[quoting Reeves, 2 Apr 96] With respect to Norman's first question, I think learner-centered education is a great idea, one deserving of far more support, innovation, and research at all levels of education or training.
It's a great idea, sure. But, to echo Terri Bruckner's [2 Apr 96] question (and I'm glad I'm not the only one asking!), what is it? What counts?
I ask this from my own experience as a consumer of education. When I first began to take smaller classes, here in the IT program at UGA, I recognized that there was a significant difference. I had a great basis for comparison, since I'd held off on my biology courses until my undergrad senior year (God only knows why) and found it incomprehensible: 300 squalling kids in a big room with one teacher, his words bouncing all around the dimly-lit hall. From that, to having an entire class taught in a computer lab, where we could immediately work with the ideas being presented, was very different.
But again, echoing Terri's question, is a mere lack of lecture enough? Now that I have taken a number of these courses, I've begun to look at the difference less as a paradigm shift, more of a room where it's still sorta hard to learn, if your learning style doesn't elide well with the instruction style. I'm wondering if this will always be a problem with groups. Some of us enjoy hearing the teacher talk, some of us itch to get on with playing with the ideas.
Thus, while I'm sure a class such as Dr. Reeves outlines will be much better than a packed auditorium (heck, I'm sure enough of it that I signed up for the class!), I still worry about the term "learner-centered" as applied to it. For, more often than not, I feel decidedly uncentered, even in small lab-based courses. (Well, Charles, why don't you just go play in the corner for a while, until you decide you can work with others?)
Lest this turn into me whining "What about my needs?," let me push what I'm saying onto a more theoretical slant.
At what point in the continuum of course size, teacher/student ratio, and individual engagement, do we get to call our instruction learner-centered? To extend Don Norman's question a little, where does the implementation of what sounds like a good idea, become good enough? If we're not going to have AI interactive materials ala
[quoting Reeves, 2 Apr 96] With respect to Norman's second question, I think that the main reason learner-centered education hasn't taken hold is that it appears to threaten the established bureaucracies in education and training. These people aren't about to give up their power and privileges.
Will they have a choice? "Revolution" may imply some bloody overthrow of power--what if that power is simply displaced? If the trend of technologies is to become more networked and yet adapted to user preference, not to mention cheaper (Apple's Pippin, for example, if they get it through their heads that it could be more than a hyped-up game machine), mightn't it be profitable to entrepreneurs to privatize education, take it out of state hands? I don't know. After reading Johann's [Viljoen, 2 Apr 96] response, and hearing again and again that here at UGA we're trying to have a student body over 35,000 (on a campus that seems barely big enough for 25,000), I can't imagine that smaller, more personal schools wouldn't seem more attractive, both to students and to their future employers.
It may be a long while before we have the technology to make learner-centered education a reality for the masses of children and adult learners who could benefit from it.
I agree with this, at least a little bit, except for one concern. Even in impoverished areas (recognizing that when I say that, I'm thinking of the US version of poverty, which definitely isn't representative of the world-at-large), people have TV's. Kids have their Nintendos, or know someone who does. We know how to market existing technologies for the masses, and we know how to create quality products. So while we're waiting for the revolution that will put all those big bad school administrators against the wall, it seems like a good idea to subvert School by creating affordable, attractive instructional materials. I mean, it can't be that hard, can it? You don't have to have a million-color display and a RISC chip to educate.
Alas, even with marvelous talking primers, the education bureaucracy may still be able to keep learner-centered education in the realm of science fiction. The struggle continues. Meanwhile, I look forward to reading how others will address Don Norman's two questions.
Again, big bucks beat bureaucracy any day of the week. If there is a way to make learner-centered education profitable, and it seems to me there must be, we may find ourselves better able to teach, once the kids get out of class and go home for the day.