When I started teaching years ago, my job was to give information to students, and their job was to pay attention. I don’t see it this way anymore. Instead, I embrace an approach called learner-centered teaching. Maryellen Weimer, arguably the most respected leader of this movement, says in this book that the teacher’s job is to support learning, rather than to direct it; to promote the development of critical thinking skills, rather than the capacity for memorization. This approach encourages reflection, discovery, responsibility. Weimer writes, “The goal of learner-centered teaching is the development of autonomous, self-directed, and self-regulated learners.” (10)
Maryellen Weimer, Learner-Centered Teaching, Second Edition (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint, 2013), 76.