Student-Centered Learning Online

 

To my surprise and gratification, student-centered learning is emphasized in most of the distance learning writing courses I looked at, and in some cases the online courses are more student-centered than conventional courses the professors have taught in the past. A response from one writing teacher I interviewed was representative: "I am surprised to say that my Internet-based composition class is much more student-centered than the typical class I would offer on campus....the students are much more free to move in individual directions with me acting as the ‘support person’ for their learning experience" (Pfannkuche). Another teacher said that compared to his conventional class, his distance learning class is "more student-centered....because students must be able to work without direct guidance" (Bleck). One syllabus said that "much more of the responsibility is placed on the individual student" (Horvath). A guide to distance learning classes at Bucks County Community College that one professor linked to his website echoes these remarks: "Distance Learning is a teaching method that is centered around the student....The teacher no longer delivers the customary lecture, but guides the students through their studies." The instructor is still the "guide," but the talking-head format is no longer useful, at least for the courses at BCC. The teachers I interviewed had a philosophy of student-centered learning before teaching online, so it wasn’t as though a lecture format was being replaced by a discussion format. But what interested me was that for most of these teachers distance learning courses were either just as student-centered or more student-centered than their conventional courses.

Of the twenty freshman writing syllabi I collected, only two show a teacher using a banking model, correspondence course format. Not surprisingly, these were the classes that made little use of websites, chat rooms, listervs, bulletin boards, and some of the other technology that can help make the distance learning classroom student-centered; technology that I will discuss later in this essay. Also not surprisingly, these were the teachers who were still teaching under what James Berlin would call a current traditional framework (766). One of these classes assigned essays in a five paragraph theme model, and the other taught from a handbook and emphasized correct usage and grammar drills.

This is not to say that these distance learning writing instructors have suddenly relinquished all authority, as Joyce hinted at. As one instructor put it, "Everyone knows that the teacher is the final arbiter of grades" (Montecino). Another teacher added that his online classes are "far less student-centered....I suspect that students who are taking courses by distance education do so for the convenience, and their attitude tends to be ‘I’m a busy person. Just tell me what you want so I can get it done’" (Morgan). Although the majority of the courses I looked at were not based on the correspondence course model, student expectations that an online course should look like a traditional correspondence course may be a hurdle for the teacher who wants to take a constructivist approach to distance learning.
 
 

Introduction
Research Motivation
Constructivism Defined
Research into Distance Learning and Technology
Student-Centered Learning Online
Collaboration Online
Discussion Online
Conclusion
Research Method
Works Cited
 
 
Currents: An E-Journal Currents in Electronic Literacy Fall 1999 (2), <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall99/melzer/>