Progressive educational psychologists emphasize that the learner should be at the heart of the educational process. While this focus is strongest at the elementary level, it remains relevant in secondary and tertiary education. Even though high school often centers on subjects and college focuses on academic disciplines, both levels still recognize the importance of addressing learners’ needs and experiences in the curriculum.
Several learner-centered curriculum designs illustrate this approach:
Child-Centered Design
Influences: John Dewey, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.
Focus: The curriculum revolves around the needs, interests, and abilities of the child.
Approach: Learning occurs through active engagement with the environment. Learners construct knowledge by doing, exploring, and interacting with teachers and surroundings.
Collaboration: Teachers and students work together to select content, plan lessons, and engage in activities.
Philosophy: Learning is a dynamic product of the child’s experiences and interactions.
Experience-Centered Design
Similar to child-centered design but emphasizes that learning cannot always be pre-planned.
Approach: Students’ experiences form the starting point of the curriculum. The school environment is designed to be open and flexible, with multiple activities and learning centers.
Student Choice: Learners are empowered to make decisions about their learning pathways.
Features: Flexible scheduling, diverse activities emphasizing exploration, construction, imagination, sensory engagement, and relational learning.
Compatibility: Works well with Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, allowing learners to develop in various domains.
Humanistic Design
Key Thinkers: Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
Maslow: Emphasized self-actualization, where individuals accept themselves and others, are open to experiences, possess empathy, and exhibit personal growth. While this state may be fully realized later in life, schools provide the foundation for its development.
Rogers: Advocated self-directed learning, emphasizing self-awareness and the cultivation of attitudes that guide behavior.
Focus: Humanistic curricula aim at the development of the whole person, integrating thinking, feeling, and doing.
Domains: Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor development are interconnected and addressed holistically.
Goal: Foster a positive self-concept, interpersonal skills, and lifelong personal growth.
Conclusion:
Learner-centered curriculum designs place students at the center of education, allowing them to actively participate, make choices, and develop holistically. Whether through child-focused, experience-driven, or humanistic approaches, the ultimate goal is to nurture self-aware, capable, and well-rounded individuals.
