Student-centered Learning
A reflection by Martha Méndez and taken from the video "Transformation"
Student-centered Learning means taking into consideration the different abilities or skills students have in order to have them excel at high levels by engaging them into their own learning process, meaning making it personalized.
Learner centered instruction is to consider the students as the center for learning and the learning process. This means that the environment must be as much as possible the same as when students learnt their first language. Teachers establish learning goals through certaing learning strategies thus making the student responsible for his/her own learning process. At the same time, teachers are able to evaluate the learning process and the student is also able to evaluate him/herself during that same process. In this way, non-traditional activities must be planned and applied so students become confident enough to experience, reflect and communicate with others. Students then become responsible of their own learning process and production.
The main role of the teacher in LCI is to plan the activities which should not be traditional and apply strategies that foster student-centered learning, that means the teacher becomes a guide, a facilitator.
The four key principles are:
- Learning is personalized.- This means that teachers must know their students´abilities, strengths and weaknesses in order to organize and plan activities and run strategies that will help the students excel.
- Learning is competency-based.- Students master a specific informatbion and skills, and move on their own pace. Teachers are aware of the students´interests, needs and challenges.
- Learning happens anytime, anywhere.- Students will find out about new information outside the school making their learning more vivid, realistic and profound for their own lives.
- Students take ownership.- Teachers must consider students´participation in taking decisions about their own learning process.