Learner-centered conditions that ensure students' success in learning

Over the years, teachers have felt increased pressure to ensure students' success in learning. To cope with this problem, educators have studied numerous facets of teaching and have noted that, to ensure students' success, more of our attention must be directed toward creating learner-centered conditions in classrooms. In an effort to contribute to the solution of the problem, the American Psychological Association, in 1993, created its Learner-Centered Psychological Principles: Guidelines for School Redesign and Reform. Twelve learner-centered conditions that must exist in classrooms were gleaned from the principles. The conditions are addressed in this article. Each describes what teachers should do to ensure their students' success in learning.

Ensuring students' success in learning has long been the goal of teachers, but over the years it has become even more critical. In 1892, the National Education Association (N.E.A.) created its Committee of Ten and charged it with the responsibility of determining exactly what should be taught in high school. In 1918, another N.E.A. committee created the Seven Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education that later evolved to become the main goals of both secondary and elementary schools. In the 1950s, educators like Max Rafferty and non-educators like U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover urged the American public to reexamine its schools. In 1972, another N.E.A. committee reviewed the Seven Cardinal Principles and determined that they were still valid and applicable for schools. So, up to this point, educators had been thinking seriously about what should be taught in schools to ensure that students become well educated (Henson, 2001).

Then, in 1983, members of the United States Department of Education's National Commission on Excellence wrote a report they entitled "A Nation a Risk." This report was highly critical of teachers and schools, using a lot of inflammatory language and exaggerations. However, the writers did achieve their goal of rekindling America's interest and concern for ensuring that students succeed academically.

Around 1983, many top educators like John I. Goodlad, author of A Place Called School, Ernest Boyer, who wrote High School, and Mortimer Adler, who presented The Paideia Proposal, produced numerous books and theories about what teachers should do to ensure student success. Since the 1980s, hundreds of articles, reports, and books have been published that address the subject. In recent years, politicians have gotten involved, and, in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Goals for 2000: Educate America Act, which presented six national goals for education. As a result of the heightened attention devoted to education, every state in the country has politicians, parents, and teachers who are actively involved in monitoring student success in learning on a yearly basis (Henson, 2001).

This heightened attention has motivated educators to study factors that can impact favorably on students' learning. Some of the factors that have been well researched in recent years include classroom management, student motivation, grouping arrangements, scheduling configurations, teaching techniques, and the use of technology in teaching. Based on the results of extensive studies conducted in recent years, teachers have begun to realize that, to be successful, they will have to pay close attention to creating learner-centered conditions in their classrooms. This motivated the American Psychological Association, in 1993, (APA Task Force) to create and publish Learner-Centered Psychological Principles: Guidelines for School Redesign and Reform.

The fourteen learner-centered psychological principles are arranged into four categories: (1) cognitive and metacognitive factors; (2) motivational and affective factors; (3) developmental and social factors; and (4) individual differences factors.

To ensure students' success, educators are employing as many of the learner-centered principles as possible. This article describes twelve practical conditions that emanate from the learner-centered principles and discusses how teachers should create and maintain the conditions in their classrooms to ensure their students' success in learning (APA Task Force, 1993).

Condition No. 1: Classrooms must be learner-centered, not content-centered. Teachers must be sensitive to the fact that their teaching should not focus simply on the number of skills they teach and the chapters in the textbook they cover. Nor, should their teaching entail inundating students with tons of facts, which they are expected to reproduce on examinations. Instead of focusing on content initially, teachers should first consider learner-related factors, e.g., their students' needs, prior knowledge, talents, interests, social orientations, linguistic abilities, and cultures. After considering these factors, teachers will understand what they should teach. They will also understand which content their students can learn and benefit from most (McCombs, 2001). To provide the very best opportunity for students to learn, this approach must be developed and maintained.

Condition No. 2: Teachers must believe that all students can learn. Teachers must begin each school year with this attitude. They must respect every student and remember that all are unique, having different strengths and capabilities. Teachers must not expect all of their students to be working on grade level, realizing that some will be performing below, some on, and some above grade level. On the other hand, teachers must have high expectations (Manning & Bucher, 2000) for all of their students, setting the goal of helping all achieve to the best of their abilities. Teachers must be ever mindful that they are responsible not only for their students' intellectual growth, but also for their physical, social, and emotional growth. In learner-centered classrooms, teachers must anticipate that all of their students will learn and then must strive to ensure that all develop in all growth areas.

Condition No. 3: Learner-centered classrooms must be success-oriented (Rallis, 1996). Teachers must keep in mind that they control the success or failure of their students. This being the case, teachers must ensure that all of their students are being taught at a level in which they can be successful. This is their instructional level. This is the level that challenges students, but, with the support of their teachers, it is also the level at which they can succeed. Following the recommendations of Vygotsky (1978), teachers should use scaffolding, a step-by-step process to help their students understand the major concepts introduced in each lesson. Following Vygotsky's recommendation for a gradual release of responsibility, teachers should gradually remove the scaffolding as their students learn the concepts being studied. In addition to providing this kind of support, teachers should provide extensive opportunities for guided practice, repetition, and review for their students, giving them ample opportunities to practice before they are given tests or other forms of assessment for grades.

