managing the learner centered-classroom

Managing the Learner-Centered Classroom

Carlo Magno, PhD. [email protected]

The K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum is enhanced.

Learner-Centered

Decongested

Seamless

Respon-sive

Enriched

Focuses on the

optimum development

of the Filipino

Flexible to

local needs

Continuum following an

expanding spiral

progression model

Integrative, Inquiry-

based, Constructivist,

Technology-enhanced

Allows for

mastery of

competencies

The Learner-Centered Classroom: Critical Features

Features of Learner-centeredness

• Acknowledge and attend to students' uniqueness by taking into account and accommodating practices to students' states of mind, learning rates, developmental stages, abilities, talents, sense of self, and academic and non-academic needs.


• Know that learning is a constructive process and thus try to ensure that what students are asked to learn is relevant and meaningful, and also try to provide learning experiences in which students are actively engaged in creating their own knowledge and connecting it to what they already know and have experience.


• Create a positive climate by taking the time to talk with their students on a personal basis, getting to know them well, creating a comfortable and stimulating environment for them, and providing them with support, appreciation, acknowledgment, and respect.


• Come from an assumption that all their students, at their core, want to learn and want to do well, and have an intrinsic interest in mastering their world and relate to each student's core rather than trying to "fix" or ameliorate a deficiency.

Glasser (1994), outlines six conditions that must be in place in the classroom for the students to do "quality school

work." These conditions could be considered learner-centered.

Conditions of Learner-centered Schools

1. There must be a warm, supportive classroom environment. In this environment teachers allow students to get to know them and, it is to be hoped, liked them. Glasser points out that we work harder for someone we know and like.

2. Students are asked to do only useful work. And teachers must explain the usefulness of what they are asking students to do. Information is taught if it is directly related to a life skill, students express a desire to learn it, teachers believe it is especially useful, or it is required for college.


3. Students are always asked to do the best they can do. The conditions of quality work include students' knowing the teacher and appreciating that he or she has provided a caring place to work, believing the work assigned is always useful, being willing to put a great deal of effort into their work, and knowing how to evaluate and improve upon their work.


4. Students are asked to evaluate their own work. As self-evaluation is a prerequisite to quality work, all students should be taught to evaluate their own work, to improve it based on that evaluation, and to repeat this process until quality has been achieved.

5. Quality work always feels good. Students feel good when they produce quality work and so do parents and teachers as they observe this process. Glasser believes that it is this feeling good that is the incentive to pursue quality.

A key researcher of resiliency, Bonnie Benard (berliner & Benard, 1995), outlines resiliency traits that we believe need to be fostered in schools:

Fostering Learner-Centeredness

• Social competence

• the ability to establish an sustain positive, caring relationships, to maintain a sense of humor, and to communicate compassion and empathy.

• Resourcefulness

• the ability to critically, creatively, and reflectively make decisions, to seek help from others, and to recognize alternative ways to solve problems and resolve conflict.

Fostering Learner-Centeredness

• Autonomy

• ability to act independently and exert some control over one's environment, to have a sense of one's identity, and to detach from others engaged in risky or dysfunctional behaviors.

• Sense of purpose

• ability to foresee a bright future for one self, to be optimistic, and to aspire toward educational and personal achievement.

Learner-Centered Principles

Metacognitive

and cognitive

factors

Motivational and affective

factors

Developmental and social factors

Individual differences

Domains

Metacognitive and Cognitive

Factor

Principle 1: Nature of the learning process

• The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information and experience.

Principle 2: Goals of the Learning Process

• The successful learner, over time and with support and instructional guidance, can create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.

Principle 3: Construction of knowledge

• The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways.

Principle 4: Strategic Thinking

• The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning goals.

Principle 5: Thinking about Thinking

• Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations facilitate creative and critical thinking.

Principle 6: Context of Learning

• Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology, and instructional practices.

Motivational and Affective Factor

Principle 7: Motivational and Emotional

Influences on Learning

• What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner's motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual's emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of thinking.

