By: Jenna Jarvis
In completing my Certificate in Teaching Assistant Skills, I encountered a rather significant stumbling point: I wasn’t entirely able to articulate what “learner-centred” meant. I set out to develop my own working definition of what a learner-centred model of teaching entails, and I discovered that such a definition would necessarily link into other key pedagogical concepts, including “learning outcomes”, “learning assessments”, “peer learning”, and “accessible learning”. In this article, I offer brief definitions for these key terms pertaining to the learner-centred model of teaching, and I build toward a suggestion on how these terms may fit into one’s professional teaching philosophy—a document that is an important factor in hiring decisions for positions in education. I supplement these definitions with illustrative examples from my own experience as a teaching assistant with the Department of English.
In response to teacher-centred models of instruction—those that, in their most egregious forms, feature a lecturer at the head of a classroom at which, rather than to which, he talks— learner-centred models of instruction afford students an active, dialogic role in their own learning (Thompson 48). We might understand the teacher-centred classroom as a top-down structure and the learner-centred classroom as a more networked, co-operative structure in which the students can engage course material in conjunction with the course’s instructor and with their peers. For this reason, learner-centred classrooms can be cuturally-inclusive alternatives to the hyper-individuated teacher-centred models (Boud, Cohen, and Sampson 415; Thompson 50). Teaching assistants necessarily belong to the learner-centred model by virtue of their key intermediary position, in which TAs engage with the students in their section as well as with the section’s primary instructor. Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson cite “contacts between students and faculty” as their preeminent example in a list of good learner-centric practices in undergraduate instruction (2), and so a teaching assistant’s understanding of this classroom model is essential to that teaching assistant’s success in any pedagogical job position.
An instructor should establish clear learning outcomes from the very start. Learning outcomes are the instructor’s articulation of what knowledge and skills the students will take away from the course at its end (“Glossary”). In addition to providing students with an overview of what understanding they should demonstrate by the end of term, statements of learning outcomes can help a teaching assistant better understand her duties in relation to the course’s intended trajectory. Learning outcomes create transparent expectations shared by all members of a course—its students, its instructor, and its teaching assistant—and, in the interest of this transparency and mutuality, my department is shifting toward including learning outcome statements in all English course syllabi.
Even when a course’s learning outcomes are not made explicit, a teaching assistant can anticipate some of the instructor’s intended outcomes by understanding the course’s learning assessments. Assessments determine what students have learned in a given course—graded assignments are assessments, for example, and the teaching assistant’s role in these learning assessments is obvious. Teacher-centred classrooms are interested in direct assessments of learning, which hold students’ academic performance as most worthy of assessment (“Common Assessment Terms”). Learner-centred classrooms are, likewise, interested in students’ performance, but these classrooms feature indirect, as well as direct, forms of student assessment, which “use perceptions, reflections or secondary evidence to make inferences about student learning,” such as students’ reflections on their own learning (“Common Assessment Terms”). Teaching assistants’ office hours are a good place for TAs to help students self-assess: TAs might, as I have done, invite students to clearly explain how they have progressed with a given assignment, and what roadblock is preventing their progress.
Students’ opportunities to participate in peer learning or peer teaching can be indirect assessments of how a degree program prepares its students for upper-year courses. In the second- year course for which I TA, three students volunteered to prepare and deliver 15-to-30-minute miniature lectures on a syllabus text and topic of their choosing. The students who took up this mini-lecture opportunity planned their talks’ focus in peer groups, to avoid any topic overlap, and they sought additional help from the course instructor in locating secondary sources—which these students subsequently passed on to their classmates in their presentations. Peer teaching has a pragmatic preparatory component: in my example, the instructor was quick to remind the class that upper-year courses in the Department of English are primarily seminar-based and demand much in the way of students’ discussion participation and leadership. In this respect, peer teaching experiences allow students to self-assess their grasp of the course’s and degree program’s requirements (Boud, Cohen, and Sampson 421-422). Teaching assistants can model strong oral presentation skills by accepting any offers from their instructors to guest lecture, or, indeed, by making this offer in the first place.
I have found it helpful to listen to feedback from all of my students on my guest lectures’ efficiency, and I pay special attention to their comments on accessibility. All teaching assistants must ensure that their tutorials, guest lectures, and/or office hours conform to any students’ accommodation requirements. Accessible learning is, ideally, learner-centred, insofar as accessible pedagogy recognizes that students with disabilities may have particular ways of learning that should not preclude their equal participation in the classroom. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the ways in which an educator can make her classroom accessible to all students, but the Paul Menton Centre provides an initial list of Roles and Responsibilities shared by students with disabilities and the faculty members who work with these students. Conversations between students and educators should, according to the Paul Menton Centre, coordinate specific accommodation requirements, such as notetaking or interpretive services. Although teaching assistants, who do not handle official letters of accommodation from students, are not formally part of such arrangements, TAs might be willing to act as liasons between the student and the instructor to initiate conversations about accommodation, or might, in the event that a student notetaker must miss a course meeting, provide their own lecture notes for a student who cannot take her own.
By outlining my experiences with the learner-centred model of teaching, I hope to illuminate the process of composing one’s teaching philosophy. It is never too early for teaching assistants who are interested in pedagogy (or for teaching assistants who need to outline their TA duties for any work résumé) to begin composing such a document. The best teaching philosophies, according to the EDC, are those that “balance [an educator’s] broad ideal about teaching with detailed descriptions of how [the educator] put[s] this ideal into practice” (1). Learner-centric education is one such “broad ideal,” but an educator’s demonstrated understanding of this classroom model’s functions and advantages will catch employers’ attention —and, what is more, will help that individual become a more effective teacher.
Works Cited
Boud, David, Ruth Cohen, and Jane Sampson. “Peer Learning and Assessment.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 24.4 (December 1999): 413-426. Print.
Chickering, Arthur W., and Zelda F. Gamson. “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” American Association for Higher Education Bulletin 3 (March 1987): 2-6. Print.
“Common Assessment Terms.” Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. Carnegie Mellon University, n. d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
“Glossary.” Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. University of California, Davis. 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
“Roles and Responsibilities.” Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities. Carleton University. n. d. Web. 2 Mar. 2014
“Structuring a Teaching Philosophy Statement.” Educational Development Centre. Carleton University. 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 March 2014.
Thompson, Paul. “Learner-Centred Education and ‘Cultural Translation’.” International Journal of Educational Development 33.1 (2013): 48-58. Print.