Some of my students rehearsing a play - Flowers' High School

Some of my students rehearsing a play - Flowers' High School

Some of my students rehearsing a play - Flowers' High School

Student-Centered Learning

When you google the term Student-Centered Learning, you will find that it is widely used in the teaching and learning literature. Still, many terms may refer to the same meaning, such as Self-Directed Learning, Flexible Learning and Experiential learning. So, what is Student-Centered Learning?

We understand from the literature concerning Student-Centered Teaching (SCT) that in this approach teachers focus their planning, teaching and assessment around the needs and abilities of students. The main idea behind this approach is that learning is most meaningful when topics are relevant to the students’ lives, needs and interests. Unlike Teacher-Centered Teaching (TST), in SCT the teacher is not the only source of information. The teacher works as a monitor and a facilitator. Teachers cannot simply lecture and let students take a passive role. On the opposite, they have to design activities that let their students take initiative and discover meaningful information for their own lives. In SCT, the teacher helps students to discover their own learning styles, to understand their motivation and to acquire effective study skills which will be useful throughout their lives. For this approach to be practiced, teachers help their students set achievable goals, encourage them to assess themselves as well as their peers, help them to work in groups and, more importantly, to ascertain that students know how to manipulate and make good use of all the accessible resources for learning.

The main principles of SCT are:
Ø The learner is fully responsible for his/her learning.
Ø The teacher becomes a facilitator
Ø Errors are seen as a constructive part of the teaching/learning process.