The implementation of learner-centered education in classrooms is not without challenges. Contextual issues encumber the adoption of learner-centered education as a framework of teaching in developing countries. Michele Schweisfurth (2011), in examining 72 research studies that focus on learner-centered education in developing countries in the past two decades, reports a remarkable consistency across this range of research which reports on the economic constraints these countries experience in implementing learner-centered education in their classrooms. Later, in her book, Learner-centered Education in International Perspective: Whose Pedagogy for Whose Development?, Schweisfurth (2013) discussed more comprehensively how these economic factors become concrete barriers to learner-centered education in poorer developing countries. Economic impediments to learner-centered education are a critical issue for developing countries. While it appears costless to implement, learner-centered education is, as Schweisfurth (2013) puts it, a “richer-world phenomenon” (p. 48). This is because learner- centered education requires activity-based strategies that demand the availability of varied teaching and learning resources and access to relevant equipment and facilities. These resources however are more likely available and accessible in developed countries, “from where most LCE prescriptions for schooling originate” (Schweisfurth, 2013, p. 48), which then places learner- centered education in its ivory tower as an ‘education for the elite’.
The findings in a qualitative study of Yilmaz (2008) can attest to Schweisfurth’s (2013) claim that learner-centered education is a ‘richer-world phenomenon’. In interviewing rural social studies teachers in a developing country, Yilmaz (2008) reports that the teachers, who have positive attitudes towards learner-centered teaching, are often discouraged from using learner- centered strategies given the poor physical conditions in their classrooms, large class sizes, and lack of teaching materials and resources in their rural schools. These classroom realities, as the teachers in Yilmaz’s study (2008) report, make their practice of learner-centered strategies (i.e. group activities, ‘learning by doing’, and self-directed learning) challenging given that they are also required to teach a specified amount of curricular content within a limited academic time. Economic constraints are, as Yilmaz (2008) concludes, a significant constraint in implementing learner-centered teaching in some classroom contexts.
22
Apart from economic factors, the rural teachers in Yilmaz’s study also reported another factor that hinders them from practising learner-centered teaching; that is, “the culture of school that teachers are expected to abide by or the traditions embedded in the school” (Yilmaz, 2008, p. 46). For instance, one teacher in Yilmaz’s study disclosed that in his school, when a class is orderly and quiet, it gives the impression that a teacher is still teaching (and not absent from his class). So, when he uses learner-centered strategies such as group activities, for instance, which usually generates noise from the students, his principal who randomly observes classes, might perceive him as an ineffective teacher or assume that he is absent from class as his students are noisy. In this case, the teacher expressed his dilemma between using learner-centered teaching (that produces noise) and practising teacher-centered instruction (that maintains silence and order in class). Another teacher in Yilmaz’s study raised that the conservative rural community of her school has a significant impact on her students’ mentality and worldview. Thus, this teacher finds it challenging to use learner-centered strategies such as group discussions because her students who do not see multiple perspectives end up having disagreements thereby making the class difficult to manage. This teacher further raised another issue in practising learner-centered teaching. This issue arises from her students, being rural youth, wanting her to give them more opportunities for experiential learning activities related to rural life. While this teacher understands the request of her students, she expressed that she is limited to using more traditional methods given the expectations from the rural community that she, as the teacher, has to use the ‘school time’ in preparing her students for the state tests instead of using it in other activities. The findings in the study of Yilmaz (2008) align with Schweisfurth’s (2013) notion that despite having positive attitudes towards learner-centered teaching, teachers may have a tendency to “retreat to traditional practices when confronted with classroom realities or unsupportive management or inspection” (p. 67). It is therefore difficult not to notice that in a number of studies on learner-centered education, there is a frequent mention of teacher-centered instruction, especially when there are specific perceived constraints in implementing learner- centered teaching.
Take for instance this separate study of Clegorne and Mitchell (2013) in which observation and interview data of teachers show that the public school teachers “rejected learner-centered pedagogy in favour of more direct teacher-centered instruction” (p. 1). To understand the reason behind this, Clegorne and Mitchell (2013) conducted a daily informal evaluation feedback from these teachers’ students. It turned out from these evaluation forms that the students also preferred teacher-centered methods (i.e. direct instruction and lectures) over learner-centered strategies (i.e. peer-oriented discussions). According to the students, they find the learnings they get from lectures more valuable than those they get from peer discussions.
