Teacher-centered Vs Student-centered Approach 5w4s5j

Teacher-centered vs student-centered approach Didactics 2016

Paradigm Shift • Old – Instruction Paradigm – An educational institution exists to provide instruction.

• New – Learning Paradigm – An educational institution exists to produce learning.

Instruction Paradigm • Means vs End • Most common teaching method used is LECTURE • Teachers are in the active role and students are in a ive, receptive role – Students are listeners NOT learners

Learning Paradigm • Uses student-centered/active learning techniques to get students involved in the learning process • Focuses on the student’s needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles • Acknowledges student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner • Requires students to be active, responsible participants in the learning process

Background Research  Theorists like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Carl Roger’s whose collective work focused on how students learn is primarily responsible for the move to student-centered learning.  Central to their ideas is that students actively construct their own learning – known as Constructivism  Learners construct new knowledge from their experiences; they incorporate the new information into an already existing framework.

This approach positions students at the central stage of the learning process, where they are responsible for their own advances in the knowledge acquisition, in this case, and second language (L2) acquisition (Kassim and Ali, 2007)

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ACTIVE

• provides opportunities for students to engage actively in meaningful communication, • encourages them to take ownership of their own learning.

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gives them explicit instruction in the content and language skills they need and in strategies for gaining that knowledge and those skills (Goldenberg, 2008)

Teacher centered A teacher-centered approach is one where activity in the class is centered on the teacher. Example A typical Presentation - Practice - Production (PPP) lesson tends to be teacher-centered, as the teacher leads the activity and provides necessary information, usually in an open-class arrangement. In the classroom Teacher-centered lessons are generally associated with traditional approaches to language learning, but teacher-centered activity can be useful in a variety of ways in teaching. The teacher is an effective model of the target language and an important source of information on how the learners are doing.

 A teacher-directed approach to learning recognizes that children require achievable expectations and that students must have a solid foundation before learning a new concept. For example, in order to learn multiplication properly, a student must understand repeated addition and grouping. This process cannot be discovered by most students without the direction of a teacher

In teacher-directed instruction: Students work to achieve curricular objectives in order to become critical thinkers Students complete activities designed by the teacher to achieve academic success Students respond to positive expectations set by the teacher as they progress through activities Students are given extrinsic motivators like grades and rewards in which motivates children to internalize information and objectively demonstrates their understanding of concepts Student work is evaluated by the teacher

Learner-Centered Teaching  Learner-centered teaching focuses attention on what the student is learning, how the student is learning, the conditions under which the student is learning, whether the student is retaining and applying the learning, and how current learning positions the student for future learning.  The idea of student-centered classrooms is based on students' engagement with classroom activities and experimenting and exploring throughout their learning processes instead of teacher being the only source.

What is studentcentered/active learning? • Any well-structured, teacher-guided, student-centered activity that “substantially involves students with the course content through talking and listening, writing, reading and reflecting.” • Focus on how students learn, what they experience, how they engage with their learning. • Learning is meaningful when topics are relevant to students`lives and interests.

Examples of StudentCentered Learning Activities

Examples of StudentCentered Teaching Strategies • • • • •

Interactive Lecturing Group Work Discussion Forums Role-Playing Hands-On Projects

THINK – PAIR – SHARE  Begin by saying: “It’s your turn. Look at your neighbor – the person sitting to the left or right of you. Make sure no one is left out. Nudge your neighbor and tell him/her the most important fact you’ve just heard in the last 10 – 20 minutes. Find out what your neighbor thinks is the most important fact. You have 1 minute to talk to each other.”  When the minute is up, resume your lecture.

THAT QUESTION • Get ALL your learners involved in creating and answering questions. • Before beginning, give each learner a blank index card. Tell them you will give them direction at some point during your presentation of what to do with it.

Bonus Tip: That Question • That Answer: – Instead of writing a question, learners write an answer to a question and the person on the right guesses what the question is and writes it on the card. OR – Students write an answer to a question you give them and then they compare their answers. You ask a few volunteers to state their answers and then you tell them if they were correct.

Assessment of student-centered learning  One of the most critical differences between student-centered learning and teachercentered learning is in assessment. In student-centered learning, students participate in the evaluation of their learning. This means that students are involved in deciding how to demonstrate their learning.  Developing assessment that learning and motivation is essential to the success of student-centered approaches.  Focus is on what students do rather than on what teachers do in the classroom.