Defining Learner-Centered Design of Computing Education: What I did on my sabbatical

My planned activity during my sabbatical was to revise my 2015 book “Learner-Centered Design of Computing Education.” One of the fixes I wanted to make was a better definition of what “learner-centered design” was. In the new edition, I wrote some formal defining stuff, and then I wrote the below — an extended metaphor to make distinctions between different kinds of “centering” in education. I’m sharing that section here (in its pre-reviewed and pre-edited state). It comes right after defining what the Zone of Proximal Development is and what student performance means.

There are many different kinds of teaching activity that can help a student reach a more sophisticated level of performance. A teacher can model successful performance. The teacher can give feedback on the student’s performance. The teacher can coach or guide a student while attempting a task. They can set expectations in the class which create a social context for success. They can use teaching methods that have a proven research record in promoting engagement and student performance.

Figure 1: A metaphor for teaching contrasting learner-centered and standards-centered

Consider teaching from the top or bottom of the ZPD. Here is a metaphor to make distinctions between two kinds of support in order to create a geography of teaching. Imagine the ZPD as a climbing wall (Figure 1). The student is at the bottom and wants to reach the top. Depicted as grayscale images in this figure, here are two ways a teacher might support the student in scaling this wall:

• The supporter at the bottom can help the student get started, giving them a “boost” or “leg up.”
• The supporter at the top can reach down, and get them the rest of the way to the top of the wall.

The supporter at the bottom is more flexible than the one at the top. She can move to where the student is actually standing. She can help the student scale different parts of the wall or even reach different goals along the wall. She can bend even further if the student is shorter.

But a disadvantage for the supporter at the bottom is that she cannot be absolutely sure that the learner reaches the top. She can meet the student where they are when they first face the wall. She can help them get started on whatever path they choose on the wall.

The supporter at the top can help students who are almost at the top of the wall. He can be sure that students actually reach the learning objective. When he is reaching down, he is in a fixed position. He can help the student reach the objective where he is at, the level that he has already achieved. He can also be sure when a student does not reach this standard – he can see the students who fall, or who do not make it to his level. He is in a better position to decide whether the student is going to achieve the desired objectives.

The supporter at the bottom is more learner-centered. The supporter at the top is more standards-centered. Neither supporter is particularly strong at helping the student in the middle, when the student is challenged to persist, to stay engaged, and to maintain motivation. If the student is not particularly interested in achieving the top of the wall, they are satisfied making it part-way to the objective, then the learner-centered teacher has the most to offer.

Learner-centered teaching is concerned with helping students where they are, helping them to get started, and getting them engaged and motivated to tackle the mid-part. Low enrollment and high withdrawal or failure rates (sometimes called WDF rates) are issues that learner-centered teaching addresses. Learner-centered teaching also addresses issues of diversity, with the goal that all kinds of students can succeed in the class — even those who think that they cannot succeed or do not have the prior background to succeed.

Standards-centered teaching is concerned about making sure that students have what they need to go on, in their studies or in their career. Students who fail the second class because they did not learn enough in the first class is an issue for standards-centered teaching. Talking to industry partners about the desired out- comes is standards-centered. Concern about what graduates can do and achieve is a standards-centered teaching issue.

(I’m skipping some text here about teacher-centered, classroom-centered, and other forms of structuring education.)

I am splitting hairs a bit between child-centered and learner-centered. Learner-centered also starts from the students’ interests and considers the learner’s needs, and is very much about student construction of knowledge in their own minds, since that is how learning takes place. As described in Chapter 2, the knowledge to be learned in learner-centered education is defined by the community of practice. That is external to the learner.

Within the metaphor, I am describing three kinds of teaching: Learner-centered (supporter at the bottom), standards-centered (supporter at the top), and maintaining motivation and engagement (in the middle). Of course, teachers and students have to address all these issues, but it is sometimes useful to focus on one part. Consider this metaphor: If you have heart problems, it is important to go to a cardiovascular specialist. That does not mean that you do not need to care about skeleton, digestion, and skin; you need all of those, but sometimes you can address critical issues or fix problems by specializing. I focus on the first one because it is the most important. I like the way my colleagues Amy Bruckman and Betsy diSalvo put it

Computer science is not that difficult, but wanting to learn it is.