TPC-Journal-V5-Issue3

379 Randall M. Moate, NCC, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas-Tyler. Jane A. Cox, NCC, is an Associate Professor at Kent State University. Correspondence may be addressed to Randall M. Moate, Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of Texas-Tyler, 3900 University Blvd., Tyler, TX 75707, randallmoate@gmail.com. Randall M. Moate, Jane A. Cox Learner-Centered Pedagogy: Considerations for Application in a Didactic Course A learner-centered teaching approach is well known in higher education but has not been fully addressed within counselor education. Instructors who adopt this approach value a collaborative approach to teaching and learning, one that honors students’ wisdom and contributions. Teachers create a learning environment encouraging students to actively engage in and take ownership of their learning experiences, an environment inspiring students to think deeply about how they might apply what they are learning to their future practice. It may be particularly challenging for counselor educators to incorporate learner-centered teaching strategies into didactic courses that are traditionally heavy in content versus smaller experiential courses such as practica and internships. In this article, learner-centered teaching is described, and a case study demonstrates how a learner-centered approach may be applied to a traditionally didactic counseling course. Keywords: pedagogy, teaching, learner-centered, counselor education, didactic For the past decade, there has been a call in higher education for a shift from teacher-centered methods of instruction to learner-centered pedagogy (Brown, 2003; Crick & McCombs, 2006; Harris & Cullen, 2008). Educators who use a learner-centered model view learning as nonlinear, multidimensional and a phenomenon that occurs relationally within a social context (Cornelius- White, 2007). Their use of learner-centered pedagogy favors a democratic approach to teaching that shifts the instructor from the center of the learning environment to a more peripheral position. This shift is achieved by increasing students’ opportunities to actively participate in the classroom and engage in self-directed learning outside the classroom, as well as providing forums through which they can share learned information with peers (Wright, 2011). Educators who use learner-centered pedagogy favor differentiated modalities to facilitate learning, in contrast to instructors who use teacher-centered models of teaching that rely on lecture as the primary means of instruction. While learner-centered literature is well known within the domain of higher education, as of yet it has not been thoroughly addressed within the scope of counselor education. Scholars and researchers in counselor education have focused on what content should be included in curricula (Granello, 2000) or specific teaching techniques used in class (May, 2004; Shepard & Brew, 2005; Stinchfield, 2006), rather than comprehensive approaches toward teaching that are helpful for engaging student learning. Yet several pedagogies are present in the counselor education literature such as contextual teaching (Granello, 2000), constructivist pedagogy (Nelson & Neufeldt, 1998), experiential teaching approaches (Grant, 2006), and transparent counseling pedagogy (Dollarhide, Smith, & Lemberger, 2007). These authors have described alternative and innovative methods for engaging student learners. The Professional Counselor Volume 5, Issue 3, Pages 379–389 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2015 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi:10.15241/rmm.5.3.379