Volume 3: Moving to Learner-Centered Environments in an Age of Electronic Information
It has almost become a cliché to say that computer-based technologies are radically transforming higher education. The increasingly astonishing result of personal computers and mass media is that we are surrounded with more information than we can comfortably process – in many ways, we are over-informed. In this information-packed environment, educators no longer control access to information as once was the case. According to Branson (1991), this has resulted in a new paradigm for education, in which the teacher is no longer at the center. Instead, the center is occupied by knowledge itself to which students now have direct access.
Because of this major transformation in access to knowledge, the very nature of teaching and learning dynamics is dramatically changing. Collins (1991) describes a series of shifts in education that put greater emphasis on student activity than on teacher activity. These shifts are resulting in increasingly learner-centered colleges and universities.
- A shift from lecture and recitation to coaching. With subject matter available via interactive technologies, instructors spend less time directing students and more time facilitating student learning.
- A shift from whole-class instruction to small group instruction. Working with computers, students progress at different rates rather than in lockstep as a whole. Instructors are able to spend more time with individual students and small groups.
- A shift from all students learning the same thing to different students learning different things. As the amount of information available to students continues to explode, student choice regarding what is learned will increase.
- A shift toward more engaged students. With interactive technology, the need for large lectures with passive students will become outdated.
- A shift from assessment based on test performance to assessment based on products and progress. The demand is increasing for realistic tasks that access learning as it applies to new areas.
- A shift from a competitive to a cooperative goal structure. With access to extensive data bases, collaboration through networked communications not only becomes possible but practical.
- A shift from the primacy of verbal thinking to the integration of visual and verbal thinking. Students come to higher education with more extensive experience with video than print. What is the capacity for visual knowledge and skills that informed citizens should possess and how can we engage our students in becoming visually literate?
These shifts suggested by Collins (1991) imply a parallel change in the role of the instructor. The next issues of Thinking About College Teaching will discuss this changing role.
References
Branson, R.K. (1991). The Schoolyear 2000 Concept. Address at Northwestern University, March 7, 1991.
Collins, A. (1991). The Role of Computer Technology in Restructuring Schools. Phi Delta Kappa 73(1), 28-36.
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