PME 811- Blog Post #2

I felt like in order to successfully answer my question, How can I create a virtual student-centered classroom that will engage all learners? and implement it into my classroom I needed to do two things. First, identify what is currently happening in my virtual classroom right now. Secondly, define and determine what a student-centered classroom is and looks like. 

Lecture

Lecture. Lecture. Lecture. That is what is happening in my classroom right now. I am preparing content and lecturing my students on it. The students are not provided many opportunities to collaborate or understand the content other than the way I choose to present it and assess it. I would say currently my classroom is teacher focused and only works well for independent learners.

What is a student-centered classroom?

Society has required schools to prepare students for an increasingly complex set of social and economic realities (Christensen, 2008; National Academies of Science 2007). With educators and researchers being required to achieve high standards and educators knowing that all students come with different learning abilities, methods, and knowledge; new approaches needed to be developed. A student-centered theory approach “provides an active, individualized, and engaging learning experience: an experience which the teacher facilitates, but does not dominate (Literature Review: Student-Centered Classrooms).”

McCombs and Miller (2006) are the core of the Learner-Centered Model (LMC). Meaning, the instructional decisions come from knowing the student individually and collectively. Then determine how to best support learning for all students in the classroom. And finally, “decisions about what practices should be in place at the school and classroom levels depend upon what we want learners to know and be able to do.” In summary, the learner is at the center of the system and “student-centered approaches orient themselves continually toward what individual learners need given their backgrounds and abilities.” (Literature Review: Student-Centered Classrooms, page 1)

Johnston (2004)  stated, “Learning is not about passivity and order; it is about the messy process of discovery and construction of knowledge‖ (p. xxii). Johnson explains that student-centered classrooms question: What should students know and be able to do, and what will be the evidence of learning?

Researchers have come up with five essential attributes of a student-centered classroom that combines instructional practices and learning attributes: 

1. Construction of learning 

2. Collaborative learning  

3. Metacognition  

4. Educator/student partnerships  

5. Authentic assessment

(Literature Review: Student-Centered Classrooms, page 2)

Now, with more understanding of what a student-centered classroom is and what instructional practices are needed to create this approach, I can continue to investigate: How can I create a virtual student-centered classroom that will engage all learners? With my classroom being virtual and students attending my school from all over the state of Michigan, background knowledge and experiences vary. How can I develop relevance for all my students by purposefully designing classroom activities with the student‘s needs in mind and am able to guide the differentiation of individual learning? 

Questions I still ponder: 

What do these instructional practices look like virtually? Can some student-centered brick and mortar ideas even be transferred to the virtual classroom? For a classroom to be student-centered, does it have to be a student lead the whole time?

Sources:

Christensen, C. M. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill. 

Johnston, P. (2004). Choice words: How our language affects children’s learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers

McCombs, B. L., & Miller, L. (2006). Learner-centered classroom practices and assessments: Maximizing student motivation, learning, and achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Literature Review: Student-Centered Classrooms, Iowa Core, Pages 1-12 

http://web1.gwaea.org/iowacorecurriculum/docs/StudCentClass_LitReview.pdf