What I'm learning through this process is that the first rule of "Student-Centered" learning on anything, is "student voice." It requires teachers to set aside time in their learning plans to accommodate for students to have time and safe space to give input where they feel their opinions and thoughts are valued and validated.

One of the student-centered approaches to physical environment in the classroom I try to emulate comes from Daily 5 and a student work space conducive for Reader's and Writer's Workshop, which should address both ownership and independence. (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001)

The key areas include:

I would start by asking, "if you can design our classroom to best fit your learning, what would you want?" 

Setting up flexible seating and arranging physical seating that implies choice is validated is important, but I think the most physical element that's actually hard for teachers to grasp and embrace is time. 

Baggett, A. (2016). The invent to learn guide to: Making in the K-3 classroom: Why, how, and wow! Constructing Modern Knowledge Press. 

Bousher, G., & Moser, J. (2012).  “Classroom Design.” TheDailyCAFE.com. The Daily CAFE, 2012. Web.
3 March 2023.

Brookhart, S. M. (2016). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. ASCD.
Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers, grades 3-6: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Heinemann. 

Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom (1st ed.). Constructing modern knowledge press. 

Moser, J. (2014). Daily 5 - fostering literacy independence in the elementary grades. Stenhouse Publishers. 

I honestly think this Padlet activity is a good example of "student-centered approach that require collaboration."

It facilitates a culmulation of a cohort of students collaborating on a single subject and assembling a variety of responses based on individual research and input.

What I feel our group is learning through this process now is:
- Time Management that is inclusive of members and their personal time
- setting tasks up that are reasonable for others to accomplish
- adjusting and modifying expectations for ourselves and others as we go
- adjusting goals as necessary
- being flexible and not being picky about how the tasks are set about as long as they're being done.

Things that generally require others in a group to respond to others' work is incumbent upon the members in the cohort to communicate, collaborate and think critically about their own and each others' work. We had to creatively come up with solutions to problems together as well.

The low-tech (or cheap / "in-person") version of this that I actually use in my classroom is big butcher-board paper and color-coded sticky notes. 
Butcher Paper: Big theme/ central question/driving question. 
Pink sticky notes: students respond to others with emotion ("This makes me feel..." "I feel the same/opposite way because...")
Yellow sticky notes: students respond with suggestions or recommendations
Green sticky notes: facts or references for students to provide where others can look for information  (often referred to as the "How do you know?" notes)

I usually set aside ONE single lesson to create a rubric of assessment with the students.

For example, if the unit was on "persuasive writing" I'd generally ask students to do a speech and have the students help me organize categories and scales of "What does a good speech look like?"

Over the course of doing this in Grade Three multiple times over the years, I've learned that:
1. I can generally guide the kids to focus on 3 characteristics or categories of public speaking:
  a. eye contact or audience engagement
  b. body language
  c. voice level
2. Students are generally good at "scales" when given practice of ranking performance on a 1 to 4 scale.
3. If I skip this process of letting the kids "design" this rubric, the general writing quality of the speeches will remain unaffected, however, the "taking ownership" over their performance and mainly their attitude--shifts. So although "excited about a project and actually care about what I have to say in class" is not a quality of student I can evaluate on a report card, I've found it much easier to let them come to a decision about "how I know I'm doing well in this class" on big projects.

I also do "student says" and "teacher says" evaluations on almost every major homework assignment--I ask the students to check off or highlight an assignment rubric and if I look over the rubric and highlight an area where we are in disagreement, usually the student takes away areas of improvement and does better in the next assignment.

However, in his book Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom (1st edition), constructivist advocate and educator Gary Stager states that Rubrics and assessment are  often counterproductive to the learning process, as the scale fo grading student work skews the end result of something to just "being done with the project" as opposed to "what have I learned in this process?" It's worthwhile exploring that if "Student-Centered Learning" is valued, then so should the end product, even if incomplete or not quite perfectly adhered to attain the goal.

References:
Baggett, A. (2016). The invent to learn guide to: Making in the K-3 classroom: Why, how, and wow! Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.
Brookhart, S. M. (2016). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. ASCD.
Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom (1st ed.). Constructing modern knowledge press. 

The whole idea of "Student-Centered Learning" is that students generate their own learning. In this, the teacher's role is to facilitate the learning towards a goal, rather than metaphorically speaking, guiding the horse to the water.

I think in this case and considering "differentiation," I wonder if the "process" for learning should remain the same if it's a child that have needs for differentiation or special needs?

Constructivism is a theory of learning that is closely associated with student-centered or inquiry-based learning, and it advocates on the learner model that the learner gets center stage. Constructionism is a theory of teaching that supports students in constructing their own learning, or constructivism practices as a means of the teacher standing in the role of allowing the learning to happen. (Martinez & Stager, 2013)

In my mind, differentiation is identified as a need predicting the outcomes on a particular assessment--"I know this child will not be able to meet the success criteria designated on this rubric--what can be modified to support and encourage the learning outcome?" So for example, I know that my ADHD student in my English class is inevitably going to fail most if not all assessment tasks because he cannot focus long enough to construct sentences in writing. However, if I was to assess him on his ability to understand the task, him having the freedom to choose a way to project his ideas is a better way to encourage the learning.

Resource:
Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom (1st ed.). Constructing modern knowledge press.
Sudderth, A. (2022, December 1). What is student centered learning and why is it important? Rethink Together. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://xqsuperschool.org/rethinktogether/what-is-student-centered-learning/ 

Although I no longer teach Physical Education classes to my students, I feel that there are plenty of opportunities to allow for physical movement as a central element.

