How to Make Learner Centered Classroom

This can be quite a new term for many of us. Though it is not so new in reality. Because since the beginning of formal education, that is classroom education, we have seen what is known as teaching centerer education. 

Now you can ask how we can classify as teaching centered? The answer is simple. As I said above, education has two inevitable participants or components and they are the teachers and the students. And thus the whole process of teaching and learning can be done in two different ways or modes, viz. the student centered mode and the teacher centered mode. 

When there is any exchange of knowledge and skill within the education machinery, it is usually done by the decision and convenience of the teachers. Usually students follow that machinery as it works and thus after consuming a considerable amount of time and effort, realizes that at the end the goal of learning is not met as it was expected. In some students it can work a little better, in other students it can be not much good. It all varies from student to student, because of psychological and socio-economic variances. 

In the first place, in our traditional school and college education the total lesson plan is done in an average method. There the issues of individual student performances and requirements are almost overlooked. And these average education policies are not capable of delivering the best possible learning and academic performances within students. 

The curriculum or syllabus, subject combinations, class routines, exam routines, teacher selection, and many such most important components of education are decided single-sidedly by teachers or a group of teachers. It is true that for mass education set up it becomes very tough to practice customizations. But that essentially should not mean we have to become rigid on zero customization.

I personally feel no justification behind a single exam date for students. Every student lives in a different socio-economic and family setup. And it cannot be expected that millions of families and societies will become ready to support the student for his or her examination in a single pre-scheduled date. As a result many deserving students perform badly and that results in destruction of their academic life.

This is a very critical issue for the life and well-being of a student. Examination customization is one of the most important student-centric decisions that our education system should have exercised. But still we are way back in that. This all happens due to our education system being almost totally designed by teachers and students usually have nothing to input in that. This is one classic example of teacher centered learning or education.

In the classroom also, from the syllabus to the textbooks all are decided by the teachers. Teachers decide how to teach and when to teach. It is good for teachers to do so because they are experienced. But it can be only good for students if it all is done for the learning convenience of the students and not for teaching conveniences. Thus there remains very less or zero scope of customization by students according to their requirements or needs. 

The matter of subject choice is one of the most important issues of education. But normally the education system does not provide much scope of choice and customization for students. In our school education, I have seen many students feel some subjects are a huge burden and some as their own. There must be some customization policies in those cases. Suppose one student needs to do more Mathematics and less history, then where stands the point to make him do differently? For that student the syllabus can be customized to incorporate more Mathematics and do with minimum history so that he can progress in his domain faster and better thus saving invaluable time and human resource. 

It is true that we also need to know something on subjects that we do not intend to make our career. But that does not mean that we would need to know it as deeply as all other students have to do. Customizations in these kinds of subject preferences, curriculum customizations and lesson plans can give a different edge to our education system which can prepare and produce even better quality human resources with a much better education level. 

So now I think you have a better idea about what we can call a teaching centered classroom (and education as well). It is always good and an intelligent choice to harness the knowledge and experiences of the teacher to develop a student’s education and learning. But it can only benefit a student if all the choices and customizations are done at the interest of the student. A teacher can very much guide his students to better learning goals if he really wants to do so. And in a student centered classroom the teacher does exactly that. 

Now as we understand what are the basic differences between a teaching centered classroom and a learner centered classroom, it is time to discuss more about the latter. We can see a slow but gradual shift in the education systems globally from teaching centered to learner centered. Educationists and academicians are finding obvious benefits in the learner oriented systems. Thus we all need to understand and try to work in that direction as much as possible with lot of constraints all around. 

It is not an easy task, and it cannot be achieved overnight. A lot of time and experimentation are to be done for reaching a proper concept and setup. But there has to be some basic guidelines that we can follow to make the changes in a positive direction. 

The first thing we need to understand is that students do have many things as common traits and can also have quite some things as unique traits. Now the percentage distribution of common traits and unique traits varies from student to student. In my teaching career I have found many students who have even more than 99% of common traits, and I also found some students who have a high amount of unique traits and with common traits less than even 90 or 80%. And this will keep on happening in every corner of the world and in every age by time. 

In a learner centered classroom the first task of a teacher is to differentiate between students according to their merits and talents. Few days ago equality in a class used to be the trend. But that law of average will not work well when the question is about building the next generation. Things need to be perceived and taken the way they actually are and not the way a rigid education system works. 

So this classification of students according to merit and talent is the first step. It is not that this is a totally new concept. Have you heard of the class section and roll number system? From decades or even centuries ago, schools have used this system to classify and segregate intelligent and high performing students from low performing average students. 

All these have a common idea of not hindering or sacrificing the progress of intelligent students and also not creating learning pressure on average students. Both need to have enough space and privilege to continue their academic growth in their own ways and own pace. 

And exactly this is the philosophy of a learning centered classroom. Such a classroom is a much more advanced system than the old class section and roll number system. 

In the section based system, students are usually divided in just two or three or maybe four sections. Thus there were only 4 classifications available. But in a learning centered the number of such classifications are actually based on the number of variety of students. 

Thus in a learning centered classroom the concept of sections and roll numbers are faded. Instead, small group concept are more predominant. Also there can be groups as small as just with one student member. These groups are like interest group, where students with similar merit, talent and learning interests are incorporated together. 

Another important feature of learning centered classroom is project based learning. It is not much practiced in a traditional class setup. In a modern learning centered classroom, there are more scopes of using such projects for purpose of learning. 

Student groups together undertake projects and do that as a team. In the process they learn new things, share and use their acquired knowledge and skill to materialize the project at hand. This becomes a good example of active learning, which is also an integrated feature of