Designing a Student-Centered Learning Environment

In the first of this series of blog posts, I gave you a peek into, Pedagogies for Student-Centered Learning, the Seminarium Elements book I co-authored with Pamela Dietz and Sarah d’Angelo, highlighting the differences between student-and teacher-centered learning and investigating a variety of pedagogies that can and are used in the classroom.  In the second post I  focused on Sarah’s use of theatre acting instruction as a excellent case for creative pedagogies and methods for fostering a student-centered teaching and learning environment. Now in this third post I’m returning to first two chapters of the book to focus on the definition of student-centered learning—a learning model that places the student/learner in the center of the learning process.

Students as Participants

Students are active participants in their learning, learning at their own pace and using their own strategies; they are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated; and learning is more individualized than standardized. Student-centered learning develops learning-how-to-learn skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and reflective thinking. Student-centered learning accounts for and adapts to different learning styles of students. We have also defined student-centered pedagogy as an instructional practice that changes the balance of power from the teacher to the student; changes the function of content from straight lecture and homework to student involvement (peer teaching) and group work; changes the role of the teacher to facilitator; changes the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student; and changes the purpose and process of evaluation.

The third chapter by Sarah d’Angelo illustrated how acting pedagogies intrinsically influence, and are influenced by culture, religion, science, history, and other art forms. She vividly discusses the groundlings of student-centered learning through performance. It is this active participation that intrinsically motivates students. It is this adaptation of acting pedagogies and active learning that utilizes the various learning styles to propel students to take control of their own learning.

Taking It Personal

I can recall high school being very traditional in that the classrooms were designed with desks placed in standard rows facing the instructor and the chalkboard. Depending on your age and where you attended primary school, you may be familiar with this layout.  Learning took place like this for years, and while it may be have been successful, it was only as successful as the student allowed it to be. This classroom doesn’t offer any visual aids that would augment learning and the environment clearly does not consider all learning intelligences. This environment also does not encourage a warm, fuzzy feeling. Now, I don’t want to get too focused on design yet, but I think it’s important to think back to the early days of traditional education and the classroom.

As a student in primary school, I do not recall any type of group assignments, projects, role-play activities, or any of the other previously discussed activities from chapter 2. What I do remember is sitting in classrooms for eight hours a day, listening to teachers talk and talk and talk. Occasionally, the teacher would hand out a worksheet or reading assignment that required students to work independently and quietly until class ended. Again, depending on the student and the student’s learning intelligence, this method of instruction can become mundane very quickly and result in a lack of engagement, lack of motivation, and a lack of participation. 

What’s It Look Like?

So, what does the student-centered environment look like? A student-centered learning environment encourages students to become independent learners and be in charge of their own education. This does not make the instructor obsolete but, rather, changes the instructor’s role from the traditional “imparter of knowledge” to that of a facilitator and coach of knowledge.  This role change allows students to take responsibility for more of their learning than in a teacher-centered environment. So how do you design a student-centered learning environment?

Designing a student-centered classroom should be built on autonomy. It does not include or involve traditional teaching practices; rather, it is based on collaboration, project- and problem-based learning with integrated technology to allow open discussion, conversation, and debate between students. By examining how to set up the environment for successful practice of student-centered learning, invest in critical ways of appropriating teaching methods and approaches.

Designing the online classroom and want a student-centered layout, my recommendation is to design it with the latter in mind. Visualize the student home page—it should contain a layout that encourages open communication, movement should guide the students eyes to the areas that they will be using to present (Skype icon or Open conference room), collaborate (water cooler or discussion room), featured news, announcements, or updates (a front-page banner that runs across the top of the home page—Alert Line), and a learning center (houses the course objectives, agenda/syllabus, assignment (Dropbox), and testing center. These areas on the homepage support a safe and intuitive landing page for students to access collaborative learning centers.

Student-Centered Lesson Plan

Designing the right lesson plan, integrating technology, encouraging learning communities with ongoing projects, and using alternative assessment methods in real time are all successful elements to designing a student-centered learning environment.  It is understood that budget allowances, space, and other limitations may apply, making it more difficult to utilize all elements discussed here. My suggestion is, don’t jump in and try to change everything overnight. Rather, start off with one simple change and evaluate the success of that approach before moving on to the next.

The good teacher . . . knows that the best learning environment

is always student-centered, never teacher-centered.

—Yvone Enoch and James Lyke

 

 

Pedagogies for Student-Centered Learning: Online and On-Ground is part of the Seminarium Elements book series.

Order today at fortresspress.com and Amazon.com.

Photo credit: “2012-226 My New Teacher Desk” by Denise Krebs. Licensed for reuse by CC BY-SA 2.0 license

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