Faculty’s uses of technology that enhance student-centered learning

Introduction

Student-centered learning

The term ‘student-centered learning’ was coined by the humanist psychologist Carl Rogers to refer to active learning, integrating self-paced learning and/or cooperative group situations that hold the students accountable for their own learning growth. The term was kindled with Rogers’ therapist hypothesis that ‘the individual has a sufficient capacity to deal constructively with all those aspects of his life which can potentially come into conscious awareness.’ (Rogers, 1951, p. 24). The therapist works with the client in a non-directive role to obtain the therapy from the client’s own resources. This client-centered approach applied to areas outside of therapy including education. In education, Rogers proposed the ‘student-centered teaching’ (Rogers, 1951, p. 388) hypothesis as ‘we cannot teach another person directly; we can only facilitate his learning’ (Rogers, 1951, p. 389) and ‘a person learns significantly only those things which he perceives as being involved in the maintenance of, or enhancement of, the structure of the self’. (Rogers, 1951, p. 389) These suggestions for student-centered teaching echo Dewey’s call for the needs and interests of the student to be viewed as a starting point for education and the shifting of the teacher’s role from authority to facilitator. In this paper, the focus will be on the concepts and practice of student-centered learning in the higher education discourses.

Technology-enhanced student-centered learning environments

Early evidence of technology-enhanced environment that encourage student-centered learning includes the employment of computer technologies that enables learners to maneuver complex concepts in tangible, concrete ways (Hannafin & Land, 1997). In doing so, the processes and the need to discover, predict, test, reformulate, and construct personally-relevant meaning are emphasized (Edwards, 1995). Interactive multimedia environments provide rich databases, tools, and resources to support self-directed inquiry-based learning, information seeking and retrieving, as well as critical thinking and decision making (Land & Hannafin, 1996).

Computer Classrooms at Kremen School

The pervasion of technology in every aspect of life and the dramatic increase of technology uses in schools resonates in high demand for teacher training to use and model technology in the classroom. The Kremen School of Education at Fresno State responded to this challenge and opportunity by implementing required and elective courses about application of technology in the classroom in the credential program for teachers of multiple and single subjects. Principles and elements of course design has been focusing on project-based learning to develop the 21st century skill set. The design of the computer classrooms at Kremen school facilitate and leverage student-centered, project-based and collaborative learning. Each of the three computer classrooms is equipped with six Epson interactive projectors located around the room and dedicated to pods with six computers each. The 30 IMacs are evenly distributed on five tables and there are five Apple TVs that allow minoring from each computer in the room. Students can share their desktop or any iOS device with any of the project around the room. Since Airplay permits projections and sounds sharing, teacher and students can share video and audio projects with the class. Since the students are in charge of learning and the teacher is a facilitator, there is no need for a teaching desk in front of the room. Instead, there's a movable table with casters and a bracket for an iPad that allows the instructor to move around, share resources and application, and facilitate the students’ works. The controller at the station facilities management and sharing of the projectors, flat display, and sound. The wall controllers allow each pod to select Airplay when a student needs to display their desktop on any of the screen in the room. This feature makes the room truly student-centered. The students manage the technology to share, collaborate, and communicates with their peers and instructor (Benavides, 2013).

Purpose of this study

There are various requests for use of these computer classrooms from faculty who teach courses at Kremen School and faculty from different colleges on campus. The classrooms are also open for reservations for youth learning campaigns, teacher training and other community-based learning workshops and activities. Faculty at Kremen School sign up to use the computer classrooms prior to the starting of the semester upon personal interests and by the technological requirements of the courses they teach. The classrooms are scheduled on a weekly basis for 3-4 hours for technology courses that are mandatory to use these computer classrooms and on the weekend for teacher training and other community-based learning workshops. This study is aimed to explore the computer classroom uses by faculty at Kremen School that facilitates student-centered learning and what are the possible factors contributing to the user effectiveness.

Methodology

For this study, the following research questions will be asked:

• What are the faculty’s motives and expectations to sign up for the classroom use in Kremen School?
• What are the faculty user experience of the computer classrooms?
• How are the uses varied by 1) the teaching subjects, 2) the amount of technology uses, 3) the faculty’s technology skill levels? (i.e. did the faculty have DISCOVERe training before and if so, how did that affect their computer classroom use?), and 4) their effort/investment/willingness to engage their students using technology.

A mixed method will be used for the study that includes 1) a survey questionnaire constructed to 20 faculty members at Fresno State to address their a) motives and expectations, b) user experience, and c) factors affecting computer classroom uses and 2) a focus group interview with about five voluntary Kremen School faculty to provide in-depth insights and perspectives on their technology user experience with the computer classrooms. The survey questionnaire will be sent out to all faculty who use the computer classrooms and will serve as the quantitative part of the data collection. Data on the focus group will serve as qualitative part.    

Tentative timeline and outcomes

The focus of the first year will be on exploring the various computer classroom uses by faculty at Kremen School that facilitates student-centered learning and possible factors contributing to the effectiveness of the computer classroom uses as mentioned in the last research question. Survey data will be collected by the end of fall 2017 and the focus group will be done immediately after that and is expected to take one month. Data analysis will commence after the data collection process is finished. Should this project continue, the focus of the second year will be on the students’ perceptions on the faculty’s uses of the computer classrooms. The goal is to explore how the faculty’s effort to facilitate student-centered learning is matching with the students’ perceptions and satisfactions with such efforts, what can be the causes for the mismatches if there are any and what are the possible solutions.

Expected findings of this project include faculty’s various experiences of technology uses in the computer classrooms determined by the subjects they teach, their user knowledge of technology features in the classroom, their technological background and/or trained skills, and the student population with diverse levels of technology skills and competences. The findings will serve as a source of reference for diversity among faculty members in terms of their motivations, skills, user readiness, and the interaction of any or a combination of these above factors with the pool of students they have. These insights will directly benefit curriculum and teaching by informing the training of technological and pedagogical use of the computer classrooms for Kremen faculty. 

References

Edwards, L.D. (1995). The design and analysis of a mathematical microworld. Journal of

Educational Computing Research 12(1), 77–94.

Hannafin, M. J., & Land, S. M. (1997). The foundations and assumptions of technology-enhanced    student-centered learning environments. Instructional science, 25(3), 167-202.

Land, S.M., &Hannafin, M.J. (1996). A conceptual framework for the development of theories in action with open-learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 44(3), 37–53.

Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered Therapy: Its current practice, implications, and theory, with chapters. Houghton Mifflin.