Miami University Presentation

Not a single grad school or employment recruiter has ever indicated that what they are really looking for in a college graduate is: ‘A great note taker and someone who is excellent at multiple choice tests!’

The Definition of Learning • Learning is a change in the neuron-patterns of the brain. (Ratey, 2002)

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A Teacher’s Definition of Learning Learning is the ability to use information after significant periods of disuse and it is the ability to use the information to solve problems that arise in a context different (if only slightly) from the context in which the information was originally taught. (Robert Bjork, Memories and Metamemories, 1994)

What are the optimal learning outcomes for any course? • What would make us happy (from all that we taught—the skills, content and behaviors) that our students remembered and could use six months, a year or two years after they finished our class?

A Key to Understanding Learner Centered Teaching • It is the one who does the work that does the learning

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• What is a representative definition of learner-centered teaching?

One Simple Question

Given the context of my teaching assignment (# of students, course or physical space etc.), Will this teaching

Why do Students Resist LCT?

Old habits die hard • The expectations our students have for their roles and responsibilities as college learners are based on strongly formed habits learned through twelve or more years of teacher-centered

High schools remain teacher-centered institutions • “Despite the efforts of many, the organization and structure of most comprehensive high schools look very similar to those of high schools of generations ago. High schools have stood still amidst a maelstrom of educational and economic change swirling around them.” (The National Commission on the High School Senior Year in

Learning is not a top reason students give for attending college

• Many first-year college students are sick to death of school by age eighteen and see college as just the last hurdle to be crossed. (Leamnson 1999, p.35).

Learning is not a top reason students give for attending college • The Millennials have been told since their birth that they must go to college if they are to find a job—not the best reason to be in college!

Students don’t like taking learning risks • “as we grow older we develop a great tendency to hide from failure.” (Tagg, 2003 p. 54).

Students don’t like taking learning risks • Students that don’t take risks and make mistakes, which are the very actions successful thinkers must do, are in the business of protecting their unblemished record of mediocrity (Covington,

LCT doesn’t resemble what students’ think of as school • By age 18, our students have spent 70% of their lives in school (Leamnson, p.35), • Each school year looks a great deal like the

Students don’t want to give more effort and LCT requires •

K. Patricia Cross in her 2001 talk Motivation Er… will that be on the test? in discussing American students’ views about effort said:

• “One

of the oddities of traditional American culture, especially the youth culture, is that it is better to

Students don’t want to give more effort and LCT requires it.  

“Thus, in the

competition of the classroom, students prefer to be seen by others as succeeding through ability rather than through effort.” OR If I have to work

Students’ mindsets about learning make adapting to LCT more difficult

• Thousands of students each semester pay tuition to take courses in subject areas they believe they cannot learn. • This strange scenario occurs because of the fixed mindset these students have developed about learning a particular subject. (Dweck, 2006)

Many students follow the path of least resistance in their learning. • Taking the path of least resistance often results in minimalist learning.

• Students adhere to the philosophy:

“What is the least I have to do to get the grade that I need.”

Many students follow the path of least resistance in their learning. • This behavior reflect a life time of learning in an environment where trying to gain a reward or avoid a punishment was the goal.

Building a Rational for LCT • Teaching is a human to human interaction, as such it follows the same rules as all other human to human interactions. • If I don’t know WHY you want me to help you with a project or if I can’t see how taking on a certain task has some benefit to me I am hesitant to

Overcoming Students’ Resistance

Why the Change to Learner Centered Teaching? • The best answer to WHY we have changed to a learner-centered practice is: • This is where the research has led us.

Overcoming Students’ Resistance • New discoveries about how the human brain learns and the subsequent recommendations for how to teach in harmony with these discoveries has guided the development of a learner centered approach to teaching.

The Brain’s Needs

• • • • •

The brain needs to function effectively: 1. Exercise 2. Sleep 3. Oxygen 4. Hydration 5. Food (glucose)

Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina • 1. Exercise significantly enhances brain function • 2. Survival is accomplished by working with other brains • 3. All brains are wired differently • 4. The brain can only pay attention to one thing at a time • 5 +6. Memory- repetition is necessary for memory

Brain Rules •

7. Sleep- The brain needs sleep to process information

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8. Stress diminishes/ harms brain function

•

9. The brain works best when multiple senses are involved

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10.Vision trumps all other senses

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11. There are gender differences in the brains of men and women

Reminding Students WHYis a Key to their Acceptance of LCT • The new learning tasks are designed to optimize the development of the neuron-networks students need to be successful in college and beyond.

A Rationale for LCT—Preparing for a Career

• One powerful rational for LCT

• Our students will need these new skills and responsibilities to be successful in their careers.

Hospitality Industry Key Skills Wanted in College Grads • Must be able to read large amounts of information, determine what is important and then quickly summarize it for others. • Must be able to learn on their feet — observe and listen to others and quickly adapt what was learned.

Hospitality Industry Key Skills • Know the difference between the information you need to know and all the other information. In other words you need to know what you don’t know.

• Must be able to learn from your mistakes.

Hospitality Industry Key Skills • Must be able to communicate clearly and concisely –teach others so they understand and can apply what you have given them. • Must have the skills to work and learn on your own—must be able to know how to find the information etc. that you need to carry out

Hospitality Industry Key Skills • Must know what you are good at (strengths) and also your weaknesses. • Must be able to use a computer in a wide variety of ways and know how to learn new applications as they become available.

Hospitality Industry Key Skills • Must know how to plan and organize very well your own time and that of others. • Must know your self well, your values, morals and ethics will be constantly tested.

Rationale for LCT—Preparing for a Life of Learning • One of the significant changes our students need to accept is that college is no longer a terminal educational experience. • A college

Rationale for LCT—Preparing for a Life of Learning • One of the reasons students are being asked to take on more responsibility for their own learning is because they will be responsible for it the rest of their

Rationale for LCT—Choice and Control are Authentic Expressions of Real Life.

Choice

• Having choices in what and how to learn and having some control over the learning process area big part of learner centered teaching

Rationale for LCT—Choice and Control are Authentic Expressions of Real Life

• Accepting the responsibilities that comes with choice and control is an authentic expression of how the work place and the home place

Eight Skill Areas Students Will Need Help In • 1.How to learn on their own • 2. Learning to work with others • 3. Taking charge of their own learning • 4. Learning how to teach others

Eight Skill Areas Students Will Need Help In • 5. How to make effective presentations • 6. Becoming Life Long Learners • 7. Learning to recognize what they know, don’t know and misunderstand • 8. Learning how to evaluate themselves, others and the teacher

Learning on One’s Own • The great value that comes from learning on one’s own--• Is the satisfaction and confidence that comes when students are successful.

Learning on One’s Own • When students prove they can be independent learners, capable of thinking for themselves and figuring out how to find and use knowledge in meaningful ways, to solve real world problems, they grow in confidence as learners.

Helping Students Learn How to Learn on their Own • Two important messages for teachers about independent work.

1.Many of our students are not well prepared to do a great deal of their learning on their own.

Helping Students Learn How to Learn on their Own • 2. If they are to develop the skills needed to learn on their own we will have to teach them these skills

What’s in it for the students to do more on their own learning? • Learn to transfer information learned elsewhere to the task assigned.

What’s in it for the students to do more on their own learning? • Learn to figure things out for themselves and trust their own analytical abilities in order to complete a task.

What’s in it for the students to do more on their own learning?

• Learn to generate their own questions about what is important to know and what is not important to completing a task.

What’s in it for the students to do more on their own learning? • Learn to identify resources and learn first hand which methods of investigation are helpful and which are a waste of time.

What’s in it for the students to do more on their own learning?

• Learn how to organize their findings and prepare appropriate ways to communicate their results.

Learning on One’s Own • The broad categories of these independent learning skills include the ability to handle four areas of task management: • Task analysis • Identifying resources and planning actions • Taking action based on planning • Assessing actions and revising plans.

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 1.Finding and evaluating quality sources of information

• • • • •

Accuracy Authority Coverage Currency Objectivity

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 2. Identifying the • Introduce the important patterns of how information in the information these sources is organized. • Direct the reading by helping students to recognize what to skip.

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 3. Organizing • 4. Writing information in reports and meaningful ways papers

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 5. Managing Time

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 6.Remembering what has been learned.

Sleep and Memory • . "Periods of slow-wave sleep are very long and produce a recall and probably amplification of memory traces. Ensuing episodes of REM sleep, which are very short, trigger the expression of genes to store what was processed during slowwave sleep." •

Sidarta Ribeiro,(et al)Duke University, 2004

Elaborations are the Key Daniel Schacter author of the Seven Sins of Memory and Chair of the Harvard School of Psychology writes-

• ” For better or worse, our recollections are largely at the mercy of our elaborations; only those aspects of experience that are the target of elaborative encoding processes have a high likelihood of being remembered subsequently.”

Three Keys to Recall 1.deliberately re-expose yourself to information 2.deliberately re-expose yourself to information more elaborately to get higher quality recall 3.re-expose yourself in fixed, spaced intervals to get the information to be

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 7. Using problem-solving skills

Skills Needed to Learn on One’s Own • 8. Monitoring one’s own learning

References • Angelo, T.A. & Cross, P.K. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques, 2nd Edition. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass • Bjork, R.A. (1994). Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings. In J. Metcalfe and A. Shimamura (Eds.) Metacognition: Knowing About Knowing. (pp. 185-205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. • Givens, Barbara, Teaching to the Brain’s Natural Learning Systems, ASCD Publications, 2002. • Ratey, John. A User’s Guide to the Brain. Pantheon Books, New York, 2001. • Sousa, David. How the Brain Learns, 2nd Edition. Ed 2001 Corwin Press, INC, Thousand Oaks, CA

References • • • •

• • •

Rethinking Teaching in Higher Education, Edited by Alenoush Saroyan, Cheryl Amundsen, Stylus Pub.2004 Sprenger, Marilee. How to Teach so Students Remember. ASCD Publication, 2005. Sylwester, Robert. A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator’s Guise to the Human Brain. ASCD Publication, 1995. Zull, James. (2002), The Art of Changing the Brain. Sterling, Cirginia: Stylus Publishing.

Tagg, John. The Learning Paradigm College. Anker Publishing , Bolton MA 2003 Covington, M. V. (2000) Goal , theory motivation and school achievement: An Integrated review in Annual Review of Psychology ( pp 171-200) Dweck, Carol ( 2000) Self Theories: Their roles in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia, PA Psychology Press

References • How People Learn by National Research Council editor John Bransford, National Research Council, 2000 • Goldberg, E. The Executive Brain Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind ,Oxford University Press: 2001 • Ratey, J. MD :A User’s Guide to the Brain, Sprenger, M. Learning and Memory The Brain in Action by, ASCD, 1999 • Pantheon Books: New York, 2001

• Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York, NY, Grosset/Putnam • Damasio AR: Fundamental Feelings. Nature 413:781, 2001. • Damasio AR: The Feeling of What Happens: Body

References • Weimer, Maryellen, 2002, Learner Centered Teaching, Jossey Bass, San Francisco. • Smith, Peter, 2004. The Quiet Crisis; How Higher Education is Failing America, Anker Publishing, Bolton MA • (Barbara L. Mcombs & Jo Sue Whistler, The LearnerCentered Classroom & School, 1997)