Blog Entry #7

This week my entry is all about the concept of learner-centered teaching, or LCT, based on chapter 2 of Maryellen Weimer’s Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, and chapters 12 and 13 of Wilbert McKeachie’s Teaching Tips. I shall attempt to answer three questions—namely, what is LCT; which aspects of LCT could I incorporate into my own teaching, and which aspects of LCT would be difficult or even unwise to incorporate into my own teaching.

What is learner-centered teaching?

As all our readings throughout the semester have shown, college teachers around the US are largely disappointed by the attitudes and behaviors of today’s students. Students are “anxious, indecisive, and unsure of themselves” (Weimer, p. 23). Too many are driven only by the desire to get good grades, not by the desire to master the material. Cheating, procrastination, and absenteeism are commonplace.

The authors of this week’s readings clearly agree that much (if not all) of the fault for this state of affairs is with teachers. The remedy, they say, is for teachers to motivate their students. For weeks we’ve been talking about how we can do that. But this week’s readings present some bold, even radical, ways to help students become “empowered, confident, self-motivated learners” (Weimer, p. 23).

Learner-centered teaching (LCT) is a pedagogical philosophy that puts students in charge of their own learning. Weimer says its ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for a teacher, at least as we conceptualize this person traditionally. Students taught progressively through this philosophy will, theoretically, develop “learning skills so sophisticated that they can teach themselves” (p. 29).

Practically speaking, LCT is teachers’ sharing power with students, meaning that students are allowed to participate in decision-making processes or even make outright decisions that are directly related to their learning. Weimer, for example, says she lets students set some course policies, such as class participation. Other examples she gives include letting students select the course textbook, suggest course objectives, and even determine which topics will and will not be covered in class. Teaching Tips suggests letting students have some choices of assignments and, in the case of “ethnic” students, allowing them to measure aspects of academic success according to their cultures.

The purpose of these suggestions, all three authors agree, is to increase students’ intrinsic desire to learn and decrease students’ apparent aversion to academic challenges. In other words, the purpose is to motivate students to learn. Where the authors appear not to agree, however, is in how much power can and should be shared.

I think it’s fair to say that Weimer embraces the LCT concept more fully than do the authors of chapters 12 and 13 in Teaching Tips. Weimer is genuinely disappointed that she hasn’t relinquished more power to her students. At the same time, she recognizes that LCT is not easy to implement to today’s students, though she argues that this is because the current pedagogical paradigm makes students so dependent on teachers that they don’t know how to handle the power.

The authors of Teaching Tips, on the other hand, seem to feel that smaller transfers of power are sufficient. Chapter 12 provides an overview of motivational theories. The chapter points to studies that say that students who are intrinsically motivated to learn use higher-level cognitive learning strategies, and that students who feel a greater sense of autonomy and self-determination in their learning feel more intrinsically motivated. Ipso facto, students given more autonomy in their learning will learn better.

Chapter 13 looks at student motivation through a cultural lens, arguing that the white American majority’s view of good academic performance is not always the same as minorities’ views. For example, the majority culture expects that students will maintain eye contact with the teacher during lectures. In some cultures, however, young people are not supposed to make eye contact when being spoken to. The goal of chapter 13 is for teachers to understand these differences and think about ways their teaching and their expectations can be adjusted in order to more accurately assess good academic performance by all students.

The radical version of learner-centered teaching is probably never going to be adapted universally. It's like socialism or capitalism or libertarianism, in that while the theory might sound very appealing, in practice it just doesn't work because human beings aren't all as rational as we're made out to be in the theories. But it would be very exciting to see LCT implemented incrementally at the university level. First-year students could be given a little power--perhaps to choose assignments, things like that. Fourth-year students could be allowed to weigh in on textbook choices, content coverage, due dates, and more.

Would students ever be able to learn without teachers? Perhaps, but should they want to? I've always thought learning was, in some ways at least, a collaborative process, and some of that collaboration happens between students and teachers. Teachers and other students also provide external motivations, a little of which most of us need. It's like exercise. Most of us do it with a buddy because it's too easy to blow off otherwise. But I also agree that too much of learning today is like military basic training. Students learn or are punished.

Which aspects of LCT would I incorporate into my own teaching?

Graduate teaching assistants don’t have much power to begin with, so how much power we can share with our students is probably minimal. COMM 110, the introductory public speaking course, is regimented from start to finish by the communication department. The department seems to feel that COMM 110 students can’t even decide how many note cards they can have in their hands when they give a speech, let alone decide which assignments they can do or what deadlines they set. The reasons for this are surely to make things easier for the inexperienced TA’s, but this doesn’t alleviate the power gap.

A few weeks ago I learned that in the spring 2010 semester, I would get to teach COMM 112, the introductory mass media course, on my own. At first I thought I would have a lot of freedom to improve the course, but I later was told that I must synchronize my version of the course with the online version of the course, which is taught by someone else. That makes sense, I thought, but then when I saw that the woman who teaches the online version of the course has a Ph.D. after her name, I began to suspect that the true purpose of the synchronization was to make sure that the Ph.D., not the first-year M.S. seeker, was designing the course. (That also makes sense.)

But theoretically, at least, there are several things I’d like to incorporate into my own teaching. One modest suggestion I intend to implement comes from Teaching Tips. Based on the idea that students will work harder on activities they believe have value and in which they can succeed, I will spend time talking about why a deep understanding of the role of mass media in our lives is so important, and how their familiarity with mass media will help them do well in the class.
Teaching Tips also strongly urges teachers to adopt a criterion-referenced approach to grading, which I will certainly do. I will also make course requirements and assignment point values explicit in the syllabus.

