SORSOGON STATE UNIVERSITY

BULAN CAMPUS

COURSE | BTVTED CSS

SUBJECT | LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES WITH EMPHASIS ON TM1

FACILITATING LEARNER
CENTERED TEACHING
Objective: Apply principles of learner-centered teaching in planning
instructional activities for students

Jay A. Rivera, MIS, LPT, STS

LESSON 1.1
FACILITATING LEARNER CENTERED
TEACHING

Introduction to Learner-Centred Teaching

Learner Centered Pedagogical Approaches

Theories of Learning

Outcomes of Teacher Education

 INTRODUCTION TO LEARNER CENTERED TEACHING

Over the past two decades, research on learner-centered teaching has highlighted the
importance of placing students at the center of the learning process. As a prospective
teacher, it is vital to take into account your students' learning objectives, the topics you wish
to teach, and choose a suitable teaching method to facilitate their understanding.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
SHORT ACTIVITY
Take time to thoughtfully answer the checklist below for you to reflect on your prior knowledge and experience related
to learner-centered teaching. Check your response under the YES and NO column

Checklist on Learner-Centred Pedagogy

YES NO

Were you allowed by your teachers to set specific learning goals for yourself?

Have you experienced being given the freedom to choose a topic for a course
requirement?

Have you experienced being asked by your teacher for your input or opinion in
deciding what topics to learn in a course?

Have you experienced being given a chance to choose a type of assessment

task you can do to effectively demonstrate what you already know?

Do your teachers frequently check first what you already know about a certain
lesson?
 YES NO

Has collaboration among students emphasized more than competition in your

learning experience through the years?

Have you experienced being given the opportunity to develop yourself and peer-
assessment skills?

Have you experienced being given a flexible date for submitting your project?
 Group Analysis:

1. Where did most of your responses fall in the checklist? More of Yes or more of No?
2. If more of Yes, how did you feel about those experiences?
3. If more of No, how did you feel under those circumstances?
4. For items for which you answered NO, which of these would you have liked to really have or
experience in the past? Why do you say so?
5. For items in the checklist that you responded to as Yes, they are clear examples of your
own experiences reflecting a learner-centered teaching approach.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 Learner-Centered Pedagogy

Pedagogy: the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.
-Oxford Languages
 Learner-Centered Teaching (LCT) has become a popular phrase among educators
nowadays. It has been named in several ways, such as student-centered approach or
learner-centered pedagogy, in many textbooks and journal articles. Looking at the
research literature surrounding learner-centered teaching in the past 20 years, a book
published in 2002 by Maryllen Weimer stands as one of the earlier attempts to discuss
and define what is LCT about comprehensively.

In Weimer’s book titled, ‘Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice’, five
key changes were significantly taking place in schools.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Evaluation, Purpose, &

Balance of Power
Process

FIVE FEATURES

Responsibility of
Role of Teacher
Learner

Function of Contents

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Balance of Power

In a traditional classroom, the power to decide what lessons to discuss, what learning activities students
must engage in, and what assessment tasks to give mainly belongs to the teacher with little input from
students. On the other hand, in a student-centered classroom, a teacher shares that power by
consulting learners prior to making final decisions.

The traditional exercise of power in the classroom often benefits the teacher more than it promotes student
learning. The uniform instructional approach or ‘one-size-fits-all’ concept certainly is more convenient on
the part of the teacher who has worked hard in planning, implementing, and assessing outcomes of
learning. However, this uniform approach has been criticized by scholars by being unresponsive to the
diversity of needs, interests, and readiness among students.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Balance of Power

In order to balance power in the classroom, learners are frequently consulted and given immediate and
ongoing feedback by the teacher. The teacher empowers students by giving them the opportunity to
choose and make decisions like selecting among lesson topics, choose learning activities, determine pace
of learning, and select an assessment task to demonstrate one’s mastery of targeted learning
competencies.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Function of Content

Current research evidence from educational psychology calls for a change in the function of curriculum
content which should be less on covering it and more on using content to develop a learner’s individual
way of understanding or sense-making. Teachers need to allow learners to raise their own questions,
generate their own answers or solutions.

From a constructivist perspective, knowledge cannot simply be given to students: Students must construct
their own meanings” (Stage, Muller, Kinzie, and Simmons, 1998, p. 35). In other words, learners are
capable of constructing and reconstructing their knowledge through active personal effort. This
view debunks the current belief about students’ learning from passively receiving information transmitted
from teachers via lectures.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Function of Content

In order to facilitate learning that changes how students

think and understand, teachers must begin by finding
out students’ prior knowledge or conceptions and then
design learning activities that will change these pre-
instructional concepts.

Learner-centered teaching also regards content as more of

competency-based learning in which students master
targeted skills and content before progressing to
another lesson. The more important practice here is to
accommodate students’ differing pace of learning.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Role of the Teacher

Constructivism theory brings the role of the teacher as that of a facilitator

of learning, not as the fountain of learning. He/she instead encourages
students to explore multiple knowledge sources, make sense of it, and
personally organize the information taken from different sources.

As generally observed, less knowledgeable and experienced learners will

interact with content in less intellectually robust ways, but the goal is to
involve students in the process of acquiring and retaining information.

This shifting view on the role of the teacher deemphasizes the focus on
teaching techniques and methods if they are considered separate from the
subject matter and learning structures of the discipline.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 The Five Key Changes to Practice by Weimer

Evaluation Purpose and Process

The literature on self-directed learning also underscores the importance of assessment, only in this
case it is the ability of students to self-assess accurately. Sophisticated learners know when they do
or do not understand something.
They can review a performance and identify what needs improvement.
They have mechanisms for its collections and methods for evaluating it and acting on it.

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
 CHALLENGE!

It would be good at this time for you to personally find out how Filipino teachers are currently practicing
the student-centered approach in teaching.

You may conduct a one-on-one interview with a new and seasoned teacher in your school, or among
your relatives and friends, or those within your neighborhood. List down his or her practices in terms of
applying the learner-centred teaching approach.

Seasoned Teachers (more than 5 years in teaching

New Teacher (5 years & below teaching experience)
experience)

After conducting the interview, what was the most interesting response you received from your interviewees? Why
do you say so?

LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES