Student-centered learning focuses on students being an active participant in their learning. Students learn through experience and collaboration with peers in order to build upon their existing knowledge. The role of the teacher in a student-centered classroom is to be a partner to the student and develop and organize experiences that students learn from. What follows is an example of a student-centered teaching strategy that focuses on reading.
Pre-Reading activity
As an introduction to a historical resource book this pre-reading strategy can help introduce students to new information. Making predictions about the text can help spark a student’s interest as well. First, students should be asked to inspect the outside of the book for clues about the theme or themes of the book. Next, students should be asked to open and skim the text. Certain parts of the book, such as the table of contents or index, can be brought to the student’s attention to help make predictions. After students have looked over the book, inside and out, a short discussion can be had about what predictions students have made.
Sources
Iowa Core. Characteristics of effective Instruction: Student-Centered Learning. Retrieved from http://www.iglls.org/files/classroom_brief.pdf
Facing History and Ourselves. Introducing a New Book. Retrieved from https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/introducing-new-book