Facilitating Learner-Centered

Learning
EDUC 201
 WEEK 1
Teacher-Centered Versus
Learner-Centered Learning
 The Goal of Education
1. The central focus of elementary and
secondary education is to help the students
build their capacity to learn—or learn how to
learn.
2. Placing “learning to learn” at the center of
education will enhance the learning of
content, skills, and processes in core
curriculum areas.
3. The core mission of the student is to increase
his or her capacity to learn.
 Teacher-Centered Learner-Centered
Focus is on both students and
Focus is on instructor
instructor
Focus is on language use in
Focus is on language forms and
typical situations (how
structures (what the instructor
students will use the
knows about the language)
language)
Instructor models; students
Instructor talks; students listen interact with instructor and
one another
Students work in pairs, in
Students work alone groups, or alone depending on
the purpose of the activity
A Look at the Differences Between Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered Learning
Source: The National Capitol Language Resource Center (a project of the George Washington
University)
 Teacher-Centered
Instructor monitors and corrects instructor monitoring;
every student utterance
Instructor answers students’
questions about language
Instructor chooses topics
Instructor evaluates student
learning
Classroom is quiet
Learner-Centered
Students talk without constant
instructor provides feedback or
correction when questions arise
Students answer each other’s
questions, using instructor as
an information resource
Students have some choice of
topics
Students evaluate their own
learning; instructor also
evaluates
Classroom is often noisy and
busy
 Exercise
1. Which classroom approach do you prefer:
teacher-centered or learner-centered. Justify
your answer.
2. Share your answer with a partner.
 What changes when teaching is
learner-centered?
1. Balance of Power - the locus of the learning process is
shifted from the teacher to the students.
2. The Function of Content. (Deep learning vs surface
learning) Constructivist theory is about the
relationship between learners and content:
“Constructivist approaches emphasize learners’
actively constructing their own knowledge rather than
passively receiving information transmitted to them
from teachers and textbooks. (Jean Piaget, Jerome
Bruner, Ernst von Glaserfeld, and Lev Vygotsky)
 What changes when teaching is
learner-centered?
3. The role of the teacher. Teachers no longer
function as exclusive content expert or
authoritarian classroom managers and no
longer work to improve teaching by
developing sophisticated presentation skills.
They will lecture less and be much more
around the classroom than in front of it.
 What changes when teaching is
learner-centered?
4. The responsibility for learning. The goal of
education ought to be the creation of
independent, autonomous learners who
assume responsibility for their own learning.
Learners take this stance during formal
educational encounters and on their own as
learning occurs across their lifetimes.
 What changes when teaching is
learner-centered?
5. Evaluation Purpose and Processes. “What and
how students learn depends to a major extent on
how they think they will be assessed” (Biggs,
1999a, p. 141). Assessment practices must send
the right signals.
- what students are most likely to learn in a course
is directly related to what they are evaluated on.
- Evaluation is not just something used to generate
grades; it is the most effective tool a teacher has
to promote learning.
 Students’ Resistance to Learner-
Centered Approach
1. Old habits die hard.
2. High schools remain teacher-centered
institutions.
3. Learning is not a top reason students give for
attending college.
4. Students do not like taking learning risks.
5. Learner-centered teaching does not resemble
what students think of as school.
 Students’ Resistance to Learner-
Centered Approach
6. Students do not want to put forth the extra
effort learner-centered teaching requires.
7. Students’ mind-sets about learning make
adapting to learner-centered teaching more
difficult.
8. Many students follow the path of least
resistance in their learning.