Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is Maria and today I want to share with you straight forward learner-centered
teaching strategies that will help you infuse your class with learning. With these
activities, your students will be able to practice the material in multiple ways and create
memories to help them learn. These strategies come from a book titled Learner-Centered
Teaching Approach by Terry Doyle.
In his book, he talks about avoiding doing all the work for the students because in a
learner centered teaching environment, students who do the work learn. Let´s help them
do so by providing them with opportunities that will force them to practice the material.
Students have to practice the material in many forms to keep brain connections strong so they
don´t forget what they have learned. (Doyle,2011)
If you assign students to read, they are going to remember 10% of the material. If they hear
the information in your lecture, they will remember 20%. If they see a visual representation,
they will remember 30% and when they see and hear the information in class, they will
recall 50%. An example all of us can relate to is when we meet our students the first day
of class, we are likely to readily remember their faces more easily than their names.
Terry Doyle mentions that recognition of material increases significantly when
images are included because they are easier for the brain to recognize than words alone.
If you want your students to understand and remember concepts better, you need to
incorporate as much visual information as possible. Infuse learning by creating activities
that have pictures or images. Remember that images can be concept maps, charts, graphs,
maps and drawings. Also, make sure your presentations appeal to the visual sense. In such
way, students will be receiving the information in two different forms, by hearing you
say it and by seeing the picture. I teach Spanish and this strategy is particularly
important in my subject area because students need to memorize a large number of
words in a few weeks. To enhance students‘ learning, I assign them to write sentences
in the target language and to find a picture that describes the new word being used. By
doing this, I am teaching students to develop a learning process that translates
information into images. I also use visuals to encourage student´s writing process and
help them develop creative narrations of a story. (Doyle,2011)
Establish an online discussion board where students can discuss the material and review
it before the test. Students need continuous practice of the material in order to learn
it; so to encourage them to review, instructors can create an online discussion board or
wiki site where students are assigned to post review questions or post summaries of
the lessons before the chapter test. This would avoid having instructors create an in-class
review since it is now the students job to create one. Instructors can have review
sessions in class where students work in groups and review the answers posted on
the wiki site. This strategy allows students to develop their writing skills and also
to think more deeply on course topics because they have to research and apply the concepts
in order to compose their thoughts and contribute to the online postings. (Doyle,2011)
Immerse students in your subject by incorporating multimedia projects or augmented reality
games. By doing this, you will meet the learning preferences of a vast majority of students and
optimize their learning. Doyle mentions in his book that there are two types of games:
participatory and augmented reality. An example of participatory game is Second
Life. Students can create an avatar that represents them in a 3D world. In Second Life,
students can teleport to new locations where they can communicate, investigate and
apply new knowledge in a virtual world. I have created an avatar in Second Life that I
use to teleport myself to other countries and learn more about other cultures. An example of an
augmented reality game is Zooburst. Zooburst is a digital story telling tool that creates
3-D books offering and augmented reality experience. This tool can be accessed from
any device that connects to the Internet. (Doyle,2011)
Another great strategy is to allow students to retake a test and to rewrite papers. In the
real world, we can take the driver’s until we pass. Students can take the SAT
multiple times and the even the praxis exams to become a teacher can be taken several
times. If this is allowed in our society, why not do the same thing for our students.
Retaking an exam or rewriting a paper allows students to self *** their knowledge of the
material and reflect on their progress. This strategy also forces students to do more work
than if you just breezed through the test answers. In my classes, I have always
required my students to correct their exams for a homework grade and after reading Doyle’s
book, I began offering my students the opportunity to retake exams. When retaking
exams, I follow Doyle’s advice of setting limits on the assignments. So for example, I
count the first attempt as 70% of their final grade and the second attempt as 30% of their
final score. For instance, if the student earns a 50% on a 100 point test and gets a 100%
on the retake, his or her final grades is now a 65%. On compositions, I also set
limits, their first attempt is worth 80% and their corrections the other 20% of their final
grade. (Doyle,2011)
Instructors can also involve students in effective class discussions instead of using
the traditional lecture approach. After reading this book, I have done less talking
in my classes so my students can use that time to be involved in discussions. If your students
are not used to having discussions in class, Doyle mentions that you should first
share with them how discussions can enhance learning. Doyle mentions in his book that
discussions are powerful learning tools because they allow students to reflect and
express their ideas orally. When students are engaged in an effective discussion, they
learn more and remember more than when they sit through a lecture taking notes.
Discussions also help develop socials skills that are needed in the real world. (Doyle,2011)
To facilitate effective discussions, Doyle recommends taking the following steps:
use small groups, allow students to set the guidelines, design discussion questions
that elicit multiple answers and are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and finally, make sure
that you select the right method of discussion like a debate, a guided discussion or
a role play. It is also important to do a closure activity at the end of the
discussion, for example, you can assign your students to write a reflection paper or a
summary or they can show you how they can apply the concepts in a real situation. (Doyle,
2011)
Use cumulative exams to force students to relearn the information on an ongoing
basis. Pick two or three important topics in each lesson and continuously retest them to
make the retrieval of those concepts easier in the future. As students review, they will
be able to connect those points with the newer information and make brain connections stronger
which leads to long term memory formation. If you don´t make students review and use the
information you teach them, their brains will simply reabsorb it and forget what
they learned. (Doyle,2011)
Infuse learning by incorporating these learner- centered teaching strategies into your action
plan. These activities will force your students to practice the information in multiple
ways in order to learn it and be able to use it in the future.