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The Importance of Student-Centered Learning
The best way to help students learn is to create a curriculum that is good for students, pushes them beyond what they find easy or comfortable. When you push learners out of their comfort zones, you encourage them to grow, learn new concepts and skills, develop confidence in their abilities, and see themselves as capable learners.
The one thing that sets exceptional teachers apart from the rest is the ability to identify what makes each individual student tick and then cater classroom instruction for them accordingly. That way, you help every student reach their full potential.
Here are three tips for creating a student-centered curriculum and instruction model.
Identify your students' strengths and weaknesses
Give students a chance to share and demonstrate what they know and can do
Provide opportunities for student-centered learning
We’ve all heard the phrase “student-centered learning” thrown around in education, but what does it even mean? How can you fix your current curriculum that isn’t student-centered?
Let’s talk about three tips for creating a student-centered curriculum and instruction model.
Identify your students' strengths and weaknesses
It’s important to identify your students’ strengths and weaknesses. What are they good at? What are they bad at? What are their passions? By knowing these things, you can adjust your teaching style accordingly to really help them learn.
As an educator, you want to help every student succeed. But some learners are more successful than others, and it's important to identify why.
Students come to school with different skills, abilities, and interests. Some students are strong in math but weak in reading; others excel at reading but struggle with math. Their performance also depends on how motivated they are to learn. Some students are highly motivated to succeed, while others might lack the desire or confidence to try hard in class.
A student-centered approach to curriculum design considers what students know, what they need to learn next, and what they can do with that learning. Curriculum designers using a student-centered approach can use this information to create an instructional program that meets the needs of all students.
Students enter instruction at different levels of readiness. Some students may have mastered skills taught in previous grades, while others may struggle with the same concepts. A student-centered curriculum should include differentiated strategies for teaching foundational content to all students while simultaneously addressing individual needs.
A strong curriculum is designed around the learner, not around the content being taught. By considering the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of your learners, you can better prepare them for life after high school.
Give students a chance to share and demonstrate what they know and can do
One of the best ways to engage students is to give them a chance to share what they know and can do.Giving students the opportunity to share their strengths and weaknesses is a powerful way to open the door for them to share their thoughts and concerns.
Students are not passive recipients of information. Instead, they are active participants in their own learning.
They have ideas, opinions, and questions about the material you are presenting to them. The more you encourage student engagement, the more likely students will embrace your lessons and find motivation to learn.
The next time you design a lesson or activity, consider these strategies for creating a student-centered environment:
Ask questions that generate discussion and debate. Instead of just asking students questions that require a "yes" or "no" response, ask them to provide specific details on their thinking.
Questions such as...
What do you think will happen next? Why?
How might we solve this problem? What would you do? What else could we do?
Which examples best support your opinion? How do you know?
Can we test this out? How can we test it out? When can we test it out? Who can help us test it out?
Allow students time to make choices in learning activities, such as projects, assignments, and assessments.
Implement engaging teaching methods —
One way of motivating students is by incorporating different teaching methods into your classroom, such as...
interactive discussions,
group work,
project-based learning
A student-centered curriculum can engage students in a more meaningful way, allowing them to develop real world skills while also enhancing their critical thinking abilities.
A central goal of any curriculum is to give students a chance to learn and show what they know. Focus on giving every student an equal opportunity to succeed. When you develop curriculum, keep the following tips in mind:
Provide opportunities for student-centered learning
Student success is often defined by how much the student grows during the school year. This growth might be in terms of knowledge, skills, or experience. The ultimate goal for educators is to design instruction to enable students to see this growth over the school year.
Creating a student-centered curriculum is not only the most effective way to learn, but also the most efficient. Students with active learning styles will interact with material in ways that are more productive than if they were simply given lessons to follow.
Focus on active participation
One of the most important elements of creating an active learning environment is active participation. Asking students to participate in class discussions and activities is one of the best ways to get them engaged with material and develop their own understanding of concepts.
An activity like an interactive debate or structured discussion can help students retain information they learn in class because they are forced to organize their thoughts and communicate them verbally.
Encourage student-centered activities instead of teacher-centered ones
It's important for teachers to ensure that their lessons encourage active participation, but it's even more important that students are working on tasks that require them to think for themselves.
When students work together on projects, present information, or discuss concepts, they can apply what they've learned in new situations and develop transferrable skills that will serve them well after high school. By allowing students to choose assignments based on their interests.
In a student-centered classroom, students are the center of everything — they control the pace and the direction, and teachers facilitate and support learning. Teachers must refrain from using lectures and homework as a primary tool for academic learning.
The following ideas address how to implement a student-centered classroom:
Empower Students to Learn
An empowered student is one who feels confident in his or her ability to learn and knows that the teacher will support the process.
Teachers must model this behavior through positive reinforcement and by giving students opportunities to take risks in order to enhance their learning.
Encourage Collaboration
Students who collaborate on projects develop higher levels of critical thinking because they need to work together to solve problems and reach conclusions.
Creative thinking is also enhanced when students share ideas and feelings in a collaborative setting.
Provide Opportunities for Choice and Responsibility
Students who feel like they have choice and control over their learning experience are more motivated to succeed in class and do better on assessments.
Choice comes in many forms; students can choose which project work on or what they learn about next, or even design their own curriculum based on their interests.
Giving them responsibility means trusting them with tasks like keeping track of reading logs or aspects of projects, such as managing time or materials.
The benefits of a student-centered curriculum are many.
Students will perform better when they’re pushed outside of their comfort zones.
When their core at-risk students fail, it’s because the school system has failed them, not because they’re incapable of learning or succeeding.
And when teachers teach to the needs of the students in their classroom, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all curriculum, we improve our chances for success in the education sphere.
That’s something we should all strive for.
