Delphi Center
2011
Understanding the Fundamental Components of a Learning-centered Course and Syllabus: An Annotated Bibliography
Blumberg, Phyllis. Developing learning-centered teaching: A practical guide for faculty.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009.
Based on the “five key changes to practice” identified by Maryellen Weimer in“Learner-Centered Teaching,” Blumberg’s handbook offers worksheets and assessments for instructors who want to design (or redesign) a course to meet the goals for learning-centered instruction. The book features a complex rubric to help instructors implement the “five key changes.”
Botchwey, N. D., Hobson, S. E., Dannenberg, A. L., Mumford, K. G., Contant, C. K., McMillan, T. E., & ... Winkle, C. (2009). A model curriculum for a course on the built environment and public health: Training for an interdisciplinary workforce. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36(2), S63-S71. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2008.10.003
The authors propose a model curriculum for an interdisciplinary program that brings together faculty and students from public health and planning who will be better able to work together to find ways to reduce chronic diseases and increased health risks associated with the built environment and community-level factors. Intended to help professionals interact effectively with colleagues from other fields, these courses take an active learning-centered approach to course design. Assignments meant to foster critical thinking among students include in-class debates and field-based data-collection. Students submit a cumulative learning portfolio.
Creative ideas for enhancing learning on exams. (2004). Teaching Professor, 18(2), 2. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Professor Laura Deeter tried to increase students’ learning experience and decrease their anxiety at taking exams in her course on introductory plant identification. Deeter used class time to have students identify core concepts and develop questions to assess their understanding of those concepts. She then used some of the student-generated questions on the actual exam. She also gave students a “second-chance” by allowing them to write down questions they could not fully answer on the exam, do outside research after the exam, and resubmit their revised answers by the next class session for half credit. She also gave an exam on the first day of class, scored and discussed the exam but didn’t return it. At the end of the course, she gave the same exam and returned it, graded, along with the first-day efforts, so that students had evidence of how much they had learned during the course.
Designing a learning-centered syllabus. Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Delaware, Newark, Del. Retrieved from
This university website offers practice advice for developing a learning-centered syllabus and articles on the learning-centered approach and problem-based learning. Particularly useful are examples from across the curriculum of syllabi (and accompanying “problems”) for problem-based learning.
Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fink offers strategies for redesigning courses to increase student learning beyond the level of “understand and remember.” The author’s model of integrated course design includes “new” forms of teaching including role-playing, debate, case studies, small group work, problem-based and service learning.
O’Brien, J. G., Millis, B. J.,& Cohen, M. W. (2008). The course syllabus: A learning-centered approach. 2d ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Committed to research-based teaching and aware of common characteristics of today’s “Millennial Generation, the authors of this book provide advice and information for designing a learning-centered syllabus within a course-management system (including some references to Blackboard). The “syllabus” developed out of this useful book amounts to a course manual aimed at helping students take more responsibility for their own learning, function better when working in groups, make better use of technology, and participate more effectively and appropriately in a face-to-face or on-line course.
Straits, W. (2007). "She's teaching me": Teaching with care in a large lecture course. College Teaching, 55(4), 170-175. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
The importance of caring for students is deemed important in teaching children but largely ignored at the college level. Focusing on undergraduate education, Straits distinguishes between “learning centered” and “learner centered” approaches. Learner center education includes inviting questions and discussion from students, being available to and respectful of students, and in general “caring” about students. Learning centered education, on the other hand, relies on various teaching strategies and emphasizes higher-level thinking skills. Straits argues that both components, including “caring for students,” are important for effective teaching.
Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Weimer, an experienced teacher, describes the changes she implemented to shift from a traditional classroom to a learning-centered approach. She identifies five main areas for change: the function of content, the role of theinstructor, responsibility for learning, the purposes and processes of assessment, and the balance of power.