Helping Students Learn in a

Learner Centered Environment

Developed for MCC by Professor Terry Doyle
Ferris state University
 Learning Outcomes
As a result of participating in today’s activities faculty will:
1. Have a clearer understanding of the reasons most students resist
learner centered teaching.

2. Take away rationales explaining why LCT is the best

approach to college instruction.

3. Have a clearer understanding of the skills students will need to be

successful learners in a LCT environment.

4. Take away strategies for teaching students the learning

skills and strategies they will need to be successful in LCT environment.
Not a single grad school or employment
recruiter has ever indicated that what they are
really looking for in a college graduate is:

‘A great note taker and someone who is

excellent at multiple choice tests!’
Learner Centered Teaching
Learner Centered Teaching
Learner Centered Teaching
 This can be
Learner Centered Teaching
 A Key to Understanding Learner Centered
Teaching

• It is the one who does the work

that does the learning

www.wmin.ac.uk/.../Students-working-together.jpg
 The Definition of Learning

• Learning is a change
in the neuron-
patterns of the brain.
(Ratey, 2002, Goldberg, 2001)

www.virtualgalen.com/.../ neurons-small.jpg
 A Teacher’s Definition of Learning

Learning is the ability to use information after

significant periods of disuse
and
it is the ability to use the information to solve problems
that arise in a context different (if only slightly) from the
context in which the information was originally taught.
(Robert Bjork, Memories and Metamemories, 1994)
What is the optimal learning outcome of any course?

What would make us happy (from all that we taught

—the skills, content and behaviors) that our students
remembered and could use six months after they
finished our class?
 A Definition of
Learner Centered Teaching
 Learner Centered Teaching

Each decision we make as teachers is based on

one simple question—

Given the context of my teaching assignment

(# of students, learning environment or
physical space etc.), will this teaching action
optimize my students’ opportunities to learn?”
Eight Reasons Students
Resist Learner
Centered Teaching
 1.Old habits die hard

The expectations our students have for their

roles and responsibilities as college learners
are based on strongly formed habits learned
through twelve or more years of teacher-
centered instruction.
 2.High Schools Remain Teacher-Centered Institutions

• “Despite the efforts of many, the organization and

structure of most comprehensive high schools look
very similar to those of high schools of generations
ago. High schools have stood still amidst a maelstrom
of educational and economic change swirling around
them.” (The National Commission on the High School Senior Year in 2001, p.20).
 3. Learning is not a Top Reason Students give for Attending College

Many first-year college

students are sick to
death of school by age
eighteen and see
college as just the last
hurdle to be crossed.
(Leamnson 1999, p.35).
 4. Students don’t Like Taking Learning Risks

• “But as we grow older we develop a great

tendency to hide from failure.”
(Tagg, 2003 p. 54).
 4. Students don’t Like Taking Learning Risks

• Students that don’t take risks and make

mistakes, which are the very actions
successful thinkers must do, are in the
business of protecting their unblemished
record of mediocrity
• (Covington, 1992, p. 231)
 5. LCT Doesn’t Resemble what Students Think of as School

• By age 18, our students have spent 70% of

their waking lives in school (Leamnson, p.35),

• Each school year looks a great deal like the

year before.

Eighth Twelfth
First Fifth Grade
Grade Grade
Grade
 6. Students don’t Want to Give More Effort and LCT Requires It.

K. Patricia Cross in her 2001 talk Motivation Er… will that be on the
test? in discussing American students’ views about effort said:
• “One of the oddities of traditional American culture,
especially the youth culture, is that it is better to be
thought lazy than stupid. Thus, in the competition of
the classroom, students prefer to be seen by others
as succeeding through ability rather than through
effort.”
 If I have to work at it I
must not be smart !
 
 7. Students’ Mindsets about Learning Make Adapting to LCT More Difficult

Thousands of students each semester pay tuition to

take courses in subject areas they firmly believe they
cannot learn.
 7. Students’ Mindsets about Learning Make
Adapting to LCT More Difficult
• This strange scenario occurs because of the
fixed mindset these students have developed
about learning a particular subject. (Dweck, 2006)
 8. Many Students Follow the Path of Least
Resistance in their Learning.
Minimalist learners.

• These are students that adhere to the

philosophy: “What is the least I have to do to
get the grade that I need.”
 8. Many Students Follow the Path of Least Resistance in their Learning.

