This first of my three posts on student-centered classrooms starts with the educator. As the authority, teachers decide if they will "share" power by empowering learners. Placing students at the center of their own learning requires their collaboration. They need a voice in why , what , and how learning experiences take shape. Why is about relevance. Learners need to understand the value of the subject, vocabulary, and skills before they are willing to invest effort.
The answers "It's required curriculum," "You need it for the test," or "Because I say it's important" are intended to save time, but they only result in students giving lip service to the rest of instruction. Showing relevance from students' perspective is similar to teachers experiencing professional development that is job-embedded.
What is learned involves students choosing the focus of content. Let their interests drive the content that teaches skills and concepts. The best strategy is simply asking what students want to explore. Start with a brainstorm of what they like to do, and dialog together to match their interests with the skills and concepts. How learning will be demonstrated depends on the different ways that students processes understanding.
Offer a variety of product options based on what you know about your students. A safe approach is to offer three options. The teacher designs two options based on what most students may like to do. The third choice is a blank check -- students propose their own product or performance. If a proposal meets the academic requirements, perhaps with some negotiation, the student gets a green light.
Some examples include using Minecraft to design models and prototypes, presenting through social media tools, or writing in a professional medium.
Give students the chance to take charge of activities, even when they may not quite have all the content skills. Students engage in talk that is accountable to the text or task, the learning community, and standards of reasoning. Learning is negotiated and directed by students. The content and delivery of instruction is culturally responsive and respects and builds on the diverse resources and experiences of learners in the classroom. The school community uses best practices in language acquisition to support academic development and support in both English and native languages.
Students work in flexible, cooperative groupings to solve problems and analyze texts to demonstrate understanding of a task or concept through multiple perspectives. The school supports the inclusion of all students, including English-language learners and special needs students, in regular academic classrooms through the use of best practices, such as dual-certified teachers, differentiated instruction , qualified aides, and individualized learning plans.
Students consistently develop their own reasoning around concepts and ideas and can articulate the processes and thinking they engaged in while grappling with a task or idea. Students listen to one another as well as to their teachers, and they exchange different ideas to build upon and apply new learning and approaches to their own understanding of a concept or idea that increase in complexity.
Students apply the habits of mind for reading, writing, and thinking in various genres and disciplines. Students make connections, pose questions, and explore solutions as a means to engage in real-world scenarios and application transfer. They apply knowledge to different contexts and scenarios.
Talk and focus in all groupings use multiple strategies. Students use physical environment and discussions about group roles to explore various concepts and apply them to different scenarios or problems. The basic rationale is that schools should be designed to enhance student learning, not improve organizational efficiency. Teacher-centered typically refers to learning situations in which the teacher asserts control over the material that students study and the ways in which they study it—i.
In classes that would be considered teacher-centered, the teacher tends to be the most active person in the room and do most of the talking e. In addition, in teacher-centered classrooms, teachers may also decide to teach students in ways that are easy, familiar, or personally preferred, but that might not work well for some students or use instructional techniques shown to be most effective for improving learning.
In contrast, student-centered typically refers to forms of instruction that, for example, give students opportunities to lead learning activities, participate more actively in discussions, design their own learning projects, explore topics that interest them, and generally contribute to the design of their own course of study.
That said, some aspects of student-centered instruction—such as the arrangement of desks into circles or small groups, or assignments that allow students to choose their own reading materials—have been widely adopted by teachers.
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