A REFLECTIVE ESSAY TO UNIT ONE (LEARNER-CENTERED
TEACHING: FOUNDATIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS)
At the heart of the curriculum are the learners as the center of the educational
enterprise, thus their cognitive and affective learning experiences guide all decisions
from what is done and how teaching and learning is designed and implemented.
This illustrates the common idea about days gone and over when teachers’ role
is a “sage on the stage” who views students not as empty vessels to be filled with
exponential knowledge.
As I read the topic and listen to the discussants, questions pop-up thru my head
like what teaching-learning processes create a learner-centered learning environment?
What is the role of the teacher in this environment? Who is responsible for learning?
What are the concepts and principles of learner-centered teaching based on
educational philosophies and research and their application in actual teaching
and learning? And these are some of the queries that this unit had answered and
gave light to my confusion.
I've known the importance of learner-centered teaching, as a future educator this
is the type of teaching I really have to master or adopt because it places the student in
its heart and core and facilitates active participation and independent inquiry, and
seeks to instill among students the joy of learning both inside and outside
the classroom.
Moreover, I also have knowledge about the Characteristics of Learner-Centered
Teaching. According to Weimer, there are five characteristics of learner-centered
teaching: First, learner-centered teaching engages students in the hard, messy work of
learning. Engaging in a hard, messy work of learning in the classroom is
manifested when teachers allow students to work via task-based and problem based
learning. For example, in a language class, a language teacher may give his or her
students pictures from which they could create paragraphs and any form of discourse
which could serve as the starting point in teaching a grammar lesson. Second,
learner-centered teaching includes explicit skill instruction. Learner-centered teachers
teach students how to think, solve problems, evaluate evidence, analyze
arguments, generate hypotheses—all those learning skills essential to mastering
material in the discipline. They do not assume that students pick up these skills on
their own, automatically. Third is learner-centered teaching encourages students to
reflect on what they are learning and how they are learning it. The goal is to make
students aware of themselves as learners and to make learning skills
something students want to develop. Activities like wise help them reflect on how
to take responsibility for changing their learning strategies according to their
needs. Fourth, learner-centered teaching motivates students by giving them some
control over learning processes. Learner-centered teachers search out ethically
responsible ways to share power with students. They might give students
some choice about which assignments they complete. They might make classroom
policies something students can discuss. They might let students set assignments
deadlines within a given time window. They might ask students to help create
assessment criteria. Lastly, learner-centered teaching encourages collaboration. It sees
classrooms (online or face-to-face) as communities of learners. Learner-centered
teachers recognize, and research consistently confirms, that students can learn from,
and with, each other. Certainly the teacher has the expertise and an obligation to share
it, but teachers can learn from students as well.
Additionally, I'm also aware of Paradigm Shift: Teacher Centered to Student
Centered wherein learning is the most meaningful when topics are relevant to the
students’ lives, needs and interests. Also the student has to be engaged in higher order
thinking tasks such as analysis, problem-solving, synthesis, and evaluation. Under this
are the teacher-centered philosophies such as essentialism and perennialism. Learner-
centered philosophies which includes progressivism and humanism, under this
humanism we have what we call intellectual aesthetic, and scientific. There's also an
individualistic humanism, social humanism and constructivism. Carl Rogers, John
Dewey and Jean Piaget are also tackled which made me go back and remembered
what I've gained in our subject/course PROFED 102: Child and Adolescent Learners
and Learning Principles. All their principles are really much help when we are dealing
with a child or a student.
There's no doubt that Unit 1 helped realized and gain a lot of things. We can say
that in teacher-centered approach keeps the classroom in order, only remember 20
percent of what they hear and less information is retained in student's notes as classes
get longer. While in student-centered approach there's an evidence that learn and
maintain more knowledge when they participate actively in learning process and
researchers also found that students develop and improve when teachers use more
student-centered teaching in class, significantly because teachers may offer greater
opportunities for learning enhancement skills and techniques of the students.
