The term student-centered learning refers to a wide variety of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic-support strategies that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students and groups of students. To accomplish this goal, schools, teachers, guidance counselors, and other educational specialists may employ a wide variety of educational methods, from modifying assignments and instructional strategies in the classroom to entirely redesigning the ways in which students are grouped and taught in a school.
Dating back to the 1930s, if not earlier, American educators have used the terms “teacher-centered” and “student-centered” to describe two distinct approaches to instruction. Teacher-centered typically refers to learning situations in which the teacher asserts control over the material that students study and the ways in which they study it-i.e., when, where, how, and at what pace they learn it. In classes that would be considered teacher-centered, the teacher tends to be the most active person in the room and do most of the talking (e.g., by lecturing, demonstrating concepts, reading aloud, or issuing instructions), while students spend most of their time sitting in desks, listening, taking notes, giving brief answers to questions that the teacher asks, or completing assignments and tests (for a related discussion, see direct instruction). In addition, in teacher-centered classrooms, teachers may also decide to teach students in ways that are easy, familiar, or personally preferred, but that might not work well for some students or use instructional techniques shown to be most effective for improving learning.
In contrast, student-centered typically refers to forms of instruction that, for example, give students opportunities to lead learning activities, participate more actively in discussions, design their own learning projects, explore topics that interest them, and generally contribute to the design of their own course of study. Additionally, student-centered instruction is often associated with classrooms that feature desks arranged in circles or small groups (rather than rows of desks that face the teacher), with “self-guided” or “self-paced” learning, or with learning experiences that occur outside of traditional classroom settings or school buildings, such as internships, apprenticeships, independent research projects, online classes, travel experiences, community-service projects, or dual-enrollment courses, for example (for a related discussion, see learning pathway).
While student-centered learning has sometimes been criticized as a fuzzy concept that refers to a vague assortment of teaching strategies, or that means different things to different educators, in recent years some education reformers and researchers have sought to define the term with greater precision. While the definition of the term is still evolving, advocates of student-centered learning tend to emphasize a few fundamental characteristics:
1. Teaching and learning is “personalized,” meaning that it addresses the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students.
2. Students advance in their education when they demonstrate they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn (for a more detailed discussion, see proficiency-based learning).
3. Students have the flexibility to learn “anytime and anywhere,” meaning that student learning can take place outside of traditional classroom and school-based settings, such as through work-study programs or online courses, or during nontraditional times, such as on nights and weekends.
4. Students are given opportunities to make choices about their own learning and contribute to the design of learning experiences.