Student Centered Learning

A new different approaches have been developed to manage the classroom and a way of students learning, there are divided into 3 categories: teacher centered learning, collaborative learning, and student centered learning.

Years ago was the main concern in education is to use the teacher centered learning which is the main goal of it is to create a learning environment in which management issues are easier to be handled and the information faster to be delivered to students without any problems.

But the main issue of the Ministry of Education within the few years ago is leading the teachers to use the student centered learning approach which helps the students become more self-directed and responsible of their own learning.

Student centered learning is about helping the students to discover their own learning styles, where here the teacher role will changed from a teacher to a facilitator, the teacher will need to help the students achieving their goals and making sure that all of them have get the right information.

In my opinion, I think using this approach is much more valuable for the students simply because it will help them to be creative, more responsible, active in the class, and at the end when they graduated from the school they will be cooperative members in the community.

In the other hand, there are some disadvantages of student centered learning approach such as: that some of the students did not operate well in this approach so the teacher has to spend more effort to teach him/her, also this approach sometimes requires the students to be within a team where some of the students are not able to work in a team and like to work as individuals, and time consuming as well is one of the main problems because student centered learning needs more time.

In our ICT subjects I think it’s more easier to use the student centered learning approach because the students are almost familiar with the tasks they do, so it will be a good way in helping them to develop their skills. From my experience, I have used this model in some lessons which I have noticed that the students are well-known about it, so I let them to work on projects within groups to learn by themselves how to use a specific program.

The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee

We all know nowadays how the computers are important in the process of teaching and learning, and how it adds benefits to the education where the computer are used for the several teaching methods and techniques.

To understand the application of computing in relation to education you have to understand the three modes of these application, and they are at first: the computer as tutor, at second: the computer as tool, and at third: the computer as tutee.

1)      The computer functions as Tutor: the computer have to be programmed by experts, the computer represent some materials where the student has to respond, and the computer evaluate the student responding at the end.

2)      The computer functions as a Tool: the computer need to have a simple used programs such as: word processing or calculating where that student use these programs.

3)      The computer functions as Tutee: to use the computer as tutee is to tutor the computer, where the teacher or the student must talk to the computer with the language it can understand.

There is no matter that the computer technologies with the different modes support the teaching and learning process and rise the education to upper steps. I think learning without the computer will be inefficient that’s why through my experience I have used the computer to activate my lesson such as: I have created different videos that help the students clearly knowing the steps to do several tasks, interactive games by flash or other programs that make the understanding level of the students is high, also communicating with the students by e-mails or groups to discuss different issues.

In the other hand I can say that there are some negatives of using the computer in all cases such as: affecting the social relations because the students will spend more time working on the computer, books will be un-useful since they will use the computer to get the information they need, and it might affects the health.

Introduction

My name is Latifa Yousif Abdulla, working as an ICT teacher in Al-Hoora Secondary School "GSVEC program" with one year experience.
My hobbies are searching through the Internet about latest technology, also I like swimming as well as shopping.