In student-centered learning environments, teachers use their roles as coaches and moderators rather than instructors. So in the case of applying physical movement, I wonder if techniques I use such as "ask three before me" is considered a part of this? Often-times if students have a question during "independent work time," especially during Daily 5 or Guided Reading time in class, I will often encourage students to "ask 3 people before you come to me for a question while I'm working with a group that is not yours." If the problem or question still is not resolved, the students then go to the back of the room and put up a sticky note. They can remain anonymous if they like, but the idea behind it is that they walk around the classroom to get the answers they are looking for, but not use that as an excuse to not do their work.

I have to admit that this was harder to implement and embrace, as I had trust issues with students not being disciplined enough to make sure they are back on the focus work they need to be doing. Now, I'm quite comfortable coaching them towards this goal of being able to "walk around when I need something (specifically that aides in my learning at this particular moment), but come back quickly and maintain focus on the work."

Reference:
Breisacher, J. (2019, June 27). Easy student-centered physical education for 21st century students. Student Centered Learning. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://www.studentcenteredworld.com/student-centered-physical-education/ 

My personal favorite way to incorporate "student-centered" learning techniques to reading is the Reader's Workshop. I try to incorporate it in my Daily 5 routines and children really like the "choice and voice" aspect of it. It's a spin and adaptation on traditional "literature carasouls" of stations and I love using this in my classroom. When you work at a school that believes in this system and you get adaquet training for it and the whole school has total buy-in on building a culture of student-focused Reading programs, it's awesome.

One of the best ways I've learned to foster love for literacy is to have books available. Student's "Voice and Choice" is often not taken seriously enough and all the professional literacy coaches advocate for a literacy-minded environment that encourages that independence and agency. (Calkins, 2001)

First, the "Daily 5" incorporates 10 to 15 minutes of "focused time for literacy" in each of these activities (I don't use all of them, but listing possibilities here):

- Read to Self (what might be traditionally SSR or Sustained Silent Reading)
- Read to Others (Shared Reading)
- Listen to Reading (headphones required)
- Work on Writing (writing about reading - can be open ended and broad or a culmination of working on a free writing topic)
- Word Work (usually a station for working on vocabulary or looking up meaning in a dictionary)
- Teacher Table (Guided Reading, Small Group center, usually a "strategy group", where the teacher has a specific learning goal or mini-lesson in mind for the readers at the table)

Most "literacy carousels" like these have children moving from station to station to provide for short breaks and movement. In most of my classes, I've modified it so that the activity moves to where ever the children are sitting (in tables -- they just switch the activity they are doing) instead of losing time in transition.

It's a lot of work at the beginning to set up routines and expectations and drilling those routines over and over again, but once that's gotten smooth, there's actually more that the students are getting out of the time they spend interacting with literature in this environment.

Resources 

Bousher, G., & Moser, J. (2012). Daily 5. Daily 5 | TheDailyCAFE.com. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://www.thedailycafe.com/daily-5 

Burkins, J. M., & Yaris, K. (2016). Who's doing the work?: How to say less so your readers can do more. Stenhouse Publishers. 

Calkins, L. (2001). The Art of Teaching Reading. Longman. 

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers, grades 3-6: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Heinemann. 

Moser, J. (2014). Daily 5 - fostering literacy independence in the elementary grades. Stenhouse Publishers. 

One student centered approach I could be taking advantage of is allowing to students to "own" their environment by involving them in this decorating process. I could make the environment more supportive by giving them a say in how the classroom look, depending on what allowances school policy gives me.

Alber, R. (2015, August 17). How student centered is your classroom? Edutopia. Retrieved February 27, 2023, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-student-centered-your-classroom-rebecca-alber 

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/assessment-create-student-centered-learning-andrew-miller

In addition, I like how Farnsworth discusses “gamifying” an environment to make it more student centered. This is a very motivating factor for students when using technology. If we gamify something, students with different language abilities will be able to access more through being physically active with the content and exposure to it in different mediums.

In my class, I like to make sure the desks/tables are arranged in a way that allows students to easily collaborate and work together. They are often facing each other which I have found encourages them to collaborate more efficiently. For the learning tool kit, I think it would be useful to have them record themselves for short presentations, readings, or thoughts to analyze their own progress.

References:

Farnsworth, Shaelynn. “4 EdTech Ways to Differentiate in a Student-Centered Classroom.” Shaelynn Farnsworth, 15 Aug. 2018, shaelynnfarnsworth.com/2018/02/05/4-edtech-ways-to-differentiate-in-a-student-centered-classroom.

 

In my class, student centered assessment looks like speaking on a topic, producing a creative multimodal writing tasks, and using our journals to go back and fix our old mistakes, students leaving sticky noted reviews/notes/suggestions on another one’s work.

I feel that a process portfolio would be a great addition to my classroom.


Resources:

Green, Christa. “Student-Centered Learning: In Principle and in Practice | Michigan Virtual.” Michigan Virtual, 31 Mar. 2022, michiganvirtual.org/research/publications/student-centered-learning-in-principle-and-in-practice.

Wilkinson, Jennifer. “3 Authentic Multimodal Projects for Young Writers.” Edutopia, 13 Apr. 2022, www.edutopia.org/article/3-authentic-multimodal-projects-young-writers.