For the past 100 years, the prominent instructional model for all public
education in the United States has been teacher/content centered with the intent of
covering a discrete body of knowledge in a given period of time. As the end of the
twentieth century approaches, natural, social, political, and economic forces are
influencing community college instructors to transition from content centered
instruction to a student centered approach to teaching and learning as part of the
national education reform agenda.
The purpose of this study was to document, through a case study, the
experience of one community college instructor as she attempted to transition from
a traditional content focused teaching model to an outcome-based/learner centered
model. A literature survey provides a review of education reform as it relates to
instructors in a community college. A learner centered training model from industry,
is applied as a framework for outcome-based/learner centered instruction in
community colleges. Participant observation, surveys, and interviews were the methods used to
collect data. Six hypotheses were generated from the study:
1. Learner centered/outcome-based teaching is more complex and takes
greater skill in basic teaching techniques than teaching in a traditional content
framework.
2. An instructor whose teaching experience has been exclusively content
focused may find it difficult to create authentic learning tasks.
3. Collegial influence is a major factor affecting the ability of one
instructor to change instructional practices.
4. A single instructor's ability to change instructional practice in one
course is limited by the way the program curriculum is designed.
5. Learning is enhanced by human relationships that foster trust and
reflective practice.
6. Teaching and learning is complex and multifaceted in nature: it is not
a logical linear process. / Graduation date: 1996
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/34571 |
| Date | 05 January 1996 |
| Creators | Stevens, Malia L. |
| Contributors | Stiehl, Ruth E. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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