Prepared by: Loraine L.

Gammad,LPT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________Week 1

Lesson 1:
Learner-Centered Teaching for Environmental and Sustainability Studies

“ Teaching succeeds when learning occurs .”- (Davis and Arend, 2013)
“ The one who does the work does the learning .”- (Doyle, 2011)

Introduction
Change is often very slow in educational systems (as educators are—often painfully—aware). Nonetheless, the pace can sometimes
quicken when a certain zeitgeist emerges, tipping points are passed, and critical masses of interest and action lead to big-scale,
possibly dramatic transformations.

This merges two aspects of education that have rapidly changed in recent years: environmental and sustainability education, and
knowledge about effective pedagogy. Its central purpose is to disseminate engaging teaching activities that instructors can use to help
increase students’ environmental literacy: the knowledge, skills, and dispositions (values, attitudes, and motivation) for engaging in
actions that effect positive environmental, sustainability and human well-being outcomes. More generally, this volume aims to inspire
instructors to adopt learner-centered pedagogical practices that can improve student learning.

The target audience is primarily higher-education instructors (including graduate level), but high school teachers may find the
resources appropriate for and adaptable to their courses, especially advanced ones. Across all teaching levels, environmental and
sustainability educators need diverse, well-developed, easy-to-adopt teaching resources to facilitate effective teaching that in turn
fosters excellent learning.

Environmental Issues, Sustainability Goals, and Educational Challenges The topics of pedagogy and environmental/sustainability
education coalesce around a central question: what teaching methods should educators use to help students help improve the world? In
other words, how can educators help students learn how to live responsibly and sustainably on Earth to help make it—in all of its
myriad environmental, human, and societal dimensions—a better, more sustainable, and thriving place for everyone, including other
species in the biosphere’s diverse ecological webs? It does not seem like an overstatement to suggest that—on a planet with limited,
stretched-ever-more-thinly resources and a population of sevenbillion- plus-and-counting people—few questions are as important as
this one, especially in educational systems that seek to positively infl uence the future.

As David Orr ( 2004 ) suggested, “… the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of human decency and
survival—the issues looming so large before.

Teaching or Learning Activities? Teaching and learning exist in a kind of mutualistic-symbiotic relationship; they are intricately
linked (perhaps in an obligatory way) and ideally should benefi t—or at least inform—each other through reciprocal feedback. In a
learner-centered context, learning is the more important of the two because the purpose of teaching is to facilitate learning, as
highlighted by the epitaphs that opened this chapter.

Teaching activities should therefore always be designed as learning activities. Perhaps a preferable term might be “teachinglearning
activities” to indicate the intimate coupling of the two processes that should be viewed as inseparable. In this context, why was the
phrase “teaching activities” used for the title of this volume instead of “learning activities”? Shouldn’t the focus be on learning rather
than teaching?

Yes! However, since the volume’s audience will be composed of teachers (this is an educator’s resource, not a student workbook or
textbook), readers will be examining and implementing the chapters from the perspective of the teaching role (e.g., preparation,
guiding students). Second, the phrase learner centered is preferable to student centered because it emphasizes the learning aspect of
being a student (as noted by Weimer 2002 ).

Following from this, the title “learner-centered learning activities” would have sounded awkward due to its internal redundancy . In
the end, the fi nal title may not matter much, and these two phrases (learning activities and teaching activities) could be seen as
interchangeable.

The key insight is to remember that a book about teaching activities is simultaneously a book about learning activities, since learning
must occur for teaching to occur (Weimer 2002 ; Davis and Arend 2013 ). 1 Learner-Centered Teaching for Environmental and
Sustainability Studies 4 us in the twenty-fi rst century. It is not education, but an education of a certain kind , that will save us” (p. 8,
emphasis added). (In this context, it is important to clarify that this type of education is not, and should not be thought of as, a
dogmatic, authoritarian approach that seeks to “brainwash” students into believing and acting in certain “correct” ways.

Instead, the most effective environmental and sustainability education should seek to help students learn how to think critically,
independently, and ethically about human-environment relationships, not specifically what to think and do.) Orr’s certain kind of
education focuses on the realities of human-environment relationships in the twenty-first century.

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching – Educ 12 l2

 In particular, it is now unassailable that humans have changed the Earth system more over the past 60–100 years than at any time in
our species’ history, with dramatic, largely negative, consequences for biodiversity , the health and resilience of ecosystems, and
therefore human well-being (McNeil 2000 ; MEA 2005 ).

All students should understand the consequences of such changes in context of the natural and social scientifi c principles and
evidence pertaining to humans’ dependence on biodiversity, ecosystems, and favorable environmental conditions that give rise to
ecosystem services that sustain human life, health, and happiness (Cardinale et al. 2012 ).

