EDUC 205 – FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

THE LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING | KEY concept certainly is more convenient on the part
PRINCIPLES of the teacher who has worked hard in planning,
implementing, and assessing outcomes of
Learner Centered Teaching (LCT) learning. However, this uniform approach has
- has become a popular phrase among educators been criticized by scholars by being
nowadays. unresponsive to the diversity of needs, interests,
and readiness among students.
- It has been named in several ways such as
student-centred approach or learner- centered - In order to balance power in the classroom,
pedagogy in many textbooks and journal articles. learners are frequently consulted and given
Immediate and ongoing feedback by the teacher.
- Looking at the research literature surrounding The teacher empowers students by giving them
learner-centred teaching in the past 20 years, a the opportunity to choose and make decisions
book published in 2002 by Maryllen Weimer like selecting among lesson topics, choose
stands as one of the earlier attempts to learning activities, determine pace of learning,
comprehensively discuss and define what LCT is and select an assessment task to demonstrate
about. one’s mastery of targeted learning
competencies.
In Weimer’s book titled, ‘Learner-Centered
Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice’, five key 2. Function of Content
changes were significantly taking place in schools. Each - Current research evidence from educational
of the features will be discussed briefly below and are psychology calls for a change in the function of
presented in Figure 1. curriculum content which should be less on
covering it and more on using content to develop
Five Key Changes in Learner Centered Teaching a learner’s individual way of understanding or
Practices sense- making. Teachers need to allow learners
to raise their own questions, generate their own
answers or solutions.

- From a constructivist perspective, knowledge

cannot simply be given to students: Students
must construct their own meanings” (Stage,
Muller, Kinzie, and Simmons, 1998, p. 35). In
other words, learners are capable of constructing
and reconstructing their knowledge through
active personal effort. This view debunks the
1. Balance of Power
current belief about students’ learning from
- In a traditional classroom, the power to decide
passively receiving information transmitted from
what lessons to discuss, what learning activities
teachers via lectures.
students must engage in, and what assessment
tasks to give mainly belongs to the teacher with
- In order to facilitate learning that changes how
little input from students. On the other hand, in a
students think and understand, teachers must
student-centered classroom, a teacher shares
begin by finding out students’ prior knowledge or
that power by consulting learners prior to making
conceptions and then design learning activities
final decisions.
that will change these pre-instructional concepts.
- The traditional exercise of power in the
- Learner-centered teaching also regards content
classroom often benefits the teacher more than it
as more of competency-based learning in which
promotes student learning. The uniform
students master targeted skills and content
instructional approach or ‘one-size-fits-all’
before progressing to another lesson. The more

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EDUC 205 – FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

important practice here is to accommodate

students’ differing pace of learning. For instance, - Maclellan finds that ‘the teacher is involved in
some students may be able to demonstrate they clarifying the subject matter, offering examples,
know how to use a microscope in 1 hour while or suggesting arguments for or against a point of
others need 2 hours of practice to demonstrate view may minimize the students’ need to think’
proficiency in manipulating it. while, equally, ‘little engagement by the tutor,
leaving students to determine both what and how
- With patient guidance and ongoing support from to learn without any criteria to judge their
teachers, competency-based learning would process, is unsatisfactory, inefficient and makes
ensure that students advance to new material a nonsense of formal, higher education as a
when they are ready, at their own pace, whether planned and designed system (Maclellan, 2008,
they can move quickly or whether they need p.418).
more time.
- Teachers must become comfortable with
3. Role of the Teacher changing their leadership style from directive to
- Constructivism theory brings the role of the consultative-- from "Do as I say" to "Based on
teacher as that of a facilitator of learning, not as your needs, let's co-develop and implement a
the fountain of learning. He/she instead plan of action.
encourages students to explore multiple
knowledge sources, make sense of it, and 4. Responsibility for Learning
personally organize the information taken from - In recent years, work on self-regulated learning
different sources. has advanced, and the goal of 21st century
education ought to be the creation of
- As generally observed, less knowledgeable and independent, autonomous learners who assume
experienced learners will interact with content in responsibility for their own learning.
less intellectually robust ways, but the goal is to
involve students in the process of acquiring and - Adults are known to be capable of self-directed
retaining information. learning and that continuous learning occurs
across their career span and lifetime.
- This shifting view on the role of the teacher
deemphasizes the focus on teaching techniques - Each student may require different ways of
and methods if they are considered separate learning, researching and analysing the
from the subject matter and learning structures information available.
of the discipline.
- It establishes that students can and should be
- Teachers no longer function as exclusive content made responsible for their own learning.
expert or authoritarian classroom managers and
no long work to improve teaching by developing - Learning skills of autonomous self-regulating
sophisticated presentation skills. learners can be learned and must be taught
even at an early age. This is even more
- Greater involvement with students by the teacher important when entering higher education.
is central to student motivation. Diekelmann et al
(2004) show how a nursing teacher increasingly - The learning skills acquired in basic education
included students in ‘cocreating compelling and higher education will be used throughout the
courses’ and was surprised ‘by the insights course of their professional and personal lives.
students shared regarding how to create
compelling courses and their willingness to - Learning is cooperative, collaborative, and
collaborate with ...[her] to improve teaching and community-oriented.
learning experiences’ (Diekelmann et al, 2004,
p.247).

