Making Learning-Centered Teaching Work

Practical Strategies for Implementation

Phyllis Blumberg

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781620368978
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Études supérieures

This is a substantially expanded and enhanced revision of Phyllis Blumberg's acclaimed and bestselling book, Developing Learner-Centered Teaching: A Practical Guide for Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2009).

This easy to follow how-to-guide provides faculty with both a thorough introduction to this evidence-based approach to teaching and practical guidance on how to progressively implement it to strengthen the impact of their teaching. It demonstrates how they can integrate learning-centered teaching into their classroom practice without sacrificing content and rigor, and how to positively engage students in the process by demonstrating its impact on their mastery and recall of key concepts and knowledge.

An added outcome, given that learning-centered teaching is correlated with improved student learning, is the resulting assessment data that it provides faculty with the measures to meet the increased demands by accreditors, legislators and society for evidence of improved teaching and learning outcomes. Phyllis Blumberg demonstrates how to use rubrics to not only satisfy outside requirements and accreditation self-studies but, more importantly, for faculty to use for the purposes of self-improvement or their teaching portfolios.

She provides examples of how the rubrics can be used to ascertain whether college-wide strategic plans for teaching excellence are being met, for program review, and to determine the effectiveness of faculty development efforts. The book includes the following features:

• Boxes with easy-to-implement and adaptable examples, covering applications across disciplines and course types
• Worksheets that foster easy implementation of concepts
• Rubrics for self- assessment and peer assessment of learning-centered teaching
• Detailed directions on how to use the rubrics as a teaching assessment tool for individuals, courses, and programs
• List of examples of use classified by discipline and type of course

Phyllis Blumberg offers Making Learning Centered Teaching Course Design Institutes and workshops on this and other teaching and assessment topics. Half day to multiple day modules.

For more information or questions contact [email protected], or IntegrateEd.com

PART ONE

USING LEARNING-CENTERED TEACHING APPROACHES

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Chapter Highlights

Learning-centered teaching is an evidence-based best educational practice that focuses on

• what students are learning,

• how they are learning, and

• the application of learning.

Use of this pedagogy yields increased deep and meaningful learning and greater retention of students. Therefore, educators in higher education are increasingly accepting and implementing learning-centered teaching.

Would you like to improve your teaching by employing learning-centered practices? Perhaps you already use some learning-centered practices but would like to use more of them. Because the academy no longer considers learning-centered teaching a pedagogical fad, you may want or feel obligated to try using it in a systematic way. However, you may need practical guidance on how to modify your teaching. If so, keep reading this book because it is an effective, easy-to-follow how-to teaching guide for full-time and part-time, new and experienced faculty members. This book will provide specific, practical guidance on how to begin or continue and how to use the change process to improve your teaching by adopting learning-centered teaching strategies and techniques. Learning-centered teaching enhances your ability to help your students master content with rigor. Plus, you will be able to explain to your students why you are using this approach and how it will foster deep and long-lasting student learning. You will be able to describe how and why you teach in a systematic way on your performance evaluations and teaching dossier.

Effective Teaching Is Vital

Educating students has always been a primary function of higher education (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2008). Even though many doctoral students, particularly in the liberal arts, anticipate careers in higher education, they spend very little time in graduate school learning how to teach (Austin & McDaniels, 2006). Most graduate students study at research-intensive universities and focus on their research, especially toward the end of their graduate careers, but they will get jobs where teaching will occupy most of their time (Austin & McDaniels, 2006). Consequently, many academics are not well prepared for their jobs. In addition, although faculty frequently update the content of their courses, they rarely modify their teaching methods. Many faculty continue to teach as they were taught, even if these methods are not effective (Bok, 2015).

Historically, educators assumed that if they taught, students would learn. Now, academics need to assess and demonstrate that students do learn (Haras, Taylor, Sorcinelli, & von Hoene, 2017; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2010). Unfortunately, the data are disappointing (Arum & Roksa, 2011). Although many students learn well enough to pass their courses, they do not retain the information and they cannot apply it to solving problems later (Doyle, 2011; Felder & Brent, 2016; Weimer, 2013). Does the blame lie with poorly motivated, underprepared students or with the instructors? According to increasing evidence, the traditional model of lecture-based education in higher education is not effective (Weimer, 2013). Instructor-centered teaching allows the students to be passive while the instructor does most of the heavy lifting and learning through delivering lectures often accompanied by detailed presentation slides and teacher-created study guides or notes. Students are bored in class, and many do not even bother to attend (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Instead of teaching using ineffective instructor-centered teaching methods, all instructors can use effective, evidence-based teaching approaches. Evidence-based teaching integrates professional expertise with the best available evidence from systematic research both in simulated and real learning situations (Felder & Brent, 2016; Weimer, 2013).

In addition, only about 60% of the students who start bachelor’s degree programs complete them within 6 years (McFarland et al., 2017). The graduation rates vary widely depending on the type of institution (open enrollment to highly selective) and the demographic characteristics of the students. Given this less than satisfactory retention rate, higher education administrators, with pressure from state and federal governments, are pressuring instructors to teach more effectively and to support students so they can succeed. Given the new burdens to demonstrate teaching effectiveness and helping students to succeed, instructors might be confused as to what they should do.

Instructors need to change their teaching practices based on evidence that what they should do works. Empirical research indicates that using learning-centered teaching, an evidence-based teaching approach, leads to better results (Bok, 2015; Weimer, 2013). The American Council on Education (ACE) is a coordinating agency representing the presidents of accredited higher education institutions. According to their review of the extensive literature, effective teaching leads to a range of improved student outcomes. ACE characterizes effective teaching as using active learning, students collaborating rather than competing, frequent assessment of learning, and focusing on fostering student success in the beginning of their careers (American Council on Education, 2018; Haras et al., 2017). Learning-centered teaching employs all these characteristics.

The literature on teaching in higher education often contrasts learning-centered teaching with traditional approaches, usually referred to as instructor-centered teaching. Table 1.1 shows contrasts between these two teaching approaches.

A Note About Terminology

I am deliberately using the term learning rather than learner that I used in my previous book on this topic (Blumberg, 2009). This is an i...