Student Centered Learning is an educational practice that occurs when students are discovering knowledge, they are active participants in their own learning and construction of their knowledge.  In a student centered learning environment teachers are facilitators and the focus of the class is on students needs, abilities, interests and learning styles.    

Fourth Grade Science Scenario

A fourth grade class is studying Vermont environment / environmental awareness throughout the entire school year.  One part of this year long unit involves recycling.  Traditionally this teacher's fourth grade class has been responsible for educating the student body on recyclying and the actual collection of recycling in classrooms. The first "hook" for the kids would be a visit from the Montpelier High School Earth Group as well as a talk by the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District. Pre-assessment might be a KWL chart about recycling in general. A survey will be sent home with each student to gather information about current family habits regarding "green" living. Kids are meant to fill this out with the assistance and involvement of families. We will have a quick go-around about personal recycling habits,  what they have noticed about school recycling, etc.  

Students will view the video of "Trash on the Lawn".  We will read aloud books about the environment and read and discuss recent articles and listen to podcasts on this subject. We can watch videos, read books, research websites and articles about landfills, state of environment, what other schools or communities have done.   Students already have email penpals in Florida.  We will discuss recycling in their home, school and community with them.  

To investigate waste in our school, students will be grouped (randomly) and will collect trash from one classroom from each grade, look through it, and design a pie chart or t chart with percentages of what is being thrown away. To integrate the technology, we could make charts in tech lab.  Students will be offered choices of things to do with the trash: weigh it, graph it, organize it.   

We will form interest groups based on how we want to educate the rest of the student body about recycling.  Students can speak at an asssemby, write the script, create a PowerPoint, design posters, create an educational video, perform a skit at an assembly, etc.  Casella has already been contacted to make sure that we are recycling everything we can. Students will be assigned to groups to collect the recycling. The groups choose a group leader who organizes the group and decide when to collect the recycling,    

Toward the end of the year, we will visit Chittenden solid waste plant/recycling center to see the process of single stream recyclying and to understand what happens with all of the waste we recycle.

They will have a choice of ways to present how they can show what they are doing in class extends beyond school, including a speech, essay, poem, skit, poster, podcast, powerpoint, photo diary, brochure.  

Students will present what they have learned about our environment through our service learning project.  In previous years students have decided to sell reusable water bottles and coffee cups based on their observations of the recycling bins over the course of the year.  Students will think about whether Is it just about water bottles or is there a bigger picture? We brainstorm as a class what issues do they notice locally.   This begins another unit within this year long unit on our Vermont environment.

VERY nice!!  One very small suggestion... make it all from the student point of view... rather than say I will show a video on...  say students will view a video on...

Nice job!!

Ed

7/8 Grade Scenario

Students are engaged in an integrated unit based on the concept of revolutionary events.  Students are developing a deep understanding that revolutionary events are complex and create significant social, political, and economic change.  Students  have been introduced to the grade expectations, standards, and the learning objectives for the unit.  Additionally, the instructor has identified several examples of assessments that will be utilized to demonstrate student understanding and application of the new knowledge.  However, students will also be encouraged to develop new assessment ideas for implementation.

Prior to the initiation of the unit, students will be asked to brainstorm everything they know about revolutions. Leading questions might include: What is a revolutionary event? Can you give an example of revolution? What revolutions have been important to Americans?  Are there revolutions that are occurring now? The brainstorming session will be reviewed by the class as a whole.  Ideas will be clustered by topic.  Students will be asked to select five topics that they would be interested in studying in detail. 

Based on interest, students will be placed in small groups to research and develop their "revolutionary" topics.  Throughout the unit, students will be given mini-lessons built around the idea of content (studying the causes and effects of the American Revolution, historical examples of revolutions) and the skills necessary to build web 2.0 projects (writing process, reading informational text, appropriate media sources).

Students will brainstorm actual or potential revolutionary events in the 21st century both global and local (space exploration, wind energy, food, etc).  Students will be placed in groups based on interest and will research the revolutionary topic. The final project will entail the creation of a piece of propaganda, using web 2.0 tools, to convice others to support their revolution. 

Students will be assessed on standards-based criteria (introduced in advance) by instructors, parents, and at least one member of the community. Additionally, students will self and peer assess their projects.

Nice work!  I wonder if there is something about revolutions that you can use as an initial hook?  What would it look like if the class revolted for some reason?  What might be the impact on them individually, the class, the school, the community, etc.  Not sure this is the best idea but something that they can relate directly to.

Anyway, you have done a nice job on this.

Ed

Lots of GREAT ideas. I assume you are going to pull this together in more of a summarizing scenario format?

Ed