This document provides notes on student-centered teaching and learning. It discusses that student-centered learning aims to increase student activity, choice, and power in the learning process. While there is a continuum between teacher-centered and student-centered approaches, effective teachers incorporate elements of both as appropriate. The document also reviews various teaching methods and where they fall on the continuum, influential theorists in student-centered learning like Dewey, Piaget, Bruner, Freire, Vygotsky, and challenges like defining student-centered learning and evaluating its effectiveness.

1. Some Notes on
“Student-Centred”
Teaching and Learning
James Atherton
23 November 2010

2. Some Notes on
“Student-Centred”
Teaching and Learning
James Atherton
23 November 2010Just some notes/remarks;
not a comprehensive
account

3. Some Notes on
“Student-Centred”
Teaching and Learning
James Atherton
23 November 2010
In quotation marks
because it is so
over-used as to be
effectively meaningless

4. Increasing...
(student)
• Activity
• Choice
• Power
I'm not offering a definition. If you
need one, this presentation is not
for you.
But in practice, it means getting students
to do things first, and working with that,
rather than telling them stuff, or what
to do, from the outset

5. Pages like this were
not in the original
presentation
What's the alternative?
“Direct Instruction”
Broadly, the teacher demonstrates or presents, and then the students
practise in the approved way, using exercises etc.
Much disparaged and misrepresented, it is nonetheless the strategy of
choice for many topics.
Hattie (2009:205) gives it an
effect-size of 0.59; way
above the mean of 0.4.
Many forms of “student-centred”
learning score less than the
mean.
But read Hattie's commentary
(2009: 204-207)
Hattie J (2009) Visible Learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement London; Routledge
R e v e r s e
Effect-size d=0.59

6. Continuum
Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
In practical terms there is a
continuum, and whereabouts you
choose to go on it depends on the
topic and how you want the
students to learn.

7. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Here are some sample teaching
activities and where they sit

8. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction

9. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)

10. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)
Student presentation
On a topic
and terms set
by the teacher...

11. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)
Student presentation
Student-led
sem
inar
Topic at least
negotiated by
student(s)

12. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)
Student presentation
Student-led
sem
inar
Self-directed
groupwork/
independent study

13. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)
Student presentation
Student-led
sem
inar
Self-directed
groupwork/
independent study
Students design
and
m
anage
class
Note that the teacher
is not actually
essential. We do most
of our learning without
needs of that role.

14. Teacher-
centred
Student-
centred
Lecture without
interaction
Lecture with
interaction
Traditional class (Intro, task, “plenary”)
Student presentation
Student-led
sem
inar
Self-directed
groupwork/
independent study
Students design
and
m
anage
class

15. Individual or group-based
projects
Variations on the theme

16. Role of teacher...
• “Sage on the
stage”
• “Guide at the
side”
Of all the simplistic rubbish that
appears in the educational
“literature” these typifications must
be the most egregious examples

17. Role of teacher...
• “Sage on the
stage”
• “Guide at the
side”
Any half-way good teacher does both
as appropriate. To adopt a strategy
based on a preference for a role is
to put the cart before the horse
Of all the simplistic rubbish that
appears in the educational
“literature” these typifications must
be the most egregious examples

18. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics

19. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics
Students don't want
to learn, but...

20. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics
Students don't want
to learn, but...
They will if you crack the whip
They will if you make it fun enough

21. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics
Students don't want
to learn, but...
They will if you crack the whip
They will if you make it fun enough
Students do want to learn,
and they will if you let them

22. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics
Students don't want
to learn, but...
Students do want to learn,
and they will if you let them
Student-centred learning
can work for teachers like
these

23. 22 November 2010
Hargreaves’ teachers
• Lion-tamers
• Entertainers
• New Romantics
Based on Hargreaves D (1975)
Interpersonal Relations and
Education London; Routledge
(p. 164ff.)

24. 22 November 2010
A model
Dominance:
role/nature not
negotiable:
other components
adapt
Distance between elements and width
of connecting lines show strength
of identification between elements
Teacher
Learner
Subject
For a proper account of this model
with provenance etc. go to:
http://www.doceo.co.uk/tools/subtle_1.htm

25. 22 November 2010
Traditional
model
Facilitator: more
“student-centred” approach
Dominance
Teacher
Learner
Subject
Teacher
Learner
Subject

26. 22 November 2010
“Governess”/ Guru
Mentoring
Dominance
Teacher
Learner
Subject
Teacher
Learner
Subject

27. Influential contributors

“The theoretical standing of student-centred learning is often
surprisingly absent in the literature.”
(O'Neill and McMahon, 2005)

Broadly fits with humanist approaches to learning
(Hargreaves' “new romantics”)

Associated with Dewey (1938), the constructivists Piaget and
Bruner and the following...
Dewey J (1938) Experience and Education (various editions)

28. JSA
Knowles claims the application of SCL to
adult learning, based on these claimed
features of adults
Malcolm Knowles: “andragogy” (1978)
The need to know — adult learners need to know why they need to
learn something before undertaking to learn it.
Learner self-concept —adults need to be responsible for their own
decisions and to be treated as capable of self-direction
Role of learners’ experience —adult learners have a variety of
experiences of life which represent the richest resource for learning.
These experiences are however imbued with bias and presupposition.
Readiness to learn —adults are ready to learn those things they
need to know in order to cope effectively with life situations.
Orientation to learning —adults are motivated to learn to the
extent that they perceive that it will help them perform tasks they
confront in their life situations.
based on Knowles 1990:57

29. 22 November 2010
Very influential in radical adult
education; despite his critique of
the “banking model” of education
(see later) his own practice is not
really student-centred.
Paulo Freire
1921 - 1997
Brazilian educator:
particularly adult
literacy
Seen as a political as well
as practical issue
Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1972)

30. 22 November 2010
“This book will present some aspects of what the writer
has termed the “pedagogy of the oppressed”, a
pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the
oppressed (be they individuals or whole peoples) in the
incessant struggle to regain their humanity.
This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of
reflection by the oppressed,
and from that reflection will come their necessary
engagement in the struggle for their liberation.
And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and
remade.”
From Freire P The Pedagogy of the Oppressed Penguin 1972:25
Freire

31. 22 November 2010
a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
d) the teacher talks and the students listen—meekly;
e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action
of the teacher;
h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not
consulted) adapt to it;
i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional
authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere
objects.
“Banking” education

32. Z P DC h i l d ’s c u r r e n t
a c h i e v e m e n t
B e y o n d r e a c h
a t p r e s e n t
Zone of Proximal Development
(Vygotsky)
Probably the most
influential theorist
(via Bruner in the West)
through his ideas of
“social constructivism”
where learning arises
out of interaction
between the learner and
others, who may be
teachers, but not
necessarily in a formal
sense