Posts Tagged ‘learner-centered teaching’
May 15 - Learner-Centered Teaching: Good Places to Begin
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
It’s probably the question I’m most asked in workshops on learner-centered teaching. “What are some good places to start? My students aren’t used to learner-centered approaches.” Sometimes the questioner is honest enough to add, “and I haven’t used many previously.” Before the specifics, here’s some general recommendations: start slowly (for example, don’t add 14 learner-centered strategies to a mostly lecture course); try simple, reasonably straightforward activities first; and define success before implementing the activity. As for those “good places” to begin infusing your teaching with learner-centered strategies, here are some approaches to try.
March 18 - Millennial Students and Middle-aged Faculty: A Learner-centered Approach toward Bridging the Gap
By: Joan Flaherty in Teaching and Learning
The problem is my age. It relentlessly advances while the faces staring back at me in the classroom remain the same, fixed between late adolescence and early adulthood. In short, I grow old while my students do not. And the increasing gap between our ages causes me some concern, pedagogically speaking.
January 16 - Teacher-Centered, Learner-Centered or All of the Above
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
In November I had the great privilege of interviewing Parker Palmer. If you don’t know his book, The Courage to Teach, it’s one not to miss. If you haven’t read it in a while, it merits a reread. After reading it again, I found new ideas I missed the first time, old ones I have yet to understand completely and others I hadn’t thought about for far too long.
December 31 - The Flipped Approach to a Learner-Centered Class
By: Mary Bart in Online Seminars
Moving from a lecture-based class to a flipped class requires a new set of skills. You can have the most creative assignments, the latest technology, and the most organized plan, but unless you have the skills to implement that plan, the flipped learning environment fails. This seminar will help you create a successful flipped experience for you and your students.
December 11 - Top 12 Teaching and Learning Articles for 2012, part 1
By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning
As another year draws to a close, the editorial team at Faculty Focus looks back on some of the top articles of the past year. Throughout 2012, we published approximately 250 articles. The articles covered a wide range of topics – from group work to online learning. In a two-part series, which will run today and Wednesday, we’re revealing the top 12 articles for 2012. Each article’s popularity ranking is based on a combination of the number of reader comments and social shares, e-newsletter open and click-thru rates, web traffic and other reader engagement metrics.
December 6 - Getting Over Learning Styles
By: Larry D. Spence, PhD in Learning Styles
There is a landfill of studies—more than 3,000 articles and 600 books. If you Google “learning styles” you will get 9.7 million hits in 0.16 seconds. “Learning styles workshops” produces 7.8 million hits and even “critiques of learning styles” garners 460,000 items. By the numbers of instruments, handbooks, and workshops advertised online, learning styles must be a sizable industry. But after diving into the pile, my mind was full of grit and cynicism. A zealous quest has created claims and theories so bad they aren’t even wrong. There had to be something useful in all this effort or despair would settle over me like so much dust.
October 9 - How to Implement Brain-Based Learning Strategies in Your Courses
By: Mary Bart in Online Seminars
If you think brain science isn’t part of your teaching job description, think again. Teachers deal with the neurochemistry behind student learning processes whether they want to or not. In this interactive presentation participants will gain basic knowledge of brain function with respect to learning. They will see how current teaching strategies address some of the neuroanatomical processes and how fundamental knowledge of brain structure can improve teaching strategies.
September 25 - A Call for Engaged Teaching
By: Mary E. Berg in Teaching and Learning
As I left my desk to attend the faculty development workshop, I picked up four thank-you cards for the rotations program, a report to read, and a newsletter to edit. I’ve been to dozens of development seminars, and I’ve learned to be prepared with something else to do in case the presenter is mind-numbingly boring. The pleasant surprise of the morning was that the speaker engaged us in learning for more than three hours! How did he do that?
August 8 - Five Characteristics of Learner-Centered Teaching
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies, Teaching Professor Blog
In May I finished a second edition of my Learner-Centered Teaching book. Revising it gave me the chance to revisit my thinking about the topic and look at work done since publication of the first edition ten years ago. It is a subject about which there is still considerable interest. The learner-centered label now gets attached to teaching strategies, teachers, classes, programs, departments and institutions. Like many trendy descriptors in higher education, with widespread use comes a certain definitional looseness. Active learning, student engagement and other strategies that involve students and mention learning are called learner-centered. And although learner-centered teaching and efforts to involve students have a kind of bread and butter relationship, they are not the same thing. In the interest of more definitional precision, I’d like to propose five characteristics of teaching that make it learner-centered.
August 6 - Understanding Adult Learners’ Needs
By: Nachamma Sockalingam PhD in Teaching and Learning
Understanding learner needs is essential for providing quality education. One approach to understand learner needs is through the use of student evaluation questionnaires which allow us to collate student feedback or suggestions. A common argument against the use of student evaluations is that students do not know their own needs. However, many studies have shown student feedback/suggestions to be reliable and valid. If we do not even attempt to understand their needs, we may fail to recognize the support they require to be successful.