23
They reported that they favoured the opinion of their teachers only because they perceive their teachers as a more credible source of knowledge as content experts than their peers. This therefore explains why the students are not as engaged in their peer discussions as they are during lectures because they valued the thoughts of their peers less. Seeing how more engaged their students are in their lectures rather than in peer discussions, the teachers then prefer practising teacher-centered instruction over learner-centered teaching. From this data, Clegorne and Mitchell (2013) note that teachers’ pedagogical choice of teacher-centered teaching is influenced by the degree to which their students place value on their role as content experts.
A similar approach where student evaluation of their teachers is used to understand why learner-centered practices are less valued by students is also found in a Philippine-based study of Magno and Sembrano (2007). In their extensive survey with 297 teaching faculty and 7,093 community college students, Magno and Sembrano (2007) found that a majority of learner- centered practices used by Filipino teachers can be categorized into (1) building positive interpersonal relationships with students; (2) encouraging students to take charge of their own learning; (3) addressing students’ needs; and (4) monitoring students’ own learning process. However, the findings in Magno and Sembrano’s (2007) study show that as far as student ratings are concerned, it is not the explicit use of these learner-centered teaching practices of their teachers that influenced them to score their teachers high in their teaching performance. Instead, a teacher’s personality and efficacy counts more in effective teaching for Filipino students than her use of learner-centered teaching practices. As their conclusion, Magno and Sembrano (2007) put forward that “it is not merely the use of learner-centeredness in teaching that enables teachers to perform better but more so his or her personality and efficacy. Learner-centeredness is not working out as intended” (p. 85). A further investigation behind this finding and a deeper exploration of student perceptions towards effective teaching however are the limitations of the study of Magno and Sembrano (2007) given the quantitative nature of their research which did not afford them opportunity to explore perceptions in depth.
The findings in Magno and Sembrano’s (2007) study which suggest that a Filipino teacher’s personality counts more in effective teaching for Filipino students than her use of learner-centered practices is further explored in a separate Philippine-based study of Bustos- Orosa (2008). In this study, 272 Filipino teachers from elementary, high school, and college levels were asked to respond to an open-ended questionnaire to examine their conceptions about good teaching. Qualitative data in Bustos-Orosa’s (2008) study show that Filipino teachers’ perceptions of good teaching involve positive dispositional traits such as caring and ensuring smooth interpersonal relationships. These two desirable traits of a Filipino teacher may, as Bustos-Orosa
24
(2008) concludes, in essence, be embodied in a cultural concept called asal, which in popular usage in the Philippines connotes ethical ways of acting and good character especially within constructs of ‘good relations with others’. The teacher perceptions of good teaching are rooted in cultural conceptions of a good person or ideal values (Bustos-Orosa, 2008). While Bustos-Orosa’s (2008) study has explored cultural dimensions within perceptions of good teaching in the Philippine context, such perceptions however are limited to teachers only. It would then be important to explore student perceptions of teaching practices which they find helpful in their learning.
On one hand, students’ perceptions of their teachers’ most engaging teaching practices are the focus in a study of Wohlfarth, Sheras, Bennett, Simon, Pimentel, and Gabel (2008). In this study based in the United States, students were asked at the start of the semester to assess their teachers’ use of learner-centered practices such as (a) asking higher-order questions, (b) facilitating interactive discussions of readings, (c) providing immediate feedback, and (d) giving performance-based assessments. At the end of the semester, Wohlfarth, et al. (2008) examined the students’ written reflections on the practices of their teachers which they find most and least engaging. While the students have positive evaluation of their teachers’ learner-centered practices, Wohlfarth, et al. (2008) report that the students expressed some frustrations with their teachers’ learner-centered teaching. According to these students, their frustrations arise from their desire for more content structure as well as more teacher control to assist them in learning. This structure and teacher control are, as perceived by the students, provided in teacher-centered teaching. From this point of view of students, Wohlfarth, et al. (2008) conclude that “the optimal method to encourage their learning was a blend of traditional teaching and more learner- centered concepts” (p. 73).
