Republic of the Philippines

President Ramon Magsaysay State University

(Formerly Ramon Magsaysay Technological University)
Iba, Zambales, Philippines
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION

When hear the word, “learning”, the first thing that

comes to our mind is studying subjects or courses like
mathematics, science, and languages in school. In a broader
sense though, learning extends much more beyond the confines
of the classroom or the school, people learn everyday of their
lives in various places and conditions.

The term “learning” and all other concepts related to

it, expectedly form a major part of the experiences for you
who are studying to become teachers. As such, it is important
for you to understand the nature of learning, because you
play a major role in the students’ learning. Knowing and
understanding learning-related concepts will able you to
better develop teaching methodologies and other interventions
meant to improve, enhance, and facilitate learning.

The goal of education is to affect learning among

students and the population at large. Learning connotes
observed changes in a person as a result of environmental
events and interventions. The process of education is a
deliberate effort to ensure that as students go up the
educational ladder, developmental changes in their
personality are affected. This has to do with improved and
enhanced physical, emotional, social and cognitive skills,
and knowledge and other personality behaviors.

FACILITATE/FACILITATING

1. To make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action,

a process, etc.)

2. To assist the progress of (a person).

TEACHING

1. Teaching is the process of attending to people’s needs,

experiences and feelings, and intervening so that they
learn particular things, and go beyond the given.

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 2. "The action of a person who teaches; the profession of a
teacher”

3. "Teaching is imparting knowledge or skill"

• Imparting - telling? conditioning? constructing?

• Knowledge - knowing? believing? comprehending?
understanding?
• Skill - knowing that? (a bike is ridden this way)
knowing how? (to ride a bike in actuality)
knowing to? (ride a bike when necessary)
LEARNER

1. A learner is someone who is learning about a particular

subject or how to do something.

LEARNING
1. Learning is a process that brings together personal and
environmental experiences and influences for acquiring,
enriching and modifying one’s knowledge, skills, values,
attitudes, and world views (“Education,” n. d.).

2. Burns (1995) defined learning as relatively permanent

change in behavior with behavior including both observable
activity and internal process such as thinking attitudes,
and emotions.

3. Woolf (2016) asserts that “learning occurs when experience

(including practice) causes a relatively permanent change
in an individual’s knowledge, behavior or potential for
behavior.”

TYPES OF LEARNING

There are types of learning resulting from engagement of

participation in classroom activities. These types of
learning are basic ingredients to success in school. These
are what schools desire of students to develop.

1. Motor Learning – it is a form of learning for one to

maintain and go through daily life activities as for
example, walking, running, driving, climbing, and the
like. These are activities involve motor
coordination.

2. Verbal Learning – it involves the use of spoken

language as well as the communication devices used.

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 3. Concepts Learning – A form of learning which requires
the use of higher-order mental processes like
thinking, reasoning, and analyzing. It involves two
processes: abstraction and generalization.

4. Discrimination Leaning – It is learning to

differentiate between stimuli and responding
appropriately to these stimuli. An example is being
able to distinguish the sounds of horns of different
vehicles.

LEARNER-CENTERED

1. Learner centered teaching is an approach that places the

learner at the center of the learning.

2. This means that the learner or student is responsible for

learning while the tutor is responsible for facilitating
the learning. This is also known as student-centered
learning.

TEACHING VERSUS FACILITATING LEARNING

TEACHING FACILITATING LEARNING

Teacher: a subject matter and
delivery expert
Knowledge transfer from
teacher
Focus on subject matter
Reading, listening and
remembering
Concepts first;
application/practice later
Connecting new knowledge with
Adding new knowledge
Teacher in control
Outcome varies across learners
Desired outcome set by teacher
Facilitator: learner sensing
and learning process expert
Knowledge gained from
learner’s experience
Focus on learner, learning
process and learning context
Recognizing, reflecting and
abstracting
Experience first; connecting
to concept later
past experiences
Coordination between learner
and facilitator
and context

STUDENT-CENTERED INSTRUCTION

As a student, let's assume that you have to pick a class

to attend. You have two choices and are given a brief preview
of each. In one class, students will sit silently in their

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 seats as they listen to an instructor lecture about basic
scientific principles. In the second class, students will
participate in hands-on experiments regarding basic
scientific principles under the supervision of the
instructor.

