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Running head: STUDENT CENTERED INSTRUCTION

Student-Centered Instruction
Jaimee Hadley
Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Fall 2015

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STUDENT-CENTERED INSTRUCTION
Introduction
During my time in my student teaching classroom, I have had the opportunity to see and
hear about numerous types of lessons that are given to students. In my own lesson planning, I
can sometimes look ahead to my next week of plans and automatically know if the students are
going to be enthralled in a certain activity that has been planned. I certainly know that, in my
opinion, student-centered instruction seems to always delight the students! The benefits of
student-centered lessons are huge. First of all, I truly enjoy watching the students work both
independently and with a group in order to get the assignment complete. I find that the students
are more interested in learning activities when they can interact with one another and participate
actively.
Rationale for Selection of Artifacts
The two artifacts that I have included in this paper will show my ability to incorporate
student-centered activities into my lessons. The first artifact (1) is a photograph of a lesson plan
that I developed which will demonstrate my ability to include student-centered activities into my
lessons. The second artifact (2) is a photograph of students in my classes who volunteered to
share their completed Astronomer Posters with the class.
Artifact 1 shows the lesson plans that I developed about famous Astronomers. I
discussed with the students many interesting facts about four famous Astronomers (Ptolemy,
Aristotle, Copernicus, and Galileo.) The students learned that Ptolemy and Aristotle believed in
the Geocentric Theory while Copernicus and Galileo believed in the Heliocentric Theory. The
second part of this lesson was an activity that the students really enjoyed. I assigned each table

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one of the famous Astronomers and gave them printed information to get facts from. Each table
was given a large piece of construction paper, markers, scissors, and their facts. They were given
5 questions to find the answers to about their Astronomer. The students would work as a team to
title their paper, collect information, display answers on index cards and neatly glue their
information on the construction paper. I included this artifact to represent this competency
because it shows that I try to stay focused on the students and include student-centered activities
in my lesson plans.
Artifact 2 is a photograph of my students holding up the famous Astronomer posters that
they completed. My students really enjoyed this activity and took their time finding the
information, cutting out photographs of the Astronomer, recording their information and neatly
gluing all the information on the posters. The noise level in the classroom did get high, but that
is expected during an activity where the groups are collaborating. Upon completion, each table
had a volunteer to present their poster to the entire class. I included this artifact because it shows
the completed posters and also shows the smiling faces of my students.
Reflection
I learned a great deal in regards to student-centered instruction from my professors at
Regent. I know that it is effective and I also know it is necessary. Bergin (2012) tells us that
through collaboration and cooperation with others, students engage in experiential learning that
is authentic, holistic, and challenging (p. 116). I completely saw this in my group of students as
they challenged each other to make sure that the answers on their posters were correct and
making sure that their poster was the best it could be. As I conducted this lesson, I think it was

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very successful. My weakness, however, was not discussing appropriate noise levels in the
room. The volume did get loud and I had to quiet the students down a couple of times. Overall,
it was a great activity and I am glad that my students were able to enjoy it.

STUDENT-CENTERED INSTRUCTION
References
Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2012). Child and adolescent development in your classroom.
Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.