Helping Students Learn in a Learner Centered Environment

Developed for The University of Montevallo by Professor Terry Doyle Ferris state University

Learning Outcomes
As a result of participating in today s activities faculty will:
1. Take away rationales explaining why LCT is the best approach to college instruction. 2. Have a clearer understanding of the skills students will need to be successful learners in a LCT environment. 3. 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!

A Key to Understanding Learner Centered Teaching

It is the one who does the work that does the learning

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The Definition of Learning

Learning is a change in the neuronpatterns of the brain.
(Ratey, 2002, Goldberg, 2001)

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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?

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. 2. 3. 4.

Task analysis Identifying resources and planning actions Taking action based on planning 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 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 what it all means (Parker Palmer, 1987 p. 24).

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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?

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 2. Number of exams 3. When in the course exams will be given 4. Attendance policy 5. Late work policy 6. Late for class policy 7. Course learning outcomes
9. Due dates for major papers 10. Teaching methods/approaches 11. How groups are formed 12. Topic of writing or research projects 13. Grading scale 14. Discussion guidelines for large or small group discussions 15. Rubrics for evaluation of self or peers work 16. If rewriting of papers will be allowed 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.
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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 (their teachers)must display to effectively teach them.

5.Helping Students with Presentations and Performance Assessments

Your work will be made public!

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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 important career enhancing skill.

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Making Presentations
Presentations are an authentic expression of what professionals do all the time. Ideas are of little value to if they are not shared.

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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. It is their learner s permit

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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, 2008)

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).

India and China

In India and China alone there are 600 million honor students who will be seeking the same high paying jobs as our graduates.

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 include:
taking conscious control of learning, planning and selecting strategies, monitoring the progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness of learning strategies, and changing learning behaviors and strategies when necessary
( Ridley D.S. Schultz, PS, Glanz, R.S and Weinstein, CA 1992).

7. Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don t Know and Misunderstand

Students range of prior knowledge, skills, beliefs and concepts 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 nave 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 knowledge 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 specific comments about errors and specific suggestions for improvement (Bangert-Drowns,
Kulick, & Morgan, 1991; Elawar & Corno, 1985).

FEEDBACK

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?

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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. 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? What would you change about the course or course instruction? What could you do to make the learning in this course better for you and your peers?

2.

3.

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.
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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)