Which class sounds more interesting? If you'd choose the

second class, you're interested in student-centered
instruction. Student-centered instruction is a teaching style
that places the focus of teaching on students rather than on
the instructor.

In student-centered instruction, teachers and students

serve as partners in the learning process. In other words,
students take an active role in their education. This teaching
method is also known as learner-centered education and grew
out of the humanistic movement in psychology, which focuses
on the individual and places the responsibility for meeting
needs and achievements on him or her.

To revisit our example classrooms from earlier, the

lecture-only classroom represents teacher-centered
instruction. This method of instruction places the teacher at
the center of learning. Most students find lengthy lectures
boring and often report that the information goes in one ear
and out the other. On the other hand, students report high
levels of learning and motivation with student-centered
instruction.

BENEFITS OF LEARNER-CENTERED INSTRUCTION

Now that we understand what student-centered instruction

is, let's take some time to look at the benefits of using
this instructional method in the classroom.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to analyze all facets

of an argument or concept. Students who are critical thinkers
are able to reach a deeper level of understanding and create
new solutions for old problems. Student-centered instruction
increases critical thinking in students by granting them the
freedom to actively problem solve in the classroom.

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 4

 Cooperation

Additionally, student-centered instruction relies on

activities that engage students with the material at hand.
This frequently requires students to work in pairs or groups.
Student-centered instruction increases the collaborative
skills of students by allowing students the opportunity to
work with others to solve problems. Hence, they become better
at cooperation.

Motivation

When students feel that they're important and active

participants in their education, they tend to become more
motivated to learn. Student-centered instruction increases
motivation in students by empowering them with an active role
in their education. Increases in motivation can impact
success for many students.

Achievement

Students who are good critical thinkers, effective

collaborators, and highly motivated are likely going to see
an increase in their academic success. Student-centered
instruction increases overall achievement by placing students
in a position of control.

Self Confidence

Student satisfaction increases with student-centered

instruction because students feel largely responsible for
their own learning. As previously stated, this increases
motivation, cooperation, and achievement in students. All of
these positive changes serve to increase feelings of
confidence and self-esteem among students who benefit from
student-centered instruction.

LESSON SUMMARY

Student-centered instruction, also known as learner-

centered instruction, places students at the center of the
educational process. They partner with teachers to actively
engage in their education. This is in contrast to teacher-
centered instruction, which focuses on the instructor and
places students in a passive role. Hands-on experiments are
an example of student-centered instruction, while traditional
lectures exemplify teacher-centered instruction. Student-

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 5

 centered instruction offers many benefits including increases
in critical thinking, cooperation, motivation, achievement,
and self-confidence.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHERS

Learner-centered teachers are those that switch the

focus in the learning process from themselves as givers of
information to their students as owners of their own
education. When students have control, they are more
motivated to be engaged.

LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

Imagine a classroom with one teacher and thirty

students. Now, imagine that the teacher is at the front of
the room giving the students a non-stop stream of information.
The students probably aren't very engaged. I'm sure you've
been in a class like this. Were you bored? Did you enjoy it?
Did you learn anything?

Now imagine how you would have felt if you were in charge
of your own education. Maybe your teacher gave you the choice
of writing a book report, doing an oral presentation, or
making a panorama model based on a book you'd read in class.
Or, maybe you were able to choose which country you wanted to
learn about instead of being assigned a country. Would you
feel more excited or motivated to learn if you had this type
of control?

Learner-centered teachers shift the teacher's role from

being a provider of information to being a facilitator of
learning. This shift in focus increases student engagement in
the learning process and makes students more responsible for
their own learning progress. With learner-centered teachers,
students become invested in their own learning because they
are actively driving the learning process, unlike with non-
learner-centered teachers.

ADVANTAGES OF LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

Why is learner-centered teaching important?

By creating a learner-centered environment, you increase

each student's motivation to remain engaged in the learning
process. This is especially true in higher grades, where
students' motivation to learn increasingly centers on the

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 6

 interests and subjects they believe will be personally
beneficial. I'm sure you've heard students say, 'And how will
this help me when I'm older?'

