Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching: Pedagogical Design and Assessment of a Second Life Project.

1. INTRODUCTION: LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING Learner-centered teaching methodology represents an educational and instructional philosophy in which the key elements of teaching and learning in the traditional teacher-centered format of education are redefined and reformed (Norman and Spohrer, 1996). In conventional teaching methodology (teacher-centered), which has governed most of the world's teaching for centuries, instructors are the center of instruction and learning, with the students following the leads of the instructors. In learner-centered teaching, students are no longer passive receivers of knowledge; instead, they are "active participants in learning and co-constructors of knowledge" (Meece, 2003, pp.111). The instructors act as mentors and advisors to encourage students' participation in active learning. Interactions between instructors and students facilitate the learning process through discovery, inquiry, and problem solving (Law, 2007). Learner-centered teaching emphasizes students' intrinsic motivation to learn and the development of students' abilities to acquire appropriate techniques in problem solving (Weimer, 2002). Curricula are designed around the learning process and not the content of knowledge in order to provide an environment that adapts to the developmental needs and social influence on learning (APA, 1997). Guided by the leaner-centered teaching philosophy, researchers around the world have developed various frameworks and teaching principles to facilitate the philosophy. Jones et al. (1995) constructed a framework of twenty-six indicators in eight categorical variables of engaged learning that included vision of learning, tasks, assessment, instructional model, learning context, grouping, teacher roles, and student roles. Similarly, a framework of fourteen learner-centered psychological principles was constructed based on educational and psychological research in a report published by the American Psychological Association (APA, 1997). Other scholars, such as Norman and Spohrer (1996), have suggested that learner-centered teaching should be 1) engaging by providing rapid, compelling interaction and feedback to the student, 2) effective by concentrating on the learning process and outcome but not the test score, and 3) viable by supporting curriculum needs as well as practice (p. 26). Weimer (2002) reviewed the extensive literature on learner-centered teaching and learning and summarized that "to be learner-centered, instructional practice needs to change in five ways" (p.8), which she called the five key changes: the balance of power, the function of content, the role of the teacher, the responsibility for learning, and the purpose and processes of evaluation. Table 1 summarizes the key concepts of conventional and learner-centered teaching of the above five elements. Learner-centered teaching methodologies have been widely applied in educational practices across a variety of subject fields, such as accounting (Adler et al., 2000), information systems (Law, 2007), business statistics (Lockwood et al., 2007), social sciences (Watters et al., 1998), and distance learning (Duffy and Kirkley, 2004; Eastman and Swift, 2001), and have been successfully implemented to reform education in countries, such as Thailand (Khemmani, 2006). Many educators incorporate learner-centered teaching philosophy in developing leadership capabilities (Orr, 2007), instructional interventions (Smart and Csapo, 2007), and strategies contributing to expertise in classroom practice (Thompson et al., 2003A). Other scholars propose that learner-centered teaching techniques should be applied to the design of courses and projects where technology and multimedia play a vital role (Norman and Spohrer, 1996; Schwienhorst, 2002; Watters et al., 1998). In this paper, Weimer (2002)'s framework of five key changes of learner-centered teaching was used as the foundation to construct the pedagogical design and administration of a Second Life project in learning about the subject of virtual business. …