Concordia University

A Research Report Presented to The Graduate Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master’s in Education

Concordia University - Portland

Running head: STUDENT-CENTERED TEACHING 1

2019

Student-centered Teaching and its Impact on Learning Outcomes Today’s teachers are presented instruction in different ways. Teachers want learning to be spontaneous. Teaching and learning are no longer traditional. Teachers are not handing out notes and students are following along taking notes. The days are long gone. Students have formative assessment throughout their lessons to check for understanding. Through research and professional developments, teachers have learned to measure their student’s success in a new way. In this new way of learning and teaching, the lessons are more student-centered. Teachers still write lesson plans, but in hopes that students will use strategies previously learned to keep all students engaged in the lesson. The question is how the instructional outcomes becomes successful when they are student-led when students are still in grade school. Students begin to learn this process at the beginning of school in hopes to get better each week. In most schools, holidays breaks come in towards the ends of the year. At this time, educators notice that students are not really engaged in the lesson. The middle years of schooling have been identified as a time when disengagement with education is likely (Chan, Baker, Slee, & Williamson, 2015). This is a problem for teachers because engagement is key when measuring the success of the lesson taught. Engagement is seen as important in promoting school completion (Chan et al., 2015). In rural areas, grades have been shifted around to meet budget cuts. Sixth grade is now considered still elementary in most of these areas. In the older days, sixth grade was the start of middle school. You would remain in middle school until eighth grade graduation. In order to cut the dropout rate, students must come to school and participate in their learning. This means that the lesson must be interested, and less teacher oriented. Research shows that engaging students is a challenging and often frustrating task for mathematics teachers (Madelinebevs, 2013). The planning of activities to go along with the curriculum is key. Students should use strategies that keeps everyone talking and thinking. Student-centered teaching can help alleviate this disengagement. It increases time spent in class on engaging activities (Gorzycki, n.d.). The literature review shows in research that lessons and curriculums that provides room for student-centered activities will have a positive impact on grade schools. The instructional outcomes are met using these strategies.

Review of the Literature

Cooperative Learning vs. Teacher Oriented Learning

Research shows that an experiment was conducted by a professor of an institution that involved a quantitative. The subjects of the experiment were two students that were freshmen to a business math course. In this research it shows how the students compared learning cooperative and how they learned when the lesson was teacher oriented. When the teacher led, it was mostly lecturing. In a university with math teachers, student-centered lessons show how the students were engaged in both settings (Shumacher, & Kennedy, 2008). The research also showed that the professor wanted two sets of questions answered. He wanted to know could there be proof that one way of learning was better than the other. The research study that was viewed had 49 participants. The participants were split into two classes. One of the classes was taught using cooperative learning and the other was taught with teacher-oriented learning. This meant that one class was able to use student-centered activities and the other was more of a lecture by the professor. The classes were equally monitored using quizzes and exams.

The results of this study did not show a mass difference. However, the research was on to something else. The fact that one group consisted of college students may have made a big difference on the results. These students are more mature, which means that they were more invested in the outcome of their learning. The college students would have paid attention rather it was teacher oriented or student-centered. This was secondary to their education and they were enrolled by choice. They wanted to succeed. These students may not have been the best subjects for this research. They were going to sit through whatever to get a passing grade to be put towards their degree credits. At this time, research was needed for a different group in order to get attainable results. In six grades, students do not feel like they own their learning. They are showed several strategies on how to learn things, but they do not have to come with their own in order to pass. These students are trying to get to seventh-grade, not thinking about math in their future. In the mind of a sixth grader, they may never use math that is being taught now again. They are only trying to pass the test. It is not heavily weighted as a career goal. Their education is completely free, and they don’t have the burden of paying for it or their parents having to pay their tuition. Education is important at this time but it is more middle school friendly (Turner, Christensen, Kackar-Cam, Trucano, & Fulmer, 2014).

This article gives off more details of learning in the classroom of grade school students. It basically tells that student’s engagement depends on how the lesson is perceived by the student. If the student is interested, they are more engaged. This goes back to the beginning of the year when students are taught to be engaged through strategies and techniques presented by their teacher. The learning should be cooperative where the teacher and the student’s role is equal. The research explains that students are more likely to be active in the lesson is they are involved by their teacher. They will be passive when sitting in their desk listening to a lecture taking notes. The study involved approximately 32 teachers at a middle school. The teachers were a part of this study for three years. Observations of the teachers in the study were randomly selected by administrators. The results showed upward and stable trends of the teachers. Teachers were then selected randomly for observation in their classrooms. Teachers were put into the two categories based on observation findings. The teachers were discussed in the article.

In the study a veteran teacher of English Language Arts was studied. This teacher was a part on of the groups of the studies previous mentioned. The group was the upward group. The teacher promotes students in her class to produce well though out work. In order to produce clear work, students may take one class period. The teacher acted as a facilitator for her students. She was able to offer guidance to her students but not give any leading answers.

The other teacher in the study presented taught 8th grade. This teacher was also considered a veteran teacher. Her classroom was a part of the opposite study. The students in this call did not interact as much as the students in the other classroom. The class was more teacher led where the teacher talked most of the time. The students had little to no input.

This article is creditable because it studied its subjects for three years. The trends in the data was collected over this time. The mishap with this article is that it’s not direct enough for ht research question. The results do not specifically show student-centered or teacher-oriented strategies. The study did not focus on one area of study, but multiple subjects. The students were not learning the same things in these classrooms. According to McMillan (2015), “a characteristic of experiments is “control” of irrelevant variables. In other words, the effect, which is measured by differences in the dependent variable, should be produced only by the intervention (p. 238).” Another question that arises, were the reasons for the trends found in the classrooms a result of some classrooms being more interested than others? Secondary educators who are math experts are more likely to use student-centered learning in the classroom, the lessons were taught differently. One was taught with student-centered strategies and the other was teacher-oriented (Shumacher, & Kennedy, 2008).

The research presented has defended my hypothesis so far. However, it has not answered my research question. The articles that were discussed were each lacking information needed to answer my question. The articles combined may answer the question. One article needs information from the next to make valid points as far as the question. All findings should be a result of the intervention. There also much be a difference of the experimental group and the control group. When using student-centered learning in the classroom students are able to do all these things (Hanim, Mohd Rasidi, & Zainol Abidin, 2012).

The purpose of the research in this article is to find the effects of student-centered learning in math classrooms. This is related to the research question. Pre-university students are the subjects in the study provided in the article. Questionnaires were used to collect data from participants. The results of the questionnaires showed that pre-university students agreed that if math lessons were student-centered, they can make real life connections with the concepts that are being taught by their teachers. When students are engaged with peers, the learning is easier to understand. They can break the understanding down to their peers. The learning process is activated through student-centered learning, so students are engaged, and they feel better sharing their ideas and answers with others.

Guidance during Student-Centered Learning