Erasmus+ - Student-centered Classroom: Teachers as Promoters of Active Learning!

The main purpose of this report is to describe the experience of participating in this course and consider its effectiveness. It will also describe the positive aspects about the experience with the course and the course provider.

Course introduction and first exchanges.

To begin with, the participants were given a lot of information via email prior to the course such as the week’s timetable as well as the objectives of the course. That information helped me prepare and address some of the topics that would be covered during the course. The course was well structured in order to include as many types of student-centered activities and lessons as possible.

During the first day, we shared icebreaker activities and presentations on our respective countries or cities. The aim of those presentations was to get to know each other better and for each and everyone of us to share about a cultural aspect of our city or country. During the rest of the course, we participated in discussions, role-plays, simulating real-life communicative situations, case-studying, etc. We spoke about motivation, project-based learning, constructive feedback, online platforms, deductive vs inductive approach and gamification.

The adaptability of the teacher was impeccable. I was delighted by the fact that the course itself was given based on a student-centered approach. We participated, we listened to each other and we assessed each other. Thankfully, we now have new colleagues around Europe to talk to and to share new tools or new teaching approaches with. The course provider also took the teachers on a tour of the city and a cultural activity after the end of the course which was also lovely. We had the opportunity to spend time together outside the school.

A cultural experience based on sharing

One of the benefits of attending this course is how much we have all shared with each other. I genuinely feel that sharing will enrich everyone with more knowledge. Teachers shared, not only about their teaching experience but also about their cultural and educational background which helped us all to understand their situations, opinions and the tools they work with.This facilitates incorporating what we have learnt from each other to our own classes. We exchanged reports, rubrics, applications and marking schemes. It was a reciprocal relationship between us all. Although from different places, we all share a passion for teaching and a desire to improve and to develop our skills as teachers. It was also really interesting to discover how different public and private systems, schools and academies, function in other countries.

In my opinion, from the beginning there was a good merger between us and the aura was really positive. We have been given the tools and the competences to adapt everything to our own teaching style.

Given the current circumstances and the obstacles that the course provider faced, I believe that they have achieved tremendously. Although there were some slight changes to our timetable, the sessions were taught with the utmost professionalism. It is a positive, extraordinary, encouraging and empowering encounter that I would love to be given the opportunity to attend an Erasmus course again.

Why use student centered learning

Even though some of us were already familiar with the student-centered approach, it was a really inspiring course. Student-centered learning gives the student the opportunity to be more involved in his education. This approach has many benefits. It is adapted to the student’s needs, and is a long-term way of learning. Connecting ideas, giving autonomy and responsibility to our students. This course taught me that the process of learning should be fun and in my case, it has become one of my goals as a teacher: help students see language learning as a process to enjoy and not just a destination to reach.

In addition, we have been given the tools to transform our classes in a student-centered classroom. It may present some difficulties and it can create a lot of work for the teacher at the beginning but in the end, I believe that managing to achieve a student-centered classroom facilitates the teacher’s role as it becomes easier to find the intrinsic motivation that can help drive the class forward.

Different ways of involving the learner

As a teacher, I realized that you have more flexibility in order to tailor your classes to the students’ needs. I learned about the possibility of giving the option to your students to choose between two or three different topics to help them feel more in control and more motivated. Motivation is key. During the course, we have learnt that cultivating curiosity, having fun and fomenting intrinsic motivation keeps the student motivated.

One important thing we discussed was giving the students more responsibilities regarding their grades. Grading a student in a traditional classroom and grading a student in a student-centered classroom are two very different things. There is room to give the students a role in self-assessment for them to be able to have feedback from the teacher but also create their own feedback on the positive and the negative. This will involve the students further in the learning process and make them take ownership of their learning objectives.

Giving feedback was definitely one of the topics that I was more interested in and in which I have gained more knowledge. There are different types of feedback, different levels, there is a process to follow. Teachers should offer support to the students but we also need to give effective feedback. We want students to stay motivated so we need to be kind, be specific and establish achievable goals.

Apps and teaching platforms

Our profession is going through a digital revolution which has been accelerated by the pandemic. This course also represented an opportunity for teachers from different backgrounds to share a range of platforms and applications to use in blended learning, in the classroom and online teaching. We could divide those into two types of tools: learning tools such as educational games and apps for students and teaching tools which help us create material.

Some of the learning tools are really interesting. ClassDojo is an educational website where you can create a positive culture in class with tasks for your students. The student can create an avatar and then the teacher can share activities or results with the parents.

Baamboozle is an effective online teaching tool where you have thousands of options and games to make your students more engaged. If you create an account you can amplificate your options even more. Kahoot is fascinating, you will need your students to have a mobile phone to use it, so it is recommendable for adults. You can find a lot of quizzes and you can create them as well. Wordwall is another website with games. In addition, you can use the same grammar point with different games, which is really good if you want to revise material during the whole course.

Among the other types of tools, we can find Coggle which is a platform to create mind maps that you can use in a collaborative way so your students can work on projects or even homework together. We used it during the course to create a mind map of everything we did. Menti is another brilliant tool to create interactive presentations. You can add questions, polls, quizzes, slides, images and gifs. And you can get your students’ answers in real time. Finally, we also learned about Edpuzzle, a website on which you can upload any video from Youtube and create questions about it. What’s more, your students need to watch the entire video as the tool prevents them from skipping forward.

Marta Brito

Erasmus+ info