Learning-Centered Education

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: 

1. 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. 
2. Emphasis is on using communicating knowledge effectively to address enduring and emerging issues and problems in real-life contexts. 

2. Professor’s role is to coach and facilitate.
3. Professor and students evaluate learning together.
4. Teaching and assessing are intertwined.
5. Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning.
6. Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors.
7. Desired learning is assessed directly through papers, projects, performances, portfolios and the like.
8. Approach is compatible with interdisciplinary investigation.
9. Culture is cooperative, and supportive.
10. 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;

·         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.