Learner-centered teaching fosters independence. While

this style of teaching is applicable to all levels, in higher
grades, there is a real push to help students transition from
dependent student to independent adult. Learner-centered
teaching achieves this goal through giving students the
autonomy they need to drive their own learning process, while
still having a teacher available for guidance when needed.

Another advantage of learner-centered teaching is that

it allows for individual differences in student learning
styles. When the learner drives their own learning process,
it naturally follows that the learning process will conform
to the learner's needs.

Additionally, social engagement is greatly increased in

the learner-centered teaching environment. By engaging
socially, through collaborative work with each other and
engagement with their teacher, students learn skills that
will help them throughout their lives. It has been said that
learning is an act of social interaction. Studies show that
learning increases in environments where students are
socially engaged rather than being passive recipients of
information.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHERS

Teachers that follow a learner-centered teaching plan exhibit

the following characteristics.

1. Engages students in the preview, review, and evaluation

of work. Consider a reading assignment in a traditional
classroom. Engaging students in the preview of the
assignment might take the form of having a class
discussion predicting what the book will be about before
starting. Review could take the form of inviting
students to share their thoughts during and after the
reading period. Student engagement in work evaluation
can be accomplished with self-evaluation forms so that
the student spends time considering their own process
and how much they got out of the assignment.

2. Explicitly teaches skills, such as problem solving and

analysis. Often, teachers assume students have some

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 7

 implicit understanding of how to solve problems, but
this just isn't the case. Students who are taught how to
evaluate evidence and situations to solve problems on
their own have the tools they need for every situation.
Think about this in terms of that old proverb, 'Give a
man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to
fish and you feed him for his life.'~

3. Gets students to think about how they learn. When

students understand how they learn, they are able to
orchestrate their own environment to best fit their own
learning style and needs. Giving assignments that
require students to reflect on their learning process is
an example of leaner-centered teaching. An example of
this type of assignment is a self-evaluation form that
encourages students to consider their own level of
effort, what they got out of the assignment, and what
they enjoyed or did not enjoy about the assignment.

4. Allows students control over their own learning process.

Students who are able to choose how they learn a topic
are motivated to learn. As seen in the introduction,
this control could consist of students choosing the type
of assignment they complete to show their comprehension
of a literacy assignment (book report, oral
presentation, visual display), or it could be allowing
students to choose content, such as a selection of books
instead of a single text the entire class must read. Any
form of control allows students to buy into the
assignment, thus increasing their motivation to put
effort into it.

5. Encourages collaboration. Adults must work together in

almost every work environment. By teaching students to
work together in school, teachers give students a real-
world equivalent of the work place. Learning from other
students is a critical form of learning that is not
enhanced by teacher-centered strategies.

Note that learner-centered teaching does not mean that

the teacher does nothing. The teacher must still be available
and accessible to the students to answer questions, to guide
(when necessary) and to provide examples when students get
stuck. Helping students narrow their field of interest, or
even find a field of interest, is also a task tackled by the
learner-centered teacher.

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 8

LESSON SUMMARY

Learner-centered teaching is a teaching style that flips

the role of the teacher from giver of information to the
facilitator of student-led learning.

There are many advantages to learner-centered teaching,

however the most important is that learner-centered teaching
leads to self-motivated students. Self-motivated students
have a higher engagement in their own learning process and
thus progress better through their academic endeavors.

Engaging students, teaching problem solving skills,

getting students to think about thinking, allowing students
to have control, and encouraging collaboration are all
characteristics of learner-centered teaching. This strategy
is important for all students, but is very advantageous for
higher grade students preparing to become autonomous adults
in the near future.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NOVICE AND EXPERT LEARNERS

Aspects of Learning Novice Learners Expert Learners

Have different
knowledge in
Have limited different areas
Knowledge in
knowledge in the because they look
different subject
different subject for
areas
areas. interrelationships
in the things they
learn.
First try to
Satisfied at just understand the
scratching the problem, look for
Problem Solving surface; hurriedly boundaries and
gives a solution to create a mental
problem. picture of the
problem.
Employ rigid Design new
Learning/thinking strategies that may strategies that
strategies not be appropriate would be appropriate
to the task at hand. to the task at hand.
Select important
Attempt to process
Selectivity in information to
all information they
processing process; able to
received.
breakdown

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 9

 information to
manageable chunks.
Do not examine the Check their errors
quality of their and redirect their
Production of output
work, nor stop to efforts to maintain
make revisions. quality output.