Condition No. 4: Learning must be active, not passive. In learner-centered classrooms, students must be actively involved (McCombs, 2001). They must be provided with opportunities for hands-on learning. They must, to a great extent, be allowed to act on their environments and construct their own knowledge (Stroh & Sink, 2002). They must learn by doing and not by sitting passively and listening. Teachers in learner-centered classrooms must avoid using the lecture as their primary means of teaching. Lectures can be dull and boring and force students to tuneout teachers. In addition, many lectures provide only auditory stimuli that may not be the best modality for learning for some students. Instead of using lectures, students should be placed in situations where they are allowed to move around the classroom, working at the chalkboard or on bulletin boards, doing projects on cafeteria-sized tables, and/or making models that take up large floor areas. They should be allowed to work with concepts in different ways, including multisensory activities that enable them to see, hear, feel, smell, and even taste concepts.

Condition No. 5: Instruction must be developmentally appropriate (Manning & Bucher, 2000). Teachers must make sure that the concepts being studied and the knowledge and skills required to deal successfully with them are compatible with students' levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development. Teachers must avoid attempting to teach concepts that are obviously too complex for their students or for which students have not mastered necessary prerequisite skills. Instead, teachers must constantly analyze their students' abilities and determine what they are capable of handling and learning successfully. If it becomes apparent that concepts to be studied require higher levels of intellectual development than students possess, teachers should either postpone teaching the concepts or should not attempt to teach them at all. To be more capable of determining students' developmental stages and capabilities, teachers should review the developmental theories of Piaget (1952), Vygotsky (1978), and Erikson (1963).

Condition No. 6: Instruction must address many different learning styles. Teachers must remember that their students learn in different ways (Speaker, 2001). Therefore, teachers in learner-centered classrooms should employ a wide variety of approaches to teaching concepts. Some students may learn best by listening; some by seeing; and some by being involved in hands-on activities. Others may require multisensory stimulation to ensure that they learn. Teachers should also keep in mind that students oftentimes will do their best if learning opportunities are aligned with their particular type of intelligence, e.g., verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, or naturalistic (Gardner, 1993). With so many different learning styles and abilities in a class, teachers must provide activities that vary widely regarding the skills needed to be successful.

Condition No. 7: Students must be allowed to work together. In learner-centered classrooms, teachers must strive to avoid isolating students and requiring that they work alone. Instead, students should be guided in working together in pairs, triads, and small groups on a daily basis. Teachers should routinely employ Cooperative Learning approaches such as Student Team Achievement Divisions (STAD) and the Jig-saw II Approach (Slavin, 1983) in which students working in small cooperative groups share information and support each other's learning. Teachers should keep in mind that Vygotsky (1978) contended that learning should be a social activity in which students work together often, talking with each other, exchanging ideas, and providing feedback. This type of learning environment supports students in their learning and provides ample opportunities for them to learn from each other. When these approaches are employed, teachers can create "learning communities" (Hansen & Stephens, 2000; Stroh & Sink, 2002) that provide ongoing support to all students. This type of support provides the security students need to be academically motivated.

Condition No. 8: Teachers must be facilitators of learning (Dinchak, 1999), not just presenters of content. As mentioned earlier, the lecture approach should be used sparingly or not at all. Instead of lecturing, teachers should focus on creating learning environments and learning opportunities for their students. Teachers should have students working in small groups often, using a "Centers Approach," which entails having students rotate through learning centers or stations where they may work with learning packets. Teachers should also provide Computer-Assisted Instruction, which has students working at computers and receiving feedback from software programs and/or teachers. As facilitators, teachers should guide and help students discover the meaning of the concepts they are studying (Stroh & Sink, 2002). Rather than constantly bombarding students with detailed questions that require precise answers, teachers should spend more time discussing concepts with students, without the expectation that only the teacher or the textbook has the correct answers. In discussions, teachers can guide students toward discovering the true meaning of concepts rather addressing superficial details that they are required to remember.

Condition No. 9: Teachers must provide students with choices (Dinchak, 1999). In learner-centered classrooms, teachers must provide students with choices regarding their assignments and how they perform them. Because students possess many different types of intelligence and learning styles, they should not be expected to do the same assignments the same ways. Instead, teachers should provide a variety of ways for students to study concepts and to work with them. Some students may prefer to read extensively on their own and write papers. Others may prefer to study pictures or models and create their own models as summative projects. Teachers should allow students to select how they want to depict what they have learned.