A combination rather than a replacement of teacher-centered with learner-centered practices appears a common finding among recent studies in Southeast Asia. For instance, in a design-based research study of Pham (2016) among 100 students and two teachers in Vietnam, it was found that several cultural elements hindered a full implementation of learner-centered teaching in the country. Among these cultural elements, as Pham (2016) outlined, are the Vietnamese parents’ expectations towards their children performing well in tests and the students’ high regard to their teachers as authorities of knowledge. Pham (2016) noted that the teachers and students in Vietnam are hesitant of teaching strategies that are not closely aligned with examinations. However, when Pham (2016) introduced to their students the learner- centered strategies like collaborative inquiry and problem-solving activities, the teachers become more open to practise learner-centered teaching when they saw the higher-order knowledge
25
gains for their students. Later, when it was the teachers’ turn to use the learner-centered strategies, the teachers expressed their concern about the test-driven culture in the Vietnamese schools which requires them to still rely on their teacher-centered methods to meet the expectations of their students’ parents. With this, the teachers find it more effective to combine the learner-centered strategies that were introduced to them by Pham (2016) and the lecture method that they have long been practising. This hybrid teaching approach, as Pham (2016) concludes, helped the Vietnamese students enhance their complex knowledge without compromising their test outcomes.
A similar conclusion is drawn from the qualitative data of Tyrosvoutis’s (2016) mixed method survey of 19 students from Myanmar who were studying Education as a course at a university in Thailand. Using web-based survey questionnaires, Tyrosvoutis (2016) examined the students’ perceptions of teacher practices they experienced when they were in high school in either refugee camps located in the Thai-Myanmar border or government and ethnic schools in Myanmar. The qualitative data in this study suggest that students perceive learning from both teacher-centered methods such as ‘whole-class teaching’ and learner-centered activities like ‘group work’, debates, and student presentation. However, the students in Tyrosvoutis’s (2016) study identified two major challenges in their teacher’s use of learner-centered practices apart from the ‘low resources in the classroom’. The first challenge is the strong pressure to score high in the rote memorization-based ‘matriculation test’ or University Entrance Examination, which then compels the teachers to use traditional direct instruction to assist student memorization. Should the students fail, the teacher is held accountable and would risk ‘losing face in public’. This ‘loss of face’ presents the second challenge to learner-centered teaching. The students reported that their teachers need to establish their ‘infallible authority’ as content experts and maintain power-distance from their students to meet the expectations in their community. Given the cultural dimension of how teachers are perceived in schools in Thai-Myanmar border, it therefore becomes difficult, Tyrosvoutis (2016) noted, to suggest that this ‘historic tight control’ of teachers as authorities must be relinquished as schools transition to a learner-centered education as part of their reform agenda. Seeing both the value of learner-centered and teacher-centered practices in these cultural contexts, Tyrosvoutis (2016) recommends that education reform efforts must also strengthen the long-established whole-class teaching methods while promoting learner- centered teaching. This way, as Tyrosvoutis (2016) concludes, the “reconciliation of traditional methods would allow for the benefits of learner-centered education be operationalized in practical ways using methods local teachers already practice” (p. 128).
26
A blend of teacher-centered and learner-centered practices is also reported as the preferred approach in teaching among Cambodian teachers in a mixed methods study of Song (2015). From the 379 primary school teachers whom Song (2015) surveyed, 30 were randomly selected for interviews to explore their teaching beliefs in line with learner-centered teaching. Initially, the teachers expressed positive views towards learner-centered teaching which for them is helpful in developing higher-order thinking skills among their students. However, further along their interviews, Song (2015) noted, the teachers reported that they are often discouraged in practising learner-centered teaching because the majority of their students do not yet demonstrate the level of competence required under learner-centered teaching. The teachers also disclosed that, while their education is under a learner-centered reform, the scarcity of teaching resources in their schools coupled with the tight content-driven curriculum make the actual practice of learner-centered teaching in their classrooms far more challenging. Drawing from these teacher data, Song (2015) concludes that teachers in Cambodia do not simply assimilate and respond to new forms of pedagogies that would require them to alter their conventional ways of teaching. In a critique on the education policies in Cambodia, Tan (2010) states that achieving reform will be extremely challenging for the country. This is because Cambodia, as Tan (2010) noted, still struggles with fundamental issues in education such as equitable access, quality assurance, and capacity building for decentralization. Given this situation in Cambodia’s current education system, Tan (2010) agrees with the suggestion raised in an earlier study of Ayres (2000) on Cambodian education—that the country needs to temper its expansion of a Westernized education system and focus instead on addressing the needs of its rural schools.