LEARNER-CENTERED PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

The following 15 psychological factors pertain to the

learner and the learning process. They focus on psychological
factors that are primarily internal to and under the control
of the learner that conditioned habits or physiological
factors. However, the principles also attempt to acknowledge
external environment or contextual factors that interact with
these internal factors.

Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors

1. Nature of the learning process – The learning of complex

subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional
process of constracting meaning from information and
expert.

2. Goals of the learning process - The successful learner,

over time and with support and instructional guidance, can
create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.

3. Construction of knowledge – The successful learners can

link new information with existing knowledge in meaninful
ways.

4. Strategic thinking – The successful learner can create and

use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to
achieve complex learning goals.

5. Thinking about thinking – Higher order strategies for

selecting and monitoring mental operations facilitate
creative and critical thinking.

6. Context of learning – Learning is influenced by

invironmental factors, including culture, technology, and
instructional pronciples.

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Motivational and Affective Factors

1. Motivational and emotional influences on learning – what

and how much is learned is influenced by the learne’s
motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by
individual’s emotional states, beliefs, interests and
goals, and habits of thinking.

2. Intrinsic motivation to learn – The learner’s creativity,

higher order thinking skills, and natural curiosity all
contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is
stimulated by task of optimal novelty and difficulty
relevant to personal interests, and providing for personal
choice control.

3. Effects of motivation on effort – Acquisition of complex

knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and
guided practices. Without learners’ motivation to learn,
the willingness to exert this effort is unlikely without
coercion.

Developmental and Social Factors

1. Developmental influences learning - As individuals

develop, there are diffirent opportunities and constrains
for learning. Learning is most effective when differencial
development within and across physical, intellectual,
emotional and social domains is taken into account.

2. Social influences on learning - Learning is influenced by

social interactions, interpersonal relations, and
communication with others.

Individual Differences Factors

1. Individual difference in learning – Learners have different

strategies, approaches and capabilities for learning that
are prior experience and heredity.

2. Learning and diversity – Learning is most effective when

differences in learner’s liguistic, cultural and social
background are taken into account.

3. Standards and assessment – Setting high and challenging

standards and assessing the learner as well as learning
progress, including diagnostic, process and outcome
assessment are integral parts of the leaning process.

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching 11

COGNITION

1. Latin: cognoscere, “to know”, “to conceptualize” or “to

recognize”

2. refers to a ability for the processing of information,

applying knowledge, and changing preferences.

3. Cognition, or cognitive process, can be natural or

artificial, concious or unconcious.

Three Categories

1. Person variables - knowledge about how human being learn

and process information, as well as individual knowledge
of one’s own learning process.

Ex. You maybe aware that you study better or will be

more productive if you work in a quite library rather
than at home where there are may distructions.

2. Task variables - knowledge about the nature of task as

well as the type of processing demands that it will place
upon the individual.

Ex. You maybe aware that it will take more time for you
to read and comprehend a math text than it read and
comprehend a novel.

3. Strategy variables - awareness of strategy you are using

to learn a topic and evaluating whether this strategy is
effective.

Ex. a student may use knowledge in planning how to

approach a math exam.

I know that I (person variable) have more difficulty

with my science assignments than language arts and find
Filipino easier (task variable) so I will do my homework
in science first, then language arts, the Filipino
(strategy variable)

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METACOGNITION

1. “Thinking about thinking”

2. “Learning how to learn”
3. Refers to higher order thinking which involves active
awareness and control over the cognitive process engaged
in learning.
- John Flavell (1979, 1987)

References:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/student-centered-
instruction-definition-origin-benefits.html
https://apintalisayon.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/d18-
teaching-versus-facilitating-learning/
Brawner (2018) Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching. Quezon
City: Adriana Publishing Co., Inc.
Fernandez and Vinoya (2015) Facilitating Learning in the 21st
Century. Plaridel, Bulacan: St. Andrew Publishing House.

Prepared by:

DARYLL JIM R. ANGEL, MAEd.

Instructor

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