Condition No. 10: Learning must be contextually relevant (APA Task Force, 1993). To make learning contextually relevant, teachers must plan instruction by considering their students' prior knowledge. Then, teachers must present concepts by starting with what students already know and then moving toward new, unknown concepts. The instruction should focus on real-world, real-life information, not on minute and esoteric concepts and skills that have little practical use in everyday life. As much as possible, teachers should provide activities that enable students to work with new concepts in meaningful ways. Along with this approach, teachers should require students to solve problems related to unique contexts, e.g., those encountered in school, home, or community situations (Thomas, 2000). In addition, teachers should also provide opportunities for students to work with the problems in different physical contexts (Dare, 2001), e.g., in the classroom, the laboratory, on school grounds, and out in the community. In context-learning situations, students should be allowed to work in groups or teams, which provides them with opportunities to share different views and perspectives about the concepts being studied.

Condition No. 11: Many different forms of assessment must be employed (Linn, 1992). In learner-centered classrooms, a variety of assessments should be used. Much should involve authentic activities, which require students to apply what they have learned to solve practical problems. However, teachers should employ other forms of assessment that provide students with many different ways to show that they have learned. Classic measures that involve reading and writing should surely be employed. In addition, students should be allowed to prepare exhibits, make models, conduct experiments, create portfolios, give electronic presentations, and present artistic performances. Also, teachers should teach students how to assess their own learning (McCombs & Whisler, 1997) and should provide them with frequent opportunities to do so. Above all, students should not be required to take only written examinations administered only at the end of each unit. Instead, they should routinely be assessed in a variety of ways.

Condition No. 12: Teachers must be reflective practitioners (Guild, 1997). In learner-centered classes, teachers must constantly evaluate their teaching and its effect on students. Dewey (1939) contended that this is an important process, because "reflective thinking leads educators to act in a deliberate and intentional fashion, rather than a blind and impulsive one." By conducting daily metacognitive sessions, teachers can focus on what worked and what didn't in delivering daily lessons. According to Atkins and Murphy (1995), reflection should include four stages: (1) Becoming uncomfortable with some facet of one's teaching; (2) Examining the components of the situation and exploring alternative actions; (3) Summarizing outcomes and/or revelations; and (4) Taking action based on the reflections. The actions should result in making changes that lead to better teaching and student achievement. In addition to having a direct and positive impact on student learning, teachers become more effective instructors; they have a greater sense of self-awareness; they gain confidence, and this leads to greater teacher empowerment (Schon, 1990).

Conclusion

As pressure continues to mount on teachers to ensure students' success in learning, many different approaches to teaching are being recommended. They range from adopting new methods, techniques, and strategies to making specific suggestions regarding what teachers and students should do to facilitate learning. Like so many other instances when solutions to challenging teaching problems are sought, sometimes revisiting basic learning principles can be beneficial. The twelve learner-centered conditions described above have their roots in basic pedagogy, and it has become apparent that creating learner-centered classrooms that maintain the conditions can contribute greatly toward ensuring students' success in learning.

References

APA Task Force on Psychology in Education (1993). Learner-centered psychological principles: Guidelines for school redesign and reform. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association and Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory.

Atkins, S. & Murphy, K. (1995). Reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 9 (45), 31-35.

Dare, D. E. (2001). Learner-centered instructional practices supporting the new vocationalism. New Directions in Community Colleges, 115, 81-91.

Dewey, J. (1939). Experience and education. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers.

Dinchak, M. (1999). Using the worldwide web to create a learner-centered classroom. Paper present at the International Conference on Teaching and Learning. Glendale, AZ.

Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Norton.

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: NY: Basic Books.

Guild, P. B. (1997). Where do the learning theories overlap? Educational Leadership, 55, 30-31.

Hansen, E. J. & Stephens, J. A. (2000). The ethics of learner-centered education: Dynamics that impede the process. Change, 33 (5), 40-47.

Henson, K. T. (2001). Curriculum planning: Integrating multicurturalism. constructivism, and reform. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Linn, M. (1992). Gender differences in educational achievement, sex equity in educational opportunity, achievement and testing. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Manning, M. L. & Bucher, K. T. (2000). Middle schools should be both learner-centered and subject-centered. Childhood Education, 77 (1), 41-42.

McCombs, B. L. (2001). What do we know about learners and learning? The Learner-centered framework: bringing the educational system into balance. Educational Horizons, 79 (4), 182-193.

McCombs, B. L. & Whisler, J. S. (1997). The learner-centered classroom and school: Strategies for increasing student motivation and achievement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Rallis, S. F. (1996). Creating learner-centered schools: Dreams and practices. Educational Horizons, 75 (3) 20-26.

Schon, D. (1990). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Slavin, R. (1983). Cooperative learning. New York, NY: Longman Publishers.

Speaker, K. M. (2001). Interactive exhibit theory: Hints for implementing learner-centered activities in elementary classrooms. Education, 121 (3), 610-614.

Stroh, H. L. & Sink, C. A. (2002). Applying APA's learning-centered principles to school-based group counseling. Professional School Counseling, 6 (1), 71-78.

Thomas, V. G. (2000). Learner-centered alternatives to social promotion and retention: A talent development approach. The Journal of Negro Education, 69 (4), 8-15.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

DAVID M. BROWN

College of Education

Texas A&M University-Texarkana

Texarkana, Texas 75505

Copyright Project Innovation Fall 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved