The design in educational environments: learner-centered environments

Environments that pay attention to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring to the educational setting.

Also called "culturally appropriate", "culturally responsive"...

Also called "diagnostic teaching": a key strategy is to prompt children to explain the reasons for predictions, their answers etc. Create congnitive conflicts and then have discussions about conflicting viewpoints. Test for known misconceptions.

Important to be sensitive to cultural practiced. In Hawaii, a reading program included discussions of learners' personal experiences and gave them opportunities to practice "talk-story"-a native custom of constructing stories jointly. This led to improvements in standardized test scores.

Not all kids come to school with practice in "school talk" - I.e. Impersonal and expository way of talking without relating to personal experiences or stories.

In one case, African American students were shown that many of their forms of everyday communication are examples of high forms of literacy.

In learner centered environments, teachers pay attention to what learners know and can do, and in their interests and passion - what do they want to do.