Student Centered Learning

     Student Centered Learning creates an environment in which learners pursue their own questions to create their own meaning.

Students are responsible for what they learn and how they learn.  The teacher acts as the facilitator of learning and often learns alongside of the students.  In this type of setting, students monitor and reflect on their learning.   Student Centered Learning is differentiated in nature as it connects directly to the students frame of reference and their levels of readiness.

Student Centered Learning is:

• A classroom that is often buzzing with organized, productive chaos
• A teacher who is not the center of the activity
• A student who has a voice and is an active participant in their own learning

When the above ideas/scernarios are present a culture is created that fosters a colloborative learning community.

Scenario for Social Studies:

We’re Coming to America

To begin this 4-week immigration unit, teachers will preassess student knowledge of the waves of early immigration in the United States as well as the current public policy related issues around immigration. Following this activity, the teacher will share with students the unit enduring understandings and essential questions designed to captivate student interest and motivate students to dig deeper. Once learning intentions are shared with students, they will have the opportunity to explore topics of interest to them within the theme of immigration as well as choose the mode by which they wish to display or present their new learning. Students will each join a group whose responsibility it will be to become experts in their chosen area of study. Groups will be formed using the results of the preassessment completed on the first day and the survey they completed where they were asked to rank their top three choices for expertise groups. This will ensure that groups are heterogeneous. Each group will then select their desired presentation mode.

Groups will then conduct their research both inside and outside of the classroom. Students will communicate their findings, questions and wonderings with one another via a group wiki. They will also organize their online materials using delicious. Their final presentations will be podcasted on the classroom website for parents and community members to enjoy. The teacher will also have access to group wiki pages and s/he will use this tool as an opportunity to question, probe and give positive feedback. The last two days of the unit will be reserved for presentations where expert groups will share their learning with their classmates, teachers, families and interested community members. Students will be assessed in an ongoing manner via the wiki posts, group and self evaluation rubrics, and scoring guides based on the content of their final presentations. Additionally, the district requires a final summative written assessment that students will take to further determine that enduring understandings were met.