice. It shows how CCCS learning principles can serve as a shared language for educational innovation while allowing room for disciplinary differences, creativity, co-creation, playful learning, technology, and different approaches to PBL. The collection is intended as a practical source of ideas for teachers, course coordinators, programme directors, educational developers, and University Teaching Qualification participants within Maastricht University and beyond. Its central message is simple: CCCS learning is not confined to one classroom format or one disciplinary tradition; it is a versatile foundation for designing engaging and meaningful higher education.
Martijn Boussé, Hanne Diliën, Joris van Poecke, Lonneke Bevers, Stefan Jongen