Further, beyond content knowledge, sustainable societies need more citizens who have the willingness and wide range of skills to
effect positive environmental and sociocultural changes.

To these ends, educators have responded over the past several decades by developing integrated, transdisciplinary (inclusive of the
natural and social sciences, humanities, and professional fields like architecture, engineering , and business ) environmental and
sustainability study courses, curricula, and degree programs (Vincent et al. 2013 ).

Their emergence and growth advance Orr’s vision for education that enables students to become sustainability leaders in their
personal, public, and professional lives.

In particular, evidence-based insights have led to numerous recommendations about how teaching activities and educational
experiences should be designed (e.g., Bransford et al. 2000 ).

One theme that has emerged is the necessity of using more engaging, hands-on, learner-centered pedagogies (instead of lecturing) to
catalyze better learning (Kober 2015 ). Among the suggested techniques are projectand problem-based assignments that refl ect “real-
world” or “authentic” ways of helping students develop and apply their knowledge and skills. More generally, calls for
“revolutionizing” the ways that educators think about and approach teaching and learning suggest the need to consider the pedagogical
aspects of Orr’s “certain kind of education”—that is, a kind of education that engages students in active, meaningful, and signifi cant
learning (e.g., Fink 2003 ).

Such education is encompassed by the term “learner centered” (Weimer 2002 ). Although the educational challenge of fostering
signifi cant learning applies to all disciplines and topics, it is particularly relevant to helping students develop their environmental
literacy, a complex, multidimensional process and goal (McBride et al. 2013 ).

Such education is needed to increase the chances that students will be prompted to modify (as needed) their affective and behavioral
dimensions that relate to environmental and sustainability concerns. From this, a critical, if somewhat obvious, insight emerges:
achieving the laudable but challenging goals of environmental and sustainability education is a direct function of using effective,
engaging pedagogies. Learner-centered methods are especially applicable to helping students process complex and challenging
information from many disciplines; synthesize and apply knowledge to solve problems; consider diverse human perspectives, cultures,
and scenarios; and identify their own personal ethics, attitudes, and desired actions pertaining to human-environment relationships.
Successful achievement of these outcomes requires that students be purposeful, reflective, and highly engaged participants in their
own learning (Kober 2015 ).

The pursuit of more engaging learner-centered teaching approaches for environmental and sustainability studies can be challenging (as
is true for any discipline). Many factors may limit or interfere with the ability (or willingness) of instructors to use more active
pedagogical methods and materials. As discussed below, these include practical issues of the teaching context; a preference for
focusing on content at the expense of explicitly helping students develop skills; and a reluctance (or uncertainty about how) to engage
students’ affective dimensions. (For the sake of brevity, the following discussion highlights generalized concerns without considering
nuances and exceptions.

Although the issues will not apply to everyone and all situations, they are likely to be common across many teaching and institutional
settings. See Kober ( 2015 ) for extended discussion about these and other factors.) Practical Challenges Many instructors, by choice
or situation, teach in contexts that make the use of innovative learner-centered pedagogy more diffi cult (although not impossible).
Courses may be designed to include a wide breadth of content, as with introductory surveys that serve as foundational prerequisites for
subsequent classes.

Add notes here:

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Challenges with the Learner-Centered Paradigm

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching – Educ 12 l3
 Perhaps the greatest challenge with implementing the learner-centered paradigm of education and training is the difficulty that
instructional theorists, researchers, educational policymakers, and practitioners face in transcending Industrial-Age mental models or
mindsets about instruction in both education and training contexts.

It is hard for us to conceive of schools and universities without grade levels, without courses, without tests, without grades, and
without terms or semesters (Reigeluth & Karnopp, 2013). To implement the learner-centered paradigm effectively, many stakeholders
must come to understand education in a very different way from traditional mental models.

Another challenge with implementing the learner-centered paradigm is the difficulty of transforming Industrial-Age systems, which
are designed to make change extremely difficult. If piecemeal reforms are difficult within such a highly politicized and bureaucratic
system, paradigm change is an order of magnitude more difficult. It is like trying to transform a railroad system into an air
transportation system. It requires fundamental changes in all parts of the system, or at least enough parts to reach the tipping point
where more pressure is exerted by the new parts to change the remaining old parts, than the old parts exert on the new ones to change
back.

This means that the transformation process is more expensive and time-consuming than are piecemeal reforms, but there is good
evidence that the new paradigm will be less expensive than the current one (Egol, 2003; Reigeluth & Karnopp, 2013).

