Learner Centred Environments

Belated post for 17 Dec
On the Cruise, every day you get a Compass newsletter which basically informs you about the day’s activities. This allows the guests to pick and choose what activities they would like to participate in depending on their interest. For instance, I chose jewellery making as well as Cha-cha and Tango lessons. It was nice to be in a position of choice to make your own decisions as to what you would like or not like to do. What about in the classroom? Are we able to provide some variety in the class that would allow the students to choose what or how they would like to learn? I believe that this would be an ideal situation, but would require a great deal of planning on the teachers’ part. Perhaps the load may be lightened with a group of teachers providing different inputs into planning a lesson so as to allow a variety that the students can choose from. I suppose that this would be a modification of Learning Centres in some classrooms. Such a learning environment may be able to interest the students in learning the subject because the learner now assumes responsibility for his own learning when he chooses how he wants to learn the topic at hand.