What Exactly is Student-Centered Learning?

I came across this entry saved to my computer… I guess I forgot to post it! I meant to upload it prior to blogging about my trials and tribulations of this inquiry. My bad. Pretend the date reads January 30th :)

As I become more comfortable with the teacher-inquirer that I am growing into, I have learned that before diving into a field study I need to make sure I have clearly defined for myself the definitions of the terms/topics/situations of which I am inquiring.

What does student-centered learning look like in a 21st century mathematics classroom?

I’ve spent significant time in my graduate coursework examining what a “21st century classroom” looks like and qualities that they may possess. The most important thing for me to wrap my head around now is what it means to have learning be student-centered. Starting out, that was simple: learning was either teacher-centered (knowledge is imparted by the teacher and instruction is direct) or student-centered (knowledge is actively constructed by the learner and the instruction is indirect). Right? Hmm. That was a bit of an assumption. Seems that like most things in education, nothing is really black and white, and it’s investigating those grey areas where my “aha moments” tend to occur.

So when looking for a definition, where does one go? Wikipedia of course ;)

“Student-centred learning (or student-centered learning; also called child-centred learning) is an approach to education focusing on the needs of the students, rather than those of others involved in the educational process, such as teachers and administrators.
Student-centred learning, that is, putting students first, is in stark contrast to existing establishment/teacher-centred lecturing and careerism. Student-centred learning is focused on the student's needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles with the teacher as a facilitator of learning. This classroom teaching method acknowledges student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner. Teacher-centred learning has the teacher at its centre in an active role and students in a passive, receptive role. Student-centred learning requires students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning.”

Okay, so the definition I originally had has been somewhat expanded. Looking at that, it made me think back to Educational Psychology 101, in my teacher-education days, and names like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky started swirling around my head. Oh yeah, I remember learning about that now – these guys practically came up with the idea of student-centered learning!

My next step was something I would not likely (correction = never) have done: refer to academic research to inform my understanding of student-centeredness. I came across one article in particular that caused such a shift in my thinking that I couldn’t stop talking about it to my friends and family. They were not nearly as excited by it as I was. Whenever I become energized about something in math or education (or worse, math education), I am usually met with family members pulling out their imaginary calculators, punching numbers furiously, and pushing their also imaginary glassed up their noses whilst snorting. I think they’re trying to tell me something. I once got a T-shirt for Christmas that read “talk nerdy to me”. Yup.

Back to the article. The citation for it is:

Elen, J., Clarebout, G., Lowyck, R., & Lowyck, J. (2007). Student-centred and teacher-centred learning environments: what students think. Teaching in Higher Education: 12(1).

This study focused on the relationship between teacher-centered and student-centered learning environments from the perspective of a student. It identified 3 views of this relationship: (1) the balance view: the more teacher-centered a learning environment the less student-centered it is and vice versa; (2) the transactional view: continuous renegotiation of teacher- and student-roles; and (3) the independent view: teacher- and student-centeredness are independent features of learning environments. Literature research done by the authors seemed to favor the balance view. From a curricular perspective, the results from the study suggest that the development of “powerful learning environments” are more important than the transition from teacher-centered towards student-centered learning environments. “Student-centredness and teacher-centredness are not the opposite poles of one spectrum… According to students, student-centredness and teacher-centredness are not conflicting but mutually reinforcing features of a learning environment. When properly combined they jointly contribute to its quality” (Elen et al, 2007)

Knowing this has opened my eyes to what my student-centered mathematics classroom could be modeled after. It definitely gave me food for thought.