The good news is that much is known about an effective process for transforming existing school systems on the school, district, and
state levels, and there are already hundreds of schools that exhibit many features of the learner-centered paradigm, to serve as
examples of what can be (see Reigeluth & Karnopp, 2013).

Post a Comment
Instructions: Give your own saying/philosophy about education. Write your answer inside the comment box below. (5pts.)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ Week 2

Lesson 2:
Definition of Learner-Centered Instruction

The learner-centered paradigm of education stands in contrast to the teacher-centered paradigm. Based on the work of the American
Psychological Association’s Presidential Task Force on Psychology in Education, McCombs and Whisler (1997) define learner-
centered as:
The perspective that couples a focus on individual learners (their heredity, experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, talents, interests,
capacities, and needs) with a focus on learning (the best available knowledge about learning and how it occurs and about teaching
practices that are most effective in promoting the highest levels of motivation, learning, and achievement for all learners).

Importance of Learner-Centered Education

So, why is the learner-centered paradigm of education important? There are two major reasons, one on the personal level and one on
the societal level (Reigeluth & Karnopp, 2013). On the personal level, since learners learn at different rates, time-based learner
progress forces slower learners to proceed to new material before they have mastered the current material, so they accumulate gaps in
their learning that make it more difficult for them to learn related material in the future, virtually condemning them to fail. It also
Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching – Educ 12 l4
holds faster learners back, squandering their talents. Learner-centered education is the only way to maximize every learner’s learning
—to help all learners reach their potential.

On the societal level, as we have evolved from the Industrial Age to the Information Age (Toffler, 1970, 1980, 1990). Manual labor is
giving way to knowledge work as the predominant form of work, requiring that many more people be educated to higher levels than
ever before. Only learner-centered education can meet this need, which will benefit our economic competitiveness in a “flat” world
(Friedman, 2005), as well as our political system (through better informed voters and leaders) and individual citizens’ ability to thrive
in an increasingly complex digital world.

Theoretical Foundations of Learner-Centered Education

At the core of learner-centered education is the belief that humans make sense or make meaning out of information and experience in
their own way. Because each person is unique in his or her nature (a combination of DNA) and nurture (experiences), we each
perceive, feel, and think about things differently. The theoretical foundations of this belief stem from cognitivism, constructivism, and
humanism.

Cognitivism
Cognitivist theories such as information processing theory, schema theory, and mental models provide a foundation that each learner
has her or his own way to process information based on prior experience and knowledge. Information processing theory tells us that
how information is received and structured within learners’ minds is subject to learners’ mental processes. Learners selectively pay
attention to incoming information, encode it within their short-term memory in their own ways, store it in long-term memory in their
own ways, and retrieve the information based on the way it was encoded (Miller, 1956; Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1986).

Thus, selecting, encoding, and retrieving information vary by individual learners. Schema theory states that knowledge is organized
into units and structured based on their relationships with other units. When new information comes in, learners use their own schema
to process the information. This schema is continuously and actively developed as learning occurs. Therefore, every learner with
different schemata has a unique way to process, store, and retrieve information ( J.R. Anderson, 1983; Ausubel, 1968; Schank, 1982;
Schank & Abelson, 1977).

A mental model is a representation of the relationships between various parts in the surrounding world. People selectively choose
concepts that are important to them, symbolize the concepts in their own ways, and create relationships among them according to how
they perceive them. Therefore, internalization of incoming information largely depends on individual learners and is affected by
learners’ prior experience and knowledge (Johnson-Laird, 1983).

Constructivism
Based on the epistemological belief that knowledge is subjectively and individually constructed rather than that it exists external to the
learner, constructivism lays down the fundamental theoretical foundation of learner-centered education ( Jonassen, 1999; Lambert &
McCombs, 1998). Constructivists such as Piaget and Vygotsky state that knowledge is constructed while learners are engaged in
social interaction on the learning topic by experiencing disequilibrium, negotiating and finding equilibrium through assimilation and
accommodation (Littleton & Häkkinen, 1999; Palincsar, 1998). Therefore, learning should be designed to facilitate individual
knowledge construction by helping learners engage in an authentic task and meaningful conversation around the task.

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Humanism
Carl Rogers (1951), one of the foremost psychologists of the 20th century, argued that the role of therapists should be to free the client
to solve his or her own problems, thereby realizing one’s full organismic potential, rather than prescribing solutions that develop a
false, ideal self based on the expectations of others. He advocated applying this person-centered approach to education. Rogers argued
that humans have an innate desire to learn, but that a person cannot be taught directly; rather, one can only facilitate the learning of
another (Rogers, 1969). Therefore, learning must be self-initiated and self-regulated, motivated by the person’s natural desire to learn
those things that are necessary to maintain and develop the self (Rogers, 1959). Consequently, the act of learning requires the full
participation of the learner, which means that the learner “chooses his own directions, helps to discover his own learning resources,
formulates his own problems, and decides his own course of action, [and] lives with the consequences of each of these choices”.

