Creating A Learner Led Environment

One big idea to help you on the journey towards reimagining education as human flourishing is to shift the learning environment from “Subject Centered” to “Learner Led” as a means of unleashing student voice, creativity, passion, purpose, engagement, enthusiasm, scholarship, inquiry, and meaning

Subject Centered Classrooms

In a subject centered classroom, the teacher teaches the subject to students.

I teach math / English / science to students

In this traditional approach, the students are “passive receptacles” waiting for the teacher to “fill their empty buckets” with knowledge

The teacher is the one with the knowledge and the students must take that knowledge and return it back in its original form (typically as a quiz, worksheet, or test)

In a Subject Centered classroom, the subject is king, with students having to yield authority to the supremacy of the subject

In fact, the only reason for the student to be in the room at all is to give deference to the subject

They must pass a test created by someone they will never most likely see

In this environment, teachers have all the power, authority, voice, and control, yielding very little to students (and yet, in Subject Centered classrooms, even teachers can feel powerless when compared to the supremacy of “AP Literature”)

Student Centered Classrooms

In a student centered classroom, teachers teach students the subject

“I teach students math, science, history, Spanish, Art

This is a great first step away from the power dynamic of the teacher having the locus of control to placing the emphasis on the students and their learning

Though the teacher is still the subject of the sentence, this small shift in language gives the students more of the spotlight, inviting their voice, interests, curiosity, and agency into the learning

In this model, teachers invite students not just to learn about science…but to become scientists

To become authors, historians, researchers, engineers, poets, chemists, and the like

It welcomes student agency through projects, collaboration, design thinking, presentations and more

And, while this shift from subject centered to student centered is incredibly important, I believe there are two more moves to be made to fully unleash the flourishing of students and teachers in the learning environment

Learner Centered Classrooms

In a Learner Centered model, the language shifts from “I” to “We”

Instead of saying “I teach Shakespeare to students” or even “I teach students Shakespeare”

Learner Centered educators say “We are Shakespearian actors learning about and from the Bard in performance”

Instead of saying “I teach Geometry to students” or even “I teach students Geometry”

Learner Centered educators say “We are mathematicians inspired by Geometry to create beautifully functional spaces”

In the learner centered classroom, everyone learns from everyone!

The “teacher” is invited into the learning alongside the “students”

The teacher becomes another learner, eager to see what the students bring to the day

In many cases, the very configuration of the room changes, moving from desks and rows to circles, Socratic seminars, Harkness tables, and the like

In the Learner Centered model, the teacher routinely says “I never thought of that before!” as she experiences her own a ha moments alongside the student

In Learner Centered classrooms, there is an expectation that everyone contributes to the learning of all

It is understood that the smartest person in the room…is the room

The “students” become “experts” in their own mini fields of study and educate everyone

By their very nature, Learner Centered classrooms invite curiosity, exploration, discovery, enthusiasm, cooperation, and a bit of the creative chaos so vital to the iterative process

In a Learner Centered environment, faculty asks students what courses they want to take

What math they want to study

What science they want to pursue

What literature they want to engage

What history they want to explore

This will certainly mean the “traditional” disciplines may not be taught for

-instead of Algebra II, students may choose to learn Statistics or Finance

-instead of Survey of British Literature, students may choose to study Russian literature or literature that promotes the female voice

-instead of Biology, students may choose to pursue Forensic Science or Paleontology

-instead of (Colonial) American History, they may choose to study the history of Indigenous First Americans

Learner Centered environments swallow their ego to let student interest, inquiry, and curiosity drive the curricular decisions year by year, and, in so doing, let students know they matter

While the move from Subject Centered to Learner Centered classrooms is a vital step towards creating learning environments that set students free to dream, invite their voice into the discovery process, and foster 21st century mindsets

I believe there is one final step that truly liberates and honors our students…

Learner LED Classrooms

In Learner Led classrooms, students are the teachers

They not only choose the courses for a given year, they design the courses, create the curriculum, select the reading lists, choose the projects, and shape the assignments

Leaner Led environments are intentional about moving students from “scholars” learning material to “educators” leading the learning

Students are given the reins to be the experts in the room

To do the research and readings required to teach their peers

In a Learner Led environment, faculty are there to support the students-as-educators, providing resources, giving suggestions on curriculum, making connections to outside expertise, offering thoughts on projects, reviewing learning assessments, and being the “Mentor” to the “educators”

Don’t think this would ever work?

At the school where I serve, Odyssey Leadership Academy, we intentionally and deliberately move our “students” from scholars to masters with the aim of unleashing them to teach courses that reflect their passions

Examples of Learner Led courses at OLA—where students have been given full rein to create the course from the inside out and ground up—include

• Visual Storytelling (an advanced literature course)

• Cellphone Cinema (an elective on filmmaking)

• Entomology (an advanced science class)

• Creative Expression (an art elective)

While we are just getting started setting our students loose to create and lead teach their dream courses, I can say that so far, it has been met with resounding success!!

The student Educators have all, to a one, taken the role and responsibilities extremely seriously

The peers taking these classes have been incredibly respectful of their colleague’s authority in the teaching space

The faculty have found their footing as mentors, support systems, and guides

Colleges have been incredibly impressed and the engagement for all has gone up

Most importantly, the students in our learning community know we value them as learners, leaders, educators, researchers, and fully flourishing human beings

Our goal in the future is to move as many students as want to from “scholars” to “masters” capable, ready, and eager to lead teach courses each and every year

One side note: We do not force those students who do not want to or are not comfortable to lead teach, but we highly encourage every student to come up with a dream class they would want to teach, pitch it to us as a fully embodied course, and do what we can to make it happen

You can learn more about Mastery Work in a Learner Led model here> https://www.odysseyleadershipacademy.org/mastery-program

The invitation for you is to consider how you might begin to take that first step away from Subject Centered teaching.

Perhaps it is as simple as changing the language from “I teach _________ to students” to “I teach students _________” with the goal of getting to the place where you can say “We are a community of ________________ learning how to _______”

Perhaps it is asking students what books they would want to read in a literature course, what historical era they are eager to learn more about, what questions they have about the cosmos, what math excites them…and creating opportunities for them to step into those learning experiences

Perhaps it is inviting a student to create an elective that they then lead out from start to finish

Whatever it may be, I am eager to hear how you move your learning community from Subject Centered to Leaner Led!

→ Today’s Action Step: Think of how your teaching and learning environment might change if you transition from “Subject Centered” to “Learner Led”

Dr Scott Martin

Founder Odyssey Leadership Academy

Executive Director of the Odyssey Center for Transformative Schooling

Keynote Speaker

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