IT in Traditional and Student-Centered Learning

Lesson 12 – Information Technology in Support of Student-Centered Learning

In today’s globalizing world, many kinds of jobs and professions are performed by people who can do more than just the routine tasks like encoding, stamping, and basing answers from standard formulas and solutions. Jobs today, moreover, do not just require manual labor. They entail worker capacities in problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking, and decision-making for modernized jobs such as in marketing, advertising, and so on.

The BIG question is:

How can students be ready for these kinds of jobs they are to face in their future?

You already have an idea how a traditional classroom instruction works, don’t you? As I have discussed in my previous blog, the traditional classroom has the teacher sitting or standing in front of the classroom, facing the students who are all ears to the teacher’s lecture. Here, the teacher is the deliverer and the main speaker in the classroom. The students respond to questions and answer worksheets and quizzes to identify and measure what they have learned in the lesson proper. 

The outcomes of traditional classroom instruction are students who are good at understanding, memorizing, and reciting information learned in their traditionally delivered subjects. There is no black propaganda against this kind of classroom setting for it has proven to create great professionals who are also purposeful members of the society. However, there is always a BETTER kind or classroom instruction that could make even BETTER-performing students.

What I am talking about now is the student-centered learning (SCL), where students do much during the learning process. Students learn by working in groups; they are the ones discussing problems, making decisions, solving problems, and presenting solutions in the class. This kind of instruction allows students to develop, employ, and improve their higher order thinking skills (HOTS) that will lead them to gain effectiveness as learners.

Both traditional and student-centered instructions can be more efficient and effectual when they are supplemented by information and communication technologies (ICTs). The teacher can always plan and select the most useful ICT she can use in the classroom that can make the learning further improved. She can assign tasks that can be done in the computer by students in groups. A case study, for example, can be a great activity for students. A computer program can be used for this matter given that it presents a case to be studied by students, allows them to input all the processed information, permits them to create a newsletter by a word publisher, and engages them into interactive reciprocation of feedback from one group to another . Through this constructive ICT activity that presents a real life-like assignment, the students become more active individuals who are self-aware of the learning process. 

 Senator Murray describes her vision 

for the future of learning where all students 

have access to technology that provides 

a customized, connected, and engaging learning experience.

Let’s go ICT!