Early Pioneers
In this section, we introduce three early educational movements that led the way to learner-centered education. We briefly present
only key figures and ideas from these movements.

Dewey’s Progressive Education

John Dewey was a principal figure in boosting American public schools and leading educational reform from the 1880s. Dewey
presented his educational theories in several books (e.g., Dewey, 1899, 1938; Dewey & Small, 1897). Throughout his books, he
maintained that learners learn when they are allowed to experience, observe, and reflect on their own past and current experience, and
all human experience involves social interaction. Thus, education should be based on experience through a social process, and the
teacher should play the role of facilitator of the process rather than a dictator. He placed a heavy emphasis on learners’ active
participation and ownership in the learning process.

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Montessori Education
In the 1900s, Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, pioneered the Montessori education system. Her educational
philosophy places a heavy emphasis on development of a child’s independence, children taking initiative, and development of natural
ability through practical play. This educational philosophy is based on the four distinct phases of child development that she observed
from infants. She developed appropriate educational methods and environments that can maximally realize natural child development
in each phase (Montessori, 1917, 2013). Some empirical studies on Montessori education have revealed equivalent or higher
educational outcomes compared to traditional education. A recent study that compared two Montessori programs with different levels
of implementation fidelity to a traditional program found that high-fidelity Montessori programs were associated with positive effects
in several academic outcomes (Lillard, 2012).

Carroll’s and Bloom’s Mastery Learning

In the 1960s, Carroll and Bloom criticized time-based learner progress of the traditional schooling system (Bloom, 1968; Carroll,
1963). They argued that having all learners spend the same amount of time on the same tasks would result in failing learners with low
aptitude for the subjects. Therefore, individual differences in aptitude should be taken into account by allowing individual learners to
spend as much time as they need to reach mastery. Bloom’s famous synthesis of empirical research on mastery-based learning
supported the effectiveness of this approach. In his synthesis, when learners were given sufficient time to master the current topic by
checking their understanding through ongoing formative assessments and being given an opportunity to address their learning
deficiencies before moving on to the next topic, the achievement level of the average learner in the mastery group was two sigmas
higher than the average learner in the conventional group, known as the 2-sigma effect. Other studies to date have reported consistent
positive outcomes for competency-based learner progress.

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 Task 1: Written Explanation

Name: ____________________________________________________________ Year & Section:__________________________

Instructions: Read and analyze the statement. Give your stand about it. (15pts.)

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Task 2: Short Quiz

Name: ____________________________________________________________ Year & Section:__________________________

Instructions: Apply what you have learned in the previous input. Read and analyze the question. Encircle the letter of your answer
(10pts.)
1. Which one of the following words most accurately describes the role of a teacher in a learner-centered classroom?
A. Pedagogist
B. Mentor
C. Facilitator
D. Director

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2. Which of the following is an effective strategy for soliciting questions from students in the classroom?
A. Using K-W-L charts
B. Providing students with question ticket
C. Playing the question game in class
D. All of the answers are correct
3. Learning is a process by which is modified or changed through experience or training.
A. True
B. False
4. Cognitive learning involves muscular coordination and physical skills.
A. True
B. False (expert system)
5. Metacognition is the knowledge already knows by somebody when confronted with new information.
A. True
B. False
6. What is the difference between a teacher and a facilitator of learning?
A. A teacher takes sole ownership for educating her students, while a facilitator of learning encourages students to find
the answers for themselves.
B. A teacher tells his students what to study, while a facilitator of learning tells students to study whatever they want.
C. A teacher guides students to learning for themselves and sharing in groups, while a facilitator of learning relies on
lectures and promotes little discussion.
D. teacher's goal is to educate her students based on her own learning, while a facilitator of learning causes students
to learn from those outside the school.
7. Why is being a facilitator of learning so beneficial to students?
A. It makes classroom material applicable to student's lives.
B. It promotes self exploration.
C. It enables students to absorb and remember the material.
D. All of the answers are correct

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Lesson 3:
Universal Principles

There are some principles of education that we propose should always be manifest in truly learner-centered education , while there are
others that we believe should be present in some situations but not others. We describe the universal principles here, followed by the
situational principles in the following section.

One of the key characteristics that distinguish the Information Age from the preceeding Industrial Age is holism (integration of tasks)
replacing compartmentalization (division of tasks). Consequently, it is inappropriate to try to address instructional theory in isolation
from other kinds of educational theories, such as those for curriculum, learner assessment,

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