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EDUC 205 – FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

- Students are encouraged to direct their own Kaput’s study reported that the majority of the
learning and to work with other students on participating schools were effective in personalizing the
research projects and assignments that are both learning of their students and creating an environment
culturally and socially relevant to them. where students took ownership of their learning.
However, the study also found that the participating
- Class often starts with a mini-lesson, which then schools struggled with implementing and practicing
flows into students making choices about what “anytime, anywhere learning” due to a series of
they need to do next to meet specific learning challenges that both teachers and administrators faced.
targets aligned to the standards. Teachers from the participating schools largely
responded that student-centered learning promoted
5. Evaluation Purpose and Process higher student engagement and facilitated learning that
- The literature on self-directed learning also was more relevant to students. Further, a large
underscores the importance of assessment, only percentage of the teachers contended that students in
in this case it is the ability of students to self- student-centered environments explored the curriculum
assess accurately. Sophisticated learners know with more depth and retained knowledge more effectively
when they do or do not understand something. than in traditional settings.

- They can review a performance and identify Top 20 Principles for Pre K–12 Teaching and Learning
what needs improvement.
The American Psychological Association (APA)
- They have mechanisms for its collections and published in 2015 its top 20 principles for teaching and
methods for evaluating it and acting on it. learning for basic education teachers. These principles
were based on decades of research on human learning
and can well serve as lampposts for today’s teachers on
Four Principles of Student-Centered Approach how to facilitate learner-centered teaching. A brief
statement of APA on the implications of the top 20
A more recent research on the student-centered principles to current teaching practices is quoted below:
approach was reported by Kaput in 2018 that was funded
by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and UMass “Psychological science has much to contribute to
Donahue Institute. This study surveyed 12 public high enhancing teaching and learning in the classroom.
schools in New England in terms of how they apply Teaching and learning are intricately linked to social and
learner-centered teaching in their classroom practices. behavioral factors of human development, including
The said survey summarized their findings into 4 tenets cognition, motivation, social interaction, and
which are: communication” (APA, 2015, p.8)

As a future educator, the top 20 principles

revolve around the following key concepts to keep in
mind whenever we design our instructional plans and
implement them with our students.

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EDUC 205 – FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty, relevant to

personal interests, and providing for personal
COGNITIVE AND METACOGNITIVE FACTORS choice and control.

Nature of the learning process. Effects of motivation on effort.

- The learning of complex subject matter is most - Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills
effective when it is an intentional process of requires extended learner effort and guided
constructing meaning from information and practice. Without learners' motivation to learn,
experience. the willingness to exert this effort is unlikely
without coercion.
Goals of the learning process.
- The successful learner, over time and with
support and instructional guidance, can create DEVELOPMENTAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS
meaningful, coherent representations of
knowledge.
Developmental influences on learning
Construction of knowledge. - As individuals develop, there are different
- The successful learner can link new information opportunities and constraints for learning.
with existing knowledge in meaningful ways. Learning is most effective when differential
development within and across physical,
Strategic thinking. intellectual, emotional, and social domains is
- The successful learner can create and use a taken into account.
repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to
achieve complex learning goals. Social influences on learning
- Learning is influenced by social interactions,
Thinking about thinking. interpersonal relations, and communication with
- Higher order strategies for selecting and others
monitoring mental operations facilitate creative
and critical thinking. Individual differences in learning
- Learners have different strategies, approaches,
Context of learning. and capabilities for learning that are a function of
- Learning is influenced by environmental factors, prior experience and heredity.
including culture, technology, and instructional
practices. Learning and diversity
- Learning is most effective when differences in
learners' linguistic, cultural, and social
MOTIVATIONAL AND AFFECTIVE FACTORS backgrounds are taken into account.

Motivational and emotional influences on learning. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES FACTORS

- What and how much is learned is influenced by
the motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is
influenced by the individual's emotional states, Standards and assessment.
beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of - Setting appropriately high and challenging
thinking. standards and assessing the learner as well as
learning progress -- including diagnostic,
Intrinsic motivation to learn process, and outcome assessment -- are integral
- The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, parts of the learning process.
and natural curiosity all contribute to motivation
to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by