Learner-Centered Teaching - Ideas for my instruction

7/6/11, I am starting to read - "Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice" by Maryellen Weimer from 2002.

Book Outline

1) How she came to write the book
2) Five key areas in need of instructional change to become learner-centered: a) balance of power, b) function of content, c) role of teacher, d) responsibility for learning, and e) purpose and processes of evaluation.
3) Implementation details


Key points and ideas (I will update this post periodically as I read)

Learner-centered focus rather than a student-centered one (student as customer). Focus is on learning: 1) what student is learning, 2) how student is learning, 3) contditions under which student is learning, and 4) how current learning positions student for future learning. (xvi)

Focus is on what student is doing and not on what teacher is doing (xvi)

Deep learning is defined as when student "focused on what the author meant, related new information to what they already knew and had experience, worked to organize and structure the content, and saw teh reading as an important source of learning." (11) To get to this deeper learning then the focus must be on facilitating a "qualitative change in a person's way of seeing or understanding something in the real world." The teacher must understand the current student knowledge base and existing conceptions to "design instructio nthat changes those conceptions." (11)