10.1 Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered Learning
In general, those who differentiate between cooperative and collaborative learning tend to identify cooperative learning with more teacher-centered ways of facilitating group activities and to identify collaborative learning with more student-centered ways of facilitating group activities, despite the fact that the use of group activities connects both cooperative and collaborative learning with student centric pedagogy. Table 3 provides an overview of some of the issues that surface when differentiating student-centered and teacher-centered approaches to the use of group activities.
Issues in Implementing Student-Centered Learning and Teacher-Centered Learning
Table 3: The Student-Centered/Teacher-Centered Continuum: Issues along the Continuum that Impact Use of Group Activities.
|
Issue |
Teacher-Centered |
Student-Centered |
|
1. View of how learning takes place |
Knowledge transmission from teachers and materials to students |
Knowledge construction by students, via higher order thinking, with teacher as facilitator |
|
2. Who chooses what will be studied? |
Teacher |
Students have some choice |
|
3. Who chooses learning materials? |
Teacher |
Students have some choice |
|
4. What is the main type of motivation? |
Extrinsic |
Intrinsic |
|
5. Who does assessment? |
Only teachers assess students |
Self, peer, and teacher feedback |
|
6. How many students per group and which students work together |
Teacher decides |
Teacher decides with input from students or students decide with input from teachers. |
|
7. Who monitors how well groups function? |
Explicit teaching of collaborative skills and teacher monitoring of the use of these skills |
Students are responsible for figuring out how well their groups are functioning and trying to improve |
|
8. Who decides how students work together? For instance, will they use a technique such as Everyone Can Explain? |
Teachers decide how students will work together, e.g., each member takes a turn to think aloud or they first work in groups of two and then groups of four. |
Students decide |
|
9. Will students care about the learning of their groupmates? |
Teacher takes responsibility for encouraging students to care about their groupmates’ success, e.g., rewarding groups based on how well each member does compared to their past performance, with all group members receiving the same reward |
Trusting that students will want to help each other, and that students can learn from times when their groups did not function effectively |
In Table 1, the differences between the student-centered column and the student-centered column seem to be extreme either/or, dichotomous differences. However, it might be best to consider them to be on a continuum, with most group activities existing between the two extremes. Furthermore, educators’ choice of practices along the continuum may well be affected not only by the educators’ view of how education best proceeds but also by the students they are currently teaching, including the degree to which their students’ are ready to exercise independence and the students’ motivation levels, as well as the overall contexts in which the teachers are working, e.g., the policies of the educational institution at which they are teaching.
As an example of the importance of context, Issue #5 looks at who does assessment: students, teachers, or both. Most educators would agree that involving students in assessing themselves and peers can be useful, e.g., doing assessment represents can be important for lifelong learning. However, do students have the skills and attitudes necessary for peer feedback and self-feedback? Therefore, teachers might want to start slowly by first helping students understand the benefits of assessment by students. Also, teachers might want to be cautious about deciding what types of feedback in what areas are doable.