The problems of human learning have long ago passed beyond the frame of certain sciences, like Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology, and Didactics. These problems are permanently in the center of researchers’ and practitioners’ attention.

In spite of an imposing number of theoretical researches and investigations, learning, inclusively teaching university students, is often done empirically.  There causes are numerous and profound. The first cause has to do with the very modest initial didactic training of the university didactic staff, or even the absence of such training. The second reason lies in the abundance of various theories of learning: we observe a major gap between the description of theories about learning and the methods applied by the teacher.

Speaking about the phenomenon of human learning the psychologist J. S. Bruner affirms: “The only thing absolutely characteristic for human beings is that they learn. Learning is so deeply rooted in humans, that it became nearly involuntary…, our specialization as a species is the specialization in learning”.

It is common knowledge human beings learn permanently and everywhere. No matter what a person does s/he learns. Learning passes through the person’s experience, through what s/he hears and sees. Even when a person rests s/he learns meditating about the obtained experience or working out plans for the future. Humans learn through social interactions (for example, doing some joint activities), or discussing with somebody. The above-mentioned examples (the list could be continued) refer to the so-called spontaneous or informal learning. In similar situations humans base on the so-called natural learning. Any human is born with multiple aptitude among which the one to learn is considered the most important.  This possibility is offered by existence in its organic structure of a processor of information.

To learn means to use native aptitudes under at least three aspects: accumulation of knowledge (memorization), formation of motor abilities (others as those natural), formation of mental representations and capacities (links between earlier accumulated information and the new one, between the accumulated information and its usage). Through learning a human becomes less dependent on the nature, on the biologic.

Formal learning, characterized by the fact that pedagogical actions are projected in advance and are institutionalized through systemically organized structures (schools, high schools, universities, and training centers) in the frame of the rigorously completed teaching/formation process, in space and time: plans, programmes, manuals, courses, etc., is, in fact, an intervention in the natural learning process.  While organizing formal learning, the professor avoids the natural way of learning, without waiting until the learner will need to know or to do something. Teaching somebody, the professor carries out a pedagogic experiment. Any experiment, mainly an experiment dealing with such a complex phenomenon as learning, must be planned.

The compartment of modern Didactics dealing with the problem of learning planning is called Learning Design. Designing is not limited to the placement of information in front of the learner. Through formulating precise objectives, the designer helps the student to concentrate on a certain piece of information.  The information is presented in a certain context and with a certain perspective. The design allows the compressing of the learning process and saving the students’ time.  The design attracts the student through a clearly and significantly presented content.

The role of the trainer cannot be reduced only to the transmission of certain contents to students. The professor also has the task to organize the learning environment, to diagnose students’ errors, to coordinate the usage of available resources, to select proper pedagogical means, to structure the information, to adapt pedagogical strategies to the learning situations, etc.  Each new learning situation presupposes taking new decisions and realizations of new adjustments. Pedagogical design allows to carry out these activities through a more rigorous and effective way.

Both, school and university teaching staff face Planning learning.  The course you start learning sets its main objective in building several competencies in planning students’ learning in the frame of a training using ICT.

The authors of the course are convinced that a great part of the presented content is well-known to the university teaching staff. At the same time, we would like to draw the learners’ attention to the fact that the reading of the course will not be simple. The pluralism of opinions about some basic concepts dealing with the human learning phenomenon should not disorient the reader. We consider, those enrolled in the course should be aware of the fact that a mere reading of the suggested contents would not get results if not all the suggested tasks are done.

One of the most efficient forms of teaching stuff’s professional development is exchange experience and cooperation with other university mates. This cooperation can be realized through both real academic mobility and virtual mobility. So, one of the main objectives of WETEN project is to create a network of West-East teaching stuff and creation of a repository (deposit) of common learning units. WETEN network (as much as Internet) can be watched as a network of networks. One of the final evaluation criteria in Design of the Student-Oriented Learning Process consists in the fact that during the learning activities there will be needed to identify university’s teaching stuff from the Republic of Moldova and from the universities abroad (preferably from the project participant institutions), who teach the same discipline; and to create a virtual team united with the help of a micro-network. Most of the tasks proposed during the courses will be realized independently, and then discussed and there will be made their expertise within the virtual team (micro-network) or realized in common.

The authors are aware that the modern world gradually enters the epoch of postmodernism. The global Internet is the quintessence of the postmodernist way of life, the  environment in which postmodernism is presented at large and adequately. In order to demonstrate the-above mentioned we would trait the main features and principles of postmodernism:

a)   Axiological pluralism, interference of various traditions and norms, intentional change/transformation of the poles which determine the individual’s traditional orientation;

b)   Fragmentarizm and the principle of assembly;

c)   Stylistic syncretism, mixture of genres;

d)   Indetermination, uncertainness, the cult of confusion, errors, omissions;

e)   Lingual game, etc.

Postmodernism is oriented towards the anthropological type which:

• Is a cosmopolitan that understands the relativity of any cultural traditions and norms;
• Is a user, inclusively a user of information;
• Is an intellectual, that knows the rules of the lingual game, and who can easily deny these rules;

We are looking forward to further efficient collaboration, after the end of the course, and we wish success in raising the professional level of those who joined the course.