Because the COMM 112 class next semester will be very large (about 130 students), I will try to get students engaged socially with each other, which chapter 12 encourages. I liked the idea of having students discuss questions in pairs or small groups. If students feel more comfortable with each other, it seems to me they’ll feel less uncomfortable about speaking up in class.
Chapter 13 urges teachers to understand their students’ cultures in order to increase student motivation and avoid miscommunication and misunderstandings in the classroom. I feel I am already a very culturally sensitive teacher. After all, most of my teaching experience is outside the United States. I am very familiar with many of the “non-Western” student communication issues that Teaching Tips describes in chapter 13. I’ll never forget, for example, one beginning English class I had in Taiwan in which not one of my students would speak. I’m not exaggerating. The class was two nights a week for three months. Not one of them would answer a question, repeat words and phrases with me (despite my instructing them, in English and Chinese, to do so), or participate in dialogues. It was painful for me. But written exams I gave them throughout the course showed they were steadily improving (in reading and writing, at least).

My COMM 112 class next semester will be very large, so it won’t be easy to get to know my students well. But if I see students who are not looking at me, who appear hesitant or unwilling to speak in class, or who do not conform to my expectations of what a “good” student does, I will be mindful of possible cultural reasons. If I have students who are struggling due to cultural reasons, I feel I have enough background to be able to approach a student tactfully and empathetically, and offer to help. After all, I’ve experienced culture shock several times.

Turning at the Weimer chapter, I found much that I could embrace. I don’t think I’d want to spend days having students develop course policies, but I might like to try offering a menu of choices. For example, students could vote to choose from a list of options that would complete a class participation policy and a late assignment policy. The choices would all have to be palatable to me, I suppose, but there would also have to be pros and cons to each choice for students that they would feel that deciding was worth the effort.

I also think that my class next semester will lend itself to giving students choices of assignments and even due dates, to some extent. The course is supposed to have a group assignment, I’m told, so while I can’t change the nature of the assignment, I can offer students greater freedom to decide what kind of group assignment they want to do. For example, students could dissect a media impact study or talk about the possible future adaptations and innovations of mass media.

I really liked the idea for test review days, as well, in which students are asked ahead of time to write out what material or issues they want to review. It makes the teacher appear very responsive and lets the teacher know what areas students think are important.

Which aspects of LCT would be difficult or even unwise to incorporate into my own teaching?

Not all of Weimer’s suggestions seem so reasonable to me. I don’t necessarily object to them on principle, but on practical grounds. For example, how can teachers let students select the textbook for a class and ensure that the students’ selection is immediately available? Don’t college bookstores have to order textbooks several weeks in advance? And are students asked to read several textbooks before they choose or does the teacher give them Readers Digest versions? I could imagine that in a literature survey course, the teacher might give students some choices (e.g., “let’s choose 3 of Hemingway’s 5 most celebrated novels”). I can also imagine that someday, when electronic books are the norm, this could be done much more easily. But, for now, this wouldn’t work.

While I like the idea of involving students in decision making about course policies, the process Weimer describes is extremely time-consuming. In her text on the establishment of a participation policy, she describes what is at least a three-day process. To get students’ input on other policies and issues, she clearly must spend a lot of class time. When I read that in her entry-level public speaking course, students are required to give only one speech, I was surprised. How can a student’s speaking skills be evaluated on just one speech, I thought. But after reading further, I felt the answer must be that she just doesn’t have time for students to deliver more than one speech during the semester. They’re too busy selecting textbooks and weighing in on course policies!

Weimer would likely argue that so much time is needed, in part, because students in her classes are not accustomed to being offered these choices, so much time is wasted in resistance. While I’m sure that’s true, it still seems like a truly learner-centered teaching approach would greatly limit the amount of class time that could be devoted to content, but perhaps that’s the point.

I didn’t have any concerns about chapter 12 in Teaching Tips, but Chapter 13 generates some potential pitfalls. As I wrote earlier, chapter 13 urges teachers to understand their students’ cultures in order to increase student motivation and avoid miscommunication and misunderstandings in the classroom. One of the suggestions for doing that is for teachers to differentiate between students’ familial goals and their individual goals, as for many students (particularly in some cultures), these may diverge considerably. Differentiating familial and individual goals can be done by “inviting significant family or community persons to work with” the student (McKeachie et al, p. 164). The chapter tells the story of a professor who visited the home of a student in order to meet with the entire family.

This would be very difficult for many teachers to do, mostly because such interventions require huge amounts of time. As classrooms grow and teachers are given ever-increasing workloads, devoting such attention to struggling minority students is, perhaps, unrealistic. I can also imagine that in many instances, such attention might be unwelcome. Not only might the families resent the intrusion, but the students themselves may, too. I think intervening in this way could only happen if the teacher knew the student well and was invited by the student to intervene.

I think trying to apply some of the lessons of chapter 13 can also lead to stereotyping students. The US is so diverse that it’s often unclear what people’s origins are. For example, you might have a student with a Korean face and name, but whose family has been in the US so long that she is quite acculturated to the American white majority. Her lack of eye contact during lessons might be due to the fact that she’s working three jobs, doesn’t have enough time to complete pre-class reading assignments, and avoids eye contact because she doesn’t want to be called on. A professor who assumed she was not making eye contact for cultural reasons might assume she’s listening attentively and that all is fine.

I would urge teachers unfamiliar with minority and international students to rely on their university multicultural and international student services for help and advice. At NDSU, for example, the multicultural student office holds formal presentations about cultural differences and their effects on learning, and organizes lunches and other function where teachers can get to know minority students outside the classroom.