• This behavior reflect a life time of learning

in an environment where trying to gain a
reward or avoid a punishment was the
goal.
Why Learner
Centered Teaching is
in our Students Best
Interest
 Students need to Know WHY

• One of the most

important aspects of
being a learner
centered teacher is to
remember teaching is,
in most ways, no
different than any other
human to human
interaction–
• If I don’t know WHY you want me to work on
a project or learn a concept or if I can’t see
how taking on a certain task has some benefit
to me I am hesitant to do it.
 3 Key Rationales for Explaining the Change to LCT

1. The best answer to WHY we have changed

to a learner-centered practice is this is where
the research has led us.

.
 WHY Learner Centered Teaching
• New discoveries about how the human brain
learns and the subsequent recommendations
for how to teach in harmony with these
discoveries has guided the development of a
learner centered approach to teaching
 Rationales for Explaining the Change to LCT

The learning tasks we

are asking our students
to take on, which
require them to adopt
new learning roles and
responsibilities, are
based on what we now
know optimizes the way
the human brain learns.
 3 Key Rationales for Explaining the Change to LCT

2. Readiness for Careers

The rationale for teaching many of the learning skills,

behaviors, attitudes and critical thinking strategies that are
now part of learner centered college courses is that our
students will need these skills to be successful in their
careers.

As students understand this their buy in to LCT will be greater.

 Rationales for Explaining the Change to LCT

3. Preparation for Life Long Learning(LLL)

One of the significant changes our students need to accept is

that college is no longer their terminal educational experience.

A college education gives students their learners’ permit.

3. Preparation for Life Long Learning(LLL)

• Our responsibility as
college educators is to
prepare our students to
be life long learners.

• Many of the LCT actions

we take are done to
develop LLL skills.
 Rationales for Explaining the Change to LCT

For Example

One of the reasons

students are being
asked to take on more
responsibility for their
own learning is because
they will be responsible
for it the rest of their
lives.
 LCT means Sharing Power with Students

Having choices in what and how to learn and having

some control over the learning process and accepting
the responsibility that comes with choice and control
is an authentic expression of how the work place and
the home place operate.
It is excellent preparation for life after college.
Eight Skill Areas
Students Will
Need Help with
to Succeed in a
LCT Classroom
1. Helping Students Learn How to Learn on their Own

There are two important

messages:
1.Many of our students are
not well prepared to do a
great deal of their learning
on their own.

2. If they are to develop the

skills needed to learn on
their own we will have to
teach them these skills.
 Learning on One’s Own
The broad categories include the ability to
handle four areas of task management:

1. Task analysis
2. Identifying resources and planning actions
3. Taking action based on planning
4. Assessing actions and revising plans.
• (adapted from work done at the University of Surrey, University Skills Program.
 Rationales for Having Students Learn on Their Own

• It teaches them to figure things out for

themselves and trust their own analytical
abilities in order to complete a task.
 Rationales for Having Students Learn on
Their Own
• It teaches them to
generate their own
questions about what is
important to know and
what is not important to
completing the task.
 Rationales for Having Students Learn on
Their Own
• It teaches them to
identify resources and
learn first hand which
methods of
investigation are helpful
and which are a waste
of time.
 Rationales for Having Students Learn on
Their Own
• It teaches them how to
organize their findings
and prepare
appropriate ways to
communicate their
results.
 Learning on One’s Own
But perhaps the most
valuable outcome of
learning on one’s own is--

• The satisfaction and

confidence that
comes when
students are
successful.
 Learning on One’s Own
• When students realize
they are capable of
thinking for themselves,
and figuring out how to
find and use knowledge
in meaningful ways to
solve real world
problems, they grow in
confidence as learners.
 2. Learning to work with others

• Knowing and learning are

communal acts.

• They require many eyes and

ears, many observations and
experiences. They require a
continual cycle of discussion,
disagreement, and consensus
over what has been seen and www.osucascades.edu/.../images/two_students.JPG

what it all means (Parker Palmer, 1987 p.

24).
 Three Vital Questions
1. What do our students know about effectively working
with other students?

2. What have their previous experiences taught them about

how groups and teams work?

