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Nevertheless, these students still pay attention to tasks, activities, and media messages that are low in sensation-value, if the topic is particularly salient to them. For example, individuals may attend to a seemingly boring documentary on cancer research, if they have close relatives or friends who is suffering from the disease; they may attend to a lecture on the stock market if they have just received the gift of a larger sum of money.

Students with a high sensation needs benefit from instructional practices that meet those needs. It certainly is not possible to meet the needs of these students at all times, but some lessons can be altered to better hold their attention.

Figure 1Six types of parent involvementType 1:ParentingAssist families with parenting skills, family support, understanding child and adolescent development, and setting home conditions to support learning at each age and grade level. Assist schools in understanding families' backgrounds, cultures, and goals for children.Type 2:CommunicatingCommunicate with families about school programs and student progress. Create two-way communication between school and home.Type 3:VolunteeringImprove recruitment, training, activities, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and as audiences at the school. Enable educators to work with volunteers who support students and the school.Type 4:Learning at HomeInvolve families with their children in academic learning at home, including homework, goal setting, and other curriculum-related activities. Encourage teachers to design homework that enables students to share and discuss interesting tasks with parents.Type 5:Decision MakingInclude families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy activities through school councils and improvement teams, committees, and parent organizations.Type 6:Collaborating with the CommunityCoordinate resources and services for families, students, and the school with community groups, including businesses, agencies, cultural and civic organizations, and colleges and universities. Enable all to contribute service to the community.

These are true benefits of a student-centered learning environment. Learners who really want to learn flourish in this environment, while those that are in classes for other reasons (parents sent them to college, or they had nothing else to do so came to school) will not fare as well.

Open-ended, student-centered environments properly designed to support learners allow them the best opportunity to succeed. It also gives them the prospect of finding something they want to learn more about--serendipity. As learning progresses, students are allowed to assess their progress and learning needs, to adjust the learning as necessary.

To be effective, learning must be meaningful to the student. Otherwise, the instructor's time in creating the environment and assignments, and the student's time in taking the course, are both wasted.

2. Online learning enables student-centered teaching approaches

Course material is accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Students have the ability to read and re read lectures, discussions, explanations and comments. Often spoken material in the classroom passes students by due to a number of distractions, missed classes, tiredness or boredom.

Over 75% of colleges and universities in the U.S. offer online degree programs, with online degrees as respected as "on the ground" degrees. (Lewis)

promote interaction and collab-oration

students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.

the illusion that they know material better than they do.

“I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge,” said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. “I think that we’re tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.”

learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning," the report says.

differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages