Soumitri Varadarajan & Helen McLean
Why even think about a Learner Centered pedagogy
Current context of ‘the world’: complexity, chaos requires independent, active learners
The tensions and dichotomies of design education: master/apprentice, prescriptive/creative, content, technical product/awareness of own processes, teacher centred/fails to support learners
Making a mind shift to Learner Centered
Acknowledging the presence of emotional and personal experiences of learning
Positioning the learner at the centre: Harnessing the personal needs, interests, capabilities of learners to lead the rhythms of learning
Power and trust in learning centred pedagogy
Some key characteristics of Learner Centered
Nurturing independence: personal relevance of learning, developing standards, engaging and comparing with others through public presentation/review
Spiking activism, the ‘other’ and the desire to make a difference as life-long learners/practitioners
The book is designed to give the teacher in design (and the creative arts) access to concepts, practices and literature in LC teaching and theory. While a lot of texts in learner centered education tend to be focused upon school teaching practices, those that are focused upon higher education teaching do not deal with the particular circumstances of teaching within creative practice disciplines. Moreover as class sizes within creative practice contexts are small, often in the region of 10 to 20 students for each teacher, teacher student relationships can be different to that in large class sizes. While teachers do know students well, and by name in creative practice teaching situations, and often have a jokey relationship with students, it is often within a tacitly acknowledged power relationship. Students rely upon the approval of the teacher to do well academically. Learner centered theory and practices in focussing upon the journey of the learner have much to offer to the teacher within creative practice education keen to develop a critical approach to their pedagogy