3. What concerns do they have about working with others?

Finding the answers to these questions is the best place to
start building a successful model of students’ cooperation,
collaboration and team work.
 A Rationale for Working with Others
• The rationale for students learning to effectively
work with others is a simple one—if they can’t learn
to do it fairly well their career success may be in
jeopardy.
 A Rationale for Working with Others
• Of the three main
modes our students use
to learn, writing,
reading and speaking--
the one that is least
used is speaking (Nystrand
and Gamoran ).
 A Rationale for Working with Others

• Speaking is also the one

which teachers most often
give students a pass on.

• The irony of this is that

speaking to others is one of
the most important, if not the
most important professional
and personal skill that
students must have for
success.
 Some Advice for Faculty
• Teachers like to talk and
they can’t stand silence
so they fill it up with
talk!

• However, the best

advice for facilitating
students’ discussion is
for us to keep our
mouths shut!
 3. Helping Students take Charge of their Learning

As instructors we are
conditioned to be in control
of the learning process --
moving away from that idea
makes many of us
uncomfortable.

This uncomfortableness is
shared by our students when
we ask them to take more
control of their learning.
 Some Good Reasons to Share Power.

1. Our students cannot .

improve their abilities to be
more responsible for their
learning with out being
given greater responsibility
for it.
 Some Good Reasons to Share Power.
• 2. When students have
some control over how
they learn they can
discover their strengths
and weakness as
learners, a vital
metacognitive skill they
will need as life long
learners
 Some helpful reasons to share power.

3. The more control our

students take and the
more choices we can
offer them the greater
their desire and
willingness to engage in
the learning process.
( Zull p.52)
 Some helpful reasons to share power.
4. When students make a
choice they also must
learn to live with that
choice. This is a very
powerful life lesson.
 Who Makes the Decision?
Teacher Students Together NA
8. Office hours
1. Course Textbook 9. Due dates for major papers

2. Number of exams 10. Teaching methods/approaches

11. How groups are formed

3. When in the course exams will be
given 12. Topic of writing or research projects

4. Attendance policy 13. Grading scale

14. Discussion guidelines for large or small group

5. Late work policy discussions

6. Late for class policy 15. Rubrics for evaluation of self or peers’ work

16. If rewriting of papers will be allowed

7. Course learning outcomes
17. If retesting will be allowed
 Each decision we make about our teaching
sends some message to our students.

For Example
When we fail to maintain order in the
classroom the message is we don’t really care
about their learning.
When we share power with our students by offering
learning choices the message is

we trust their judgment.

we trust them to act in

ways that are in their
best interest.

we believe they will make

decisions that are in the
best interest of the whole
community of learners.
 Let Students Teach Each Other

Teaching others requires

the person doing the
teaching to thoroughly
understand the knowledge
or skill sets being taught.

Teaching others promotes

deep learning for the
student doing the teaching.
www.csulb.edu/depts/chls/images/MorenodiceLat...
 
Teaching Students how to Teach Others
Learning benefits:
1. Students must determine
how best to learn about the
assigned or chosen topic.

2. Students must locate and

evaluate sources of
information that are credible
Teaching Students how to Teach Others
3. Students must seek out
resource people on
campus and around the
world via the Internet.

4. Students will need to

spend some face to face
time with the course
instructor.
 Teaching Students how
to Teach Others

4. Having students teach

promotes independent
learning and the taking on
of increased responsibility
for their own learning.
Learning from the Other Side of the Desk

A positive outcome of
students teaching each
other is that the
students will gain an
increased appreciation
for the effort and skills
that we must display to
effectively teach them.
 5.Helping Students with Presentations and Performance
Assessments

Your work will be made public!

www.uog.edu/dns/NSF/mbCl_files/image004.jpg
 By making work public
1. Take their work more seriously

2. Adds more accountability for

their work

3. Take more time and care in

preparing their work

4. Allows for additional audiences

to assess our students’ work
 Your work will be made public!

• Letting others see and

hear our students’
ideas, solution or
findings represents an
authentic model of how
information is used,
studied and evaluated.

www.iowasenatedemocrats.org
 Making Presentations
Rationales for using
presentations –
• For a presentation to be
effective students must
know their information very
well.

• Presentations will drive

students to engage more
thoroughly with the material
leading to deeper learning.
www.fortlewis.edu/.../Quintana-Yates.JPG
 Making Presentations
• Presentations enhance
the development of our
students’ organization and
communication skills.

• Students must consider

what structure or pattern
will make the information
easiest for their audience
to understand. www.usyd.edu.au/.../visiting%20professors.JPG
 Making Presentations
• Presentations can also
help to improve the
comfort levels of students
that struggle with public
speaking.

