Skip to main content

Educational Framework - Student Centered Learning





Education has traditionally been Teacher-centric with the teacher being the source of information and all activities being driven by the teacher. In most cases, students worked in silos. This is however not conducive to the development of 21st-century learning skills like Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity. Today's student must be in a position to access information, link new information to existing knowledge and develop creative solutions. Essentially, they should be able to learn independently.

 Student-centred learning(SCL) inverts the traditional model and puts the student at the heart of the learning process. It developed from the constructivist learning theory. Constructivism views learning as an active process of constructing knowledge from information. New information is linked to prior knowledge and hence the learning is subjective.

 SCL is designed for the student keeping his or her interests, abilities and learning styles in mind. The teacher is the facilitator of learning. Several learner-centric instructional models are used in schools all over the world.  Some of them are - Inquiry-based(starts with a question), Discovery-based ( explore a topic), project-based, learning centre based(split a classroom into different activity zones and allow students to rotate between the different sections), case study based,game-based and so on.

 Over time, the following have come to be identified as the chief tenets of SCL.

  1. Personalized learning - This comes from the understanding that students learn in diverse ways. So, learning is customized to student's needs and interests. Learning is also paced to a student's comfort level.
  2. Competency-based - Students move ahead when they demonstrate mastery of content. Learning is not tied to age or number of study hours.
  3. Anytime, anywhere learning - Learning is not restricted to the classroom.
  4. Students choose their learning paths based on their interests. 

In recent times, 'Anytime, Anywhere learning' has witnessed great strides through BLENDED LEARNING - a combination of physical and digital learning spaces. This framework aspires to provide personalized practice and skills through the digital medium while the teacher focusses on building depth and higher-order thinking. Digital data is used to determine the child's learning path. 
As the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) transforms the education sector, hyperpersonalization has become possible. Machine learning can help determine the learner's style and provide customized material from the same core curriculum. AI will shift the role of the teacher to a facilitator, supplementing digital lessons, helping struggling students and providing human interaction where required.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deep Processing and Retrieval strategies to help children remember their lessons

As teachers, we may have seen cases where children seem to forget their lessons. It is not uncommon to see children forget their lessons or be confused, a few days after it is taught. This could happen even after some practice problems have been done. What could make lessons stick in children's mind? To understand this problem better, it would help to know how memory works. Psychologists have come up with different memory models based on what best corroborates with their research. Be it the  Atkinson-Shiffrin 'multistore model' or  the Craik and Lockhart 'Levels of Processing model', it is clear that information coming into our memory is retained for a longer time only if we engage meaningfully with the information. The act of analyzing information, comparing or associating it with existing knowledge, thinking about its application strengthens the synaptic connections in the neural networks. This kind of engagement with information at hand is called Deep ...
2 comments
Read more

Learning Theories - An overview

Why should we be interested in learning theories? Learning theories refer to a set of principles that explain how individuals acquire, retain and recall knowledge. In a broader sense, it could describe the process of learning which involves modifying an individual's knowledge, skills, values, attitude, behaviour and world views through personal experiences and environmental influences. Knowledge of these theories helps us to design instruction in a way that promotes learning. Major learning theories - BEHAVIOURISM  - We are passive creatures driven by stimulus and learned response. This learning theory has its roots in the early twentieth century through the work of behaviourists like Pavlov and Skinner among others. Their initial work was on animals. Their research showed the association between stimulus and response. This research was then applied to the study of human behaviour. Behaviourists propose that behaviour can be controlled based on antecedents and conse...
Post a Comment
Read more

Formative Assessment in a Math Class

Assessments form an important part of teaching. In teaching parlance, we have Summative assessments and Formative assessments. Summative assessments help us to grade a student's mastery of an instructional unit or a set of instructional units. On the other hand, formative assessments are meant to obtain regular feedback on the progress of a lesson. Formative assessments are hence a 'tool for learning' , giving teacher feedback on the progress of an instructional unit. The feedback can then be used to plan further instructions to the student. One popular way of conducting the formative assessment is the use of technology tools to organize quizzes or form collaborative groups of students to tackle challenges. While these work well in a conventional school environment a different set of strategies are required for individualized student-driven learning.  In a math classroom where each student is working on his individual lesson plan, one can use DIAGNOSTIC questions as...
2 comments
Read more