Principle 8: Intrinsic Motivation to Learn

• The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty relevant to personal interests, and providing for personal choice of control.

Principle 9: Effects of Motivation on

Effort

• Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and guided practice.

Developmental and Social Factor

Principle 10: Developmental Influences on

Learning

• As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and constraints for learning. Learning is most effective when differential development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into account.

Principle 11: Social Influences on Learning

• Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others.

Individual Differences Factor

Principle 12: Individual Differences on

Learning

• Learners have different strategies, approaches, and capabilities for learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity.

Principle 13: Learning and Diversity

• Learning is most effective when differences in learners' linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.

Principle 14: Standards and Assessments

• Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the learner as well as learning progress including diagnostic, process, and outcome assessment are integral parts of the learning process.

The Domains of Educational Systems Change

Domains of Educational System Change

Technical domain

• Concerned with specifying the content standards, curriculum structures, instructional approaches, and assessment strategies that best promote learning and achievement of all students.


Personal Domain

• Concerned with supporting the personal. Motivational, and interpersonal needs of those who serve and/or are served by the system (for example, teachers, administrators, students, parents)


Organizational Domain

• -Concerned with providing the organizational and management structures and policies that support the personal and technical domains and, ultimately motivation, learning, and achievement for all students.

The Personal Change Process

• To facilitate and bring about the kind of changes we have been proposing, an understanding of the personal change process is important. Both teachers and students are required to "change their minds," to modify their current thinking about learning and schools.


Stage 1: Increasing Awareness and Inspiration to Change

• This stage of the personal change process shows the person who needs to change is personally relevant and possible, this stage inspires hope.

Stage 2: Observing Models and Building Understanding

• This stage of the personal change process involves looking at models and decreasing the what and how, this stage builds understanding.


Stage 3: Adopting Strategies and Developing Ownership

• This stage of the process concerns tailoring strategies, coaching, trying out, and revising; this stage develops ownership.

Stage 4: Adopting and Maintaining New Attitudes and Practices

• In Stage 4, the person working on personal change adopts strategies for on going self-assessment, networking, and support; this stage maintains and sustains new attitudes and practices.

Principles of Change

• These principles of change are overarching principles that facilitate change independently of, but in interaction with contextual and environmental factors.


1. Change begins with believing change is possible, with the inspiring of hope.

2. Leadership qualities that contribute to the establishment of empowering contexts for change include sharing power, facilitating discussions and active communication, being inclusive, and having effective conflict resolution and negotiation skills.

3. Change occurs one person at a time and is, in essence, a change in thinking such that people see themselves as learners and have a willingness to share the ownership of knowing.

4. Change is a lifelong process, similar to learning, that is continuous and ongoing.


5. For change to be sustained, new attitudes, perspectives and ways of thinking about change must be internalized; trying to sustain particular programs, practices, or policies without corresponding changes in attitude may impede change.

6. A respectful change process is invitational, not mandated, it includes time for reflection and practice.

7. The establishment of learning communities can support change and enhance motivation for change.


8. A focus on learners and learning can create a common vision and common directions for change.

9. Change strategies must attend to participants' levels of will, skill and social support.

10. Change is facilitated by empowering contexts in which individuals feel ownership, respect, personal support, and trust.

11. Change involves that all learners have the ability to make choices about their own learning, and seeing students and parents as customers of the system.


12.Effective change commitment to making necessary resources, including needed knowledge and skill training available to all.

13.Change is viewed differently by different cultures and groups.

14.The purposes and plans for change must be understood and accepted by all stakeholders.

Workshop

• A Learner-centered principle is assigned to each group. • Come-up with examples of classroom practices

pertaining to the principle assigned to you. • Example: • Principle 2: Goals of the Learning Process

– The Objectives of the lesson is given to the students – The outline of the activities are written on the board. The

teacher checks the part that are done. – The teacher sets an expectation every time students

engage in a project. – The teacher shows examples of good work that serves as a

model.