• Our classrooms should be

among the safest places to
practice this very
www.uog.edu/dns/NSF/mbCl_files/image002.jpg
important career
enhancing skill.
 Making Presentations
• Presentations are an
authentic expression of what
our students will be asked to
do with much of what they
learn in their professions.

• Their ideas will be of little

value to their colleagues or
companies if they are not
shared in a clear, organized
and effective ways.

www.csuchicoag.org/.../C05AGRI1for%20website.JPG
 Performance Assessment
“We can teach students
how to do math, do
history and do science,
not just know them.

(Jon Mueller)
 6.Helping Students Become Life Long Learners

An undergraduate
degree clearly is just a
starting point.

lifelonglearning.cqu.edu.au/.../lllc-2008.gif
 Hospitality Industry Key LLL Skills

• Must be able to read large • Must be able to learn

amounts of information,
determine what is
important to the task at
hand and then quickly
summarize it for others.
on their feet from
others—be able to
observe and listen to
others and quickly
adapt.
 Hospitality Industry Key LLL Skills

Must know the Must be able to learn

difference between the from your mistakes ( or
information you need to you will be out of
know and all the other business.)
information that is out
there. Must be able to
communicate clearly
and concisely so others
so can apply what you
have given them.
 Hospitality Industry Key LLL Skills

Must have the skills to Must be computer/

work and learn on your technically literate.
own.
Must know how to plan
and organize your own
Must know what your time and that of others.
strengths and
weaknesses well. Must know your self well,
your values, moral and
ethics as they will be
constantly tested.
 Hospitality Industry Key LLL Skills

• What was not identified by the board members as

being important????

Ironically, it was the skills colleges often have

students spend a great deal of time mastering
• Note taking
• Memorizing
• Test taking
• Cramming
 Teaching LLL Skills
By age 38 today's
college students will
change employers or
change occupations
while working for the
same employer 10-14
times
( U S. Department of Labor, 2004)
 Helping Students to Understand the Need to
Learn LLL Skills

• Eighty percent of all the

scientists who have ever
lived are alive today and
every minute they add 2000
pages to human’s scientific
knowledge.

• Nearly a million new books

were published last year
(International Association of Libraries).
 Metacognitive Skills and LLL
• Metacognitive skills are
among the most important
LLL skills.

• Metacognition consist of two

basic processes occurring
simultaneously: monitoring
your progress as you learn,
and making changes and
adapting your strategies if
you perceive you are not
doing so well. (Winn & Snyder, 1998)
 Metacognitive Skills and LLL
• Metacognitive skills – correcting errors,
include: – analyzing the
effectiveness of learning
strategies,
– taking conscious control
– and changing learning
of learning,
behaviors and strategies
– planning and selecting when necessary
strategies, ( Ridley D.S. Schultz, PS, Glanz, R.S and
Weinstein, CA 1992).
– monitoring the progress
of learning,
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know
and Misunderstand

Our students come to college

with a range of prior
knowledge, skills, beliefs and
concepts that significantly
influence what they notice
about the environment and
how they organize and
interpret it.
This, in turn, affects their
abilities to remember, reason,
solve problems and acquire
new knowledge. (Bransford, et. al. p.10)
 7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and Misunderstand

• If the only learning tool

our students have is
memorization than
everything we teach
them will likely be seen
as something to be
memorized.
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

We need to do a great deal

of checking.

• preexisting understandings
among college age and
older students often
persist even after new
models have been taught
that contradict their naïve
understandings. (Bransford et.
al.p.16)
 7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

• We need to ask our

students to tell us what
they have learned in
their own words, using
examples and analogies.
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

• Even our brightest students

filter the new course
material through their own
prior and may arrive at
conclusions different from
what we intended.
If we don’t check we
won’t know
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

• We must create activities

and conditions that allow
our students’ thinking to be
revealed.

• Formative feedback helps

learners identify gaps that
exist between their desired
goal and their current
knowledge, understanding.
(Ramaprasad, 1983; Sadler, 1989).
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

• The most helpful type

of feedback provides
FEEDBACK
specific comments
about errors and
specific suggestions for
improvement (Bangert-Drowns,
Kulick, & Morgan, 1991; Elawar & Corno, 1985).
7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know and
Misunderstand

• Make certain that

students are using the
feedback they have
been given.

