Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment: A Guide to Facilitating Learning in Higher Education

✍ Scribed by Terry Doyle

• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 213
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Before entering higher education, most students’ learning experiences have been traditional and teacher-centered. Their teachers have typically controlled their learning, with students having had little say about what and how to learn. For many students, encountering a learner-centered environment will be new, possibly unsettling, and may even engender resistance and hostility.Taking as his starting point students’ attitudes toward, and unfamiliarity with, learner-centered classrooms, Terry Doyle explains that motivating students to engage with this practice first of all requires explaining its underlying rationale, and then providing guidance on how to learn in this environment. This book is about how to help students acquire the new skills and knowledge they need to take on unfamiliar roles and responsibilities. It is informed by the author’s extensive experience in managing learner-centered classes, and by his consultation work with faculty.The first four chapters focus on the importance of imparting to students the evidence and underlying philosophy that is driving higher education to move from a teacher-centered to a learner-centered practice, and what this means for students in terms of having control over, and making important choices about, their learning. The final eight chapters focus on how to impart the skills that students need to learn or hone if they are to be effective learners in an environment that is new to them. The book covers such practices as learning on one’s own; creating meaningful learning when collaborating with others; peer teaching; making presentations; developing life long learning skills; self and peer evaluation; and give meaningful feedback.This book provides a rich and informative answer to the fundamental question: how do I help my students adjust to a learner-centered practice?

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Foreword......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Introduction......Page 16
Optimizing Students’ Learning......Page 20
Why Students Resist Learner-centered Teaching......Page 36
Creating Relevance For A Learner-centered Practice......Page 52
Putting Students’ Learning Into The Context Of Current Learning Theory......Page 70
Promoting Independent Learning......Page 82
Communication Skills For Working With Peers......Page 104
Helping Students Take Charge Of Their Learning......Page 114
When Students Teach One Another......Page 126
Presentations And Performance Assessments......Page 134
Becoming Lifelong Learners......Page 148
Helping Students Recognize What They Know, Don’t Know, And Misunderstand......Page 160
Student Evaluations— Themselves, Others, And The Teacher......Page 168
Appendix A......Page 182
Appendix B......Page 185
Appendix C......Page 187
Appendix D......Page 188
Appendix E......Page 191
Appendix F......Page 197
References......Page 198
Index......Page 210