being student centered will allow me to contec with studented and address diffrent learning styles.
Hi Eugene:
Nice sentiment you've expressed.
Student centered simply shifts the focus away from our need to teach, to the student need and desire to learn. That may mean adjusting, tweaking, individualizing, whatever will help us facilitate positive student outcomes.
Regards, Barry
Almost by definition success in teaching depends on the achievement of one's students. If we spotlight ourselves, haven't we changed professions - from teaching to performing? If we spotlight our students, we not only remind ourselves of the raison d'etre for being in the classroom to begin with, we raise their motivation for being there as well. Motivated students learn. Successful students = successful instructors.
Barry,
The students will sense that you care about them and will work harder to satisfy the course objectives, thus, they will achieve success in mastering those objectives.
Looking at the class from the student's point of view allows for an instructor to customize teaching. This may be a little difficult for large classes but even so, students pick up from each others energy. Seeing little cliques/groups and understanding their dynamics help instructors direct their efforts to the particular learning need for the individuals or individual groups.
For the simple reason that it's why I am there! It's not about me, it's about my students, their learning, their success, their careers.
A student-centered instructor plans, prepares, delivers, evaluates, and continuously tailors instructional materials and their presentation in genuine appreciation of student perspective, while keeping the desired endstate in focus--learning. Success in teaching and learning derive from instruction optimized with insights from this rigorous student-centered instructional analysis and constant improvement.
Hi Joshua:
Great! Student centered does focus on the individuality of the students vs relying on a canned, fixed curriculum that students are forced to listen to.
I compare that to student enthusiastically anticipating class because they feel challenged, are not put down for having the courage to speak up and guess if unsure, and allowing their creative side have a say in thier learning.
How nice when learning is viewed as fun, exciting, interesting and enjoyable. A little grows into more. Competence breeds confidence which breed more competence, logarthmically excelling into fuller potential and understanding. Yeah!!
Regards, Barry
Hi Gina:
Yes, student success produces a good feeling of accomplishment. For me, student centered places the focus of my teaching on individual student needs vs my fixed, cann, prepared curriculum I might have given. The end content may be the same, but how I achieve it is different. It's like I go to them rather than the student having to come up to me.
Regards, Barry
I love this question, because I feel like it applies directly to my main teaching style: I tend to ask leading (or open-ended) questions based on our material, in order to encourage active participation from all students. In my eyes, this is the crux of student-centered instruction: offering a guiding framework while simultaneously encouraging independent thinking.
It's a difficult balance to achieve, granted, and there have been instances where I feel I've failed outright; there are, in my experience, a fair amount of students who just prefer being lectured to. Nonetheless, I feel it is my responsibility as an instructor to foster individuality. The conclusions my students reach on their own are, I think, far more rewarding than the ones I force upon them.
Hi Craig:
Sometimes teaching conflicts with student-centered. Sounds crazy, let me explain.
For me student centered puts the individual need of the student ahead of my fized, preplanned curriculum. But sometimes, there are objectives or student learning outcomes that have to be met in order to satisfy a licensing, credentialing, legal, or safety issue that's part of a course.
In general, the more we can individualize our instruction to students the closer we we'll get to student-centered. But we have to meet our institutional or professional requirements as well.
We're on the same page. Just wanted to extrapolate a point.
Regards, Barry
By being student-centered You are catering to the students' learning needs. Their success is your success as an instructor.
As far as I am concerned there is no other type of Instructor than a student centered one.The main reason I am in this profession is for the students. as I tell them often thier success and learning is my number one goal in life.
Hi David:
Student centered really just simply shifts the focus from from being curriculum-centered to student centered. Curriculum-centered uses a fixed, preplanned lesson and method to teaching a class regardless of where or what the students need.
Contrasting that, student -centered appreoaches individualining instruction as much as possible in order to feach students and assure they are getting the infortmation they need.
Regards, Barry
Hi Sabrina:
Yes, and the focus is on individualized student instruction more that set-in-stone curriculum preplanned.
Another related way to say this is student-centered vs curriculum centered. In one, our fixed curriculum is emphasized; in the otrher, the students individual needs are emphasized.
Regards, Barry
When the instructor makes the classroom environment a student-centered environment it promotes confidence and inclusion. Students will feel safe and be are more willing to participate.
If I'm a student centered instructor this will help me be successful in teaching because I will be able to better communicate my learning objectives. When the students learn then I'm successful because that's the whole idea in teaching...getting the students to learn. This means that I focus on how the students in a given class tend to learn and what are their challenges. Without knowing these I may be talking over their heads and they aren't learning at all. I believe it's like the saying: "If you want to be interesting, become interested." If one shows interest in the students then they will have interest in what you are trying to get them to learn and thus will be a successful teacher.
Hi Colin:
For me student centered simply takes the position that the focus shifts to the individuall needs of the student, over my canned, prepared lessons that are more generic to the whole class. If I individualize my interaction and instruction, that student will kikely do better overall.
Regards, Barry
I believe that being 'student-centered' will be picked up on by the learners and perhaps motivate them to try harder. If they understand that they are a priority then I would think that they would be happier and have a better chance to succeed.
I have always heard instructors say that they do not GIVE grades, but that students EARN them. If a classroom is really student-centered, then the instructor and the students are not focused on the grades, but on the content of the course. The instructor is demonstrating an understanding of his/her own teaching techniques and adjusting to fit the needs of the students that are in a particular class. When this process becomes almost automatic, an instructor may have more success in their teaching.
