What is a Learning-Centered Education?
Research has shown that a learning-centered education helps students
acquire competency in skill areas and creates lifelong learners.
The perspective that couples a focus on individual
learners (their heredity, experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, talents,
interests, capacities, and needs) with a focus on learning (the best available
knowledge about learning and how it occurs and about teaching practices that
are most effective in promoting the highest levels of motivation, learning, and
achievement for all learners.)
McCombs, B.L. & Whisler, J.S. (1997). The Learner-Centered Classroom and School.
San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers. (p.9)
The Learning-Centered Paradigm:
- Students construct knowledge through gathering and synthesizing information and integrating it with the general skills of inquiry, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and so on.
- Emphasis is on using communicating knowledge effectively to address enduring and emerging issues and problems in real-life contexts.
- Professor’s role is to coach and facilitate.
- Professor and students evaluate learning together.
- Teaching and assessing are intertwined.
- Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning.
- Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors.
- Desired learning is assessed directly through papers, projects, performances, portfolios and the like.
- Approach is compatible with interdisciplinary investigation.
- Culture is cooperative, and supportive.
- Professor and student learn together.
From: Huba,
Mary E. & Freed. Jann E. (2000). Learner-Centered
Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting
the Focus from Teaching to Learning. Needham Heights, MA:
Allyn & Bacon. (p. 4)
From the Arizona
Board of Regents website: http://www.abor.asu.edu/4_special_programs/lce/afc-defined_lce.htm
Arizona Faculties Council (AFC)
Definition of Learning-Centered Education
Approved by the Arizona Board of Regents
in January 2000
Learning-centered education places the student at the center of
education. It begins with understanding the educational contexts from which a
student comes. It continues with the instructor evaluating the student's progress
towards learning objectives. By helping the student acquire the basic skills to
learn, it ultimately provides a basis for learning throughout life. It
therefore places the responsibility for learning on the student, while the
instructor assumes responsibility for facilitating the student’s education.
This approach strives to be individualistic, flexible, competency-based, varied
in methodology and not always constrained by time or place.
Instructional Delivery. Learning-centered education advocates a student-focused teaching
and learning environment. Educators attempt to maximize student productivity,
knowledge acquisition, skills augmentation and development of personal and
professional abilities. Such educators may use a variety of instructional tools
and methods, as well as flexible arrangements of time and place.
Student-centered educators urge students to join them in the learning process.
Learners assume primary responsibility for their choices and have opportunities
to exercise control over their learning. These efforts may often lead to
collaborative partnerships among university faculty, administration, staff and
the community at large.
The learning-centered environment facilitates the exploration of meaning
and content knowledge through personal and interpersonal discovery. The process
implies active involvement by the student and the integration of academics with
the student’s total development. Examples of learning-centered educational
practices include, but are not limited to:
·
Collaborative group learning, both inside and
outside the classroom;
·
Individual student research and discovery;
·
Research and discovery by students and faculty
together;
·
Problem-based inquiry learning;
·
Student-faculty studio and performance activities;
·
Asynchronous distance learning;
·
Synchronous interactive distance learning;
·
Service learning activities;
·
Hands-on, experiential learning activities;
·
On-site field experiences;
·
Self-paced tutorials.
Learning-centered education also creates an environment that supports
the individual as a whole person. It attempts to meet the individual needs of a
broad range of learners who have different ways of knowing, skills and cultural
backgrounds. Different learning styles may be addressed by a variety of means,
such as music, art, performance, visual representations and auditory input.
Credit hours and time in the classroom may not necessarily be coupled in
learning-centered education. Although students with background knowledge and
experiences in a content area may quickly master the course material and
required skills, others may need more time and additional help. Consequently,
students in learning-centered environments will often complete courses at
different rates. Flexible course time frames can be accomplished through such
varied means as instructional contracts and self-paced modules.
Services.
Educational services that support the whole student may include:
·
Providing appropriately focused counseling,
advising and tutoring services;
Offering supplementary services such as child care, elder care and referral to community agencies;
Offering supplementary services such as child care, elder care and referral to community agencies;
·
Encouraging co-curricular activities such as
debate, public lectures, fine arts performances, intramural athletics, museum
exhibits, workshops and community outreach;
·
Accommodating special needs, such as handicap
access, interpreters, readers for the blind, note takers, and adaptive
technologies.
Assessment.
Learning-centered education must retain the rigor and standards that
traditionally have characterized higher education. The emphasis is on the
student's competence and proficiency in specific areas of academic and
professional knowledge, skills and understanding. Competency-based assessment
is an integral part of learning-centered education. The learner is asked to
achieve and demonstrate competence in academic and professional disciplines.
Assessment may take a variety of forms, such as: tests, demonstrations, papers,
portfolios, performances, individual reports, group reports, individual
projects, group projects, and electronic presentations. Competence in an
academic or professional area may be demonstrated by the learner’s application
of knowledge in solving real or simulated problems.
