Renfro emphasized that the variety of teaching styles can include the lecture as well as collaborative learning strategies. Student-centered learning is for me simply a teaching goal. I recognize that all learning must necessarily be learner-centered or it does not occur. So, my goal is benefited by designing or engineering experiences that enhance the likelihood of a student's personal engagement with the material to be learned. Personal engagement generates interest, arousal, positive affect, and commitment, all of which benefit the learning process.
Students take notes in class to the exclusion of thinking about what is being said.
I tell students they must not take notes for the two lectures of the week. They are told they will receive a detailed lecture written as an essay at the end of the second session. I follow through and provide this lecture in written format. I ask students to listen and think critically about the information being presented and to keep in their notebooks only questions which occur to them as they listen to the lecture. This then becomes material that might appear on the exam.