Group items tagged

In May I finished a second edition of my Learner-Centered Teaching book. Revising it gave me the chance to revisit my thinking about the topic and look at work done since publication of the first edition ten years ago. It is a subject about which there is still considerable interest. The learner-centered label now gets attached to teaching strategies, teachers, classes, programs, departments and institutions. Like many trendy descriptors in higher education, with widespread use comes a certain definitional looseness. Active learning, student engagement and other strategies that involve students and mention learning are called learner-centered. And although learner-centered teaching and efforts to involve students have a kind of bread and butter relationship, they are not the same thing. In the interest of more definitional precision, I'd like to propose five characteristics of teaching that make it learner-centered.

The idea for sharing this post came from a session I recently conducted at the annual teaching conference organized by my university. A pedagogical conundrum was raised by a colleague whose enthusiasm and question stayed with me and inspired me to write this post. The question posed by this colleague is relevant to all instructors who have ever used group work to assess their students: How should one deal with the issues that arise when members of a group are not picking up their share of the responsibilities during a group work project?

"A mountain of evidence indicates that educators have been painfully slow to use technology to change and improve the ways they teach." Thoughtful piece examining the reasons for slow transformation.

Key quote: " So instead of banning them, perhaps we should teach students how to live and learn with them."

While I tire of the phrase "21st century" learning/skills, this chart at least presents a good starting point for reflecting on our teaching and for discussing which characteristics foster learning.

"When note taking serves as the primary use of technology in the classroom, these studies [recommending hand-written notes] become a harbinger for technology opposition. "However, none of these studies question the teaching methods used in the classes themselves."

10 Ways Teacher Planning Should Adjust To The Google Generation

Tech integration is not about replacing the teacher, though the teacher's role may change.