• Expect to see the

improvements in their
future work
 8.Helping Students to Evaluate—Themselves, Others and the Teacher

• Friend to Groucho Marx:

“Life is difficult!” 

• Marx to Friend: “Compared

to what?”

imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/CLASS/1. ..
 Student Self-evaluation

• Self-evaluation is defined
as students judging the
quality of their work,
based on evidence and
explicit criteria, for the
purpose of doing better
work in the future (Rolheiser
and Ross, 1999).
 Student Self-evaluation

• When we teach
students how to assess
their own progress, and
when they do so against
known and challenging
quality standards, a
great deal of learning
can take place.
 Student Self-evaluation

• Self-evaluation is a
potentially powerful
technique because of its
impact on student
performance through
enhanced self-efficacy
and increased intrinsic
motivation (Rolheiser and Ross,
1999)
 Peer Evaluation

• The reason to involve

students in peer
evaluation is that it is a
win-win situation for
both the reviewer and
the one receiving the
feedback.
 Peer Evaluation
• Those receiving the
feedback discover the
accuracy of their self
assessment.
 Peer Evaluation
• The reviewer benefits by developing abilities
to recognize good work from bad work, frame
feedback in clear and helpful ways and deliver
feedback in a positive manner.
 How to Do Peer Evaluation
• Peers should focus their
feedback on a few important
aspects of the work.

• We must remember our

students are novices at giving
feedback.

• Using a rubric or set of

questions that focuses the
peer review process will
improve the feedback.
 Seeking Students' Feedback
• Ask students three questions

1. What do you like about the

course and course instruction?

2. What would you change about

the course or course
instruction?

3. What could you do to make

the learning in this course
better for you and your peers?
Are your out of class assignments doing what
you want them to do?
• When giving a
homework assignment
ask students to tell you
if the assignment was
useful in helping them
understand and learn
the material.

www.spl.surrey.bc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/2ABACBB7-A6...
 References

• Angelo, T.A. & Cross, P.K. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques, 2nd Edition.
San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass
• Bjork, R.A. (1994). Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of
Human Beings. In J. Metcalfe and A. Shimamura (Eds.) Metacognition: Knowing
About Knowing. (pp. 185-205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Givens, Barbara, Teaching to the Brain’s Natural Learning Systems, ASCD
Publications, 2002.
• Ratey, John. A User’s Guide to the Brain. Pantheon Books, New York, 2001.
• Sousa, David. How the Brain Learns, 2nd Edition. Ed 2001 Corwin Press, INC,
Thousand Oaks, CA
• Doyle, Terry. Helping Students Learn in a Learner Centered Environment: A Guide
to Teaching in Higher Education. 2008.Stylus, Sterling, Virginia
 References
• Rethinking Teaching in Higher Education, Edited by Alenoush Saroyan, Cheryl
Amundsen, Stylus Pub.2004
• Sprenger, Marilee. How to Teach so Students Remember. ASCD Publication, 2005.
• Sylwester, Robert. A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator’s Guise to the Human
Brain. ASCD Publication, 1995.
• Zull, James. (2002), The Art of Changing the Brain. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus
Publishing.
• Tagg, John. The Learning Paradigm College. Anker Publishing , Bolton MA 2003
• Covington, M. V. (2000) Goal , theory motivation and school achievement: An
Integrated review in Annual Review of Psychology ( pp 171-200)
• Dweck, Carol ( 2000) Self Theories: Their roles in motivation, personality and
development. Philadelphia, PA Psychology Press
 References
• How People Learn by National Research Council editor John Bransford, National
Research Council, 2000
• Goldberg, E. The Executive Brain Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind ,Oxford
University Press: 2001
• Ratey, J. MD :A User’s Guide to the Brain, Sprenger, M. Learning and Memory The
Brain in Action by, ASCD, 1999
• Pantheon Books: New York, 2001
• Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain.
New York, NY, Grosset/Putnam
• Damasio AR: Fundamental Feelings. Nature 413:781, 2001.
• Damasio AR: The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of
Consciousness, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1999, 2000.
 References
• Weimer, Maryellen, 2002, Learner Centered Teaching, Jossey Bass, San Francisco.
• Smith, Peter, 2004. The Quiet Crisis; How Higher Education is Failing America,
Anker Publishing, Bolton MA
• (Barbara L. Mcombs & Jo Sue Whistler, The Learner-Centered Classroom & School,
1997)