You may not think it, but it is possible to implement a student-centered learning approach to your online classroom. Regardless of whether a student has just started their educational journey or they have already enrolled in higher education, more teachers are turning to the student-centered method of education, and for a good reason. 

While there are plenty of reasons to adopt a student-centered learning approach, the most prominent reason is that it aligns better with modern-day needs. Online learning is perhaps the most ‘modern’ of the education methods, though it does present its own challenges. 

Let’s take a look at how you can meet your students’ needs through online learning with a student-centered approach. 

Student-Centered Learning: the Basics

As a teacher who uses the student-centered method of education, you will need to place your student and their learning needs at the center of everything. To do this, you will have to adhere to three things: student choice and voice, teaching as a facilitator, and education technology. 

In an environment following the student-centered approach, learners stop being passive absorbers of information and instead become active participants in the process of learning. Whether you’re talking about kindergartners or high schoolers, each student contributes to their educational journey. 

Facilitating Learning and Education Technology

As a teacher, you must also make the change from being a guardian of knowledge to facilitating learning. If you give your students more knowledge sources, they will start to ask more questions about what they are learning. You must not only answer these questions, but you must guide your students toward new questions, as well as encourage them to find answers on their own. 

When it comes to education technology, whether you’re working with a few educational apps or an LMS, it plays an essential role in student-centered education. With the help of technology, you can choose your approach to various learning situations by using the learning data gathered by education technology. 

Online Learning and Meeting Student Needs

We know for a fact that the best way for students to learn is by doing. They are most engaged when they are doing new things, and student-centered learning allows for a lot of doing and a lot of student-teacher interaction based on their needs. 

Online learning environments should be just as safe for asking questions as physical learning environments. Your learners should feel confident that they will not be ridiculed when asking a question, and when they get the answers they need, they will make progress. 

Your students will also need instant feedback. That means checking your online classroom message boards and forums for queries as often as possible. If you aren’t able to do so in the evenings, try setting a designated time for your students to post their questions with a guarantee that you will respond quickly. 

Using Pedagogue, a Premium SLMS

A Social Learning Management System (SLMS) takes the traditional aspects of an LMS (Learning Management System). It merges them with social media (social streams, live streaming, chat, groups, gamification, etc.) to supercharge learning. Pedagogue is an SLMS, and it offers you plenty of resources to meet all of your students’ needs through online learning. 

Students naturally respond well to social media-like resources, since they’ve been using social media for most of their lives. This is what makes a platform like Pedagogue so effective. 

Concluding Thoughts

One of the most critical aspects of effective online learning is a human connection. Online learning puts some distance between the student and the teacher, which is why maintaining a close educational relationship with your students is so important.