To achieve the reform that Cambodia seeks to attain, Tan (2010) further recommends for a ‘gelling’ or the combining of foreign and indigenous knowledge to create new ideas and practices in education that are appropriate to the specific needs of the country. This ‘gelling’ which Tan suggests (2010) has already taken effect in Singapore. In her separate commentary, Tan (2016) discussed the ways in which Asian countries (of Confucian heritage, i.e. China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) particularly those with colonial histories could benefit from this ‘gelling’ of global and local sources of knowledge. In most of these cultures, the implementation of learner-centered education is a challenge given a common perception that a learner-centered way of teaching dilutes academic rigour which is valued in these cultural contexts. It is also perceived in these countries that learner-centered education does not provide a strong foundational knowledge for students (Tan, 2016). With these cultural perceptions that pose challenges in implementing learner-centered education in this region, Tan (2010; 2016) suggests that, in line with her recommendation for ‘gelling’, Asian philosophies (e.g. Confucianism) be explored so as to identify their shared principles with Western philosophies in
27
education such as Dewey’s, in which the framework of learner-centered education is grounded on.
A similar suggestion is given by Tan (2010) for Islamic schools in Asia where the learner- centered strategies such as dialogue, disputation, and problem-solving have long been advocated and practised since medieval times as part of the Islamic tradition. In this case, the ‘gelling’, which Tan (2010) suggests, could facilitate the implementation of learner-centered strategies in Islamic schools such as in the case of Indonesia, where there is an increasing number of madrasah and sekolah Islam (Islamic schools) that have already incorporated learner-centered pedagogies (Tan, 2014). ‘Gelling’ is slowly adopted through Indonesia’s subscription to an educative tradition, where the country sees compatibility between the inculcation of Islamic values and acquisition of global knowledge (Tan, 2014). The implementation of learner-centered education in Indonesia however is not without challenges, especially that the Western underpinnings of learner- centered pedagogies might, as Tan (2014) raised, be perceived un-Islamic as these could radically thin out the religious and cultural heritage of the ummah (Muslim community). A similar challenge is faced among Islamic schools in Malaysia where, as Hashim (2007) observes, its students even in higher education are compelled to memorize religious texts and are often not encouraged to question or challenge ideas. However, over the past few years, the Islamic schools in Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, have incorporated more learner-centered pedagogies into their more established traditional methods of teaching (Tan and Abbas, 2009). This then becomes reflective not only of both states’ educative tradition but also of Tan’s (2010) ‘gelling’ where a hybrid between learner-centered and teacher-centered pedagogies could usher in a true reform in education.
Hybrid pedagogies where teacher-centered and learner-centered practices are combined are what Barrett (2013) sees as a response to the challenges that confront a full adoption of learner-centered education within a culture. This could be traced from, as Barrett (2013) explains, concrete impediments that go beyond economic issues in low-income developing countries. The challenge in implementing learner-centered education in its ‘pure form’ is not only expensive in terms of financial cost and teacher time which cannot be afforded in developing countries. ‘Hybrid pedagogies’ could arise from cultural differences when one culture is expected to adopt a ‘newer pedagogy’ (i.e. learner-centered teaching) from a more dominant culture. More importantly, ‘hybrid pedagogies’ result in how a traditional way of life in a community come in conflict with the underpinning concepts of learner-centered education whose “roots are western, liberal, and individualistic” (Richardson, 2003, p. 1633). Local ways of understanding and
28
traditions, as Stelmach (2011) observes, poses serious challenges to the implementation of learner-centered education particularly in poorer rural communities in developing countries.
In her critical review of international studies on the issues in rural education, Stelmach (2011) discussed the ways in which ‘new pedagogies’ are perceived in rural communities as drastic shifts from their time-honored assumptions and practices. Making such shift is