In the past, the focus of college curricula was on the presentation of information; the instruction. The professor presented the required information in a straight forward manner of lecturing to a hall of students with no way of measuring the students’ retention of the presented material. While it was assumed that the scores from the exams were representational of the students’ success, it did not take into account how the individual student attained the necessary information and if different individuals would have more success with different methods of instruction. For this reason, I employ a “learning-centered” approach to teaching as many colleges and universities are shifting to this methodology as well.
With the pace at which the necessary skills are changing for common workplace opportunities, I as a professor need to take a flexible approach to how I present the relevant information to my students. Technologies change at lightning speed and in a workforce that so heavily relies on technology, each wave of graduates needs to be trained on the newest, fastest most up-to-date software and techniques to compete. In this “learning-centered” environment, the curriculum has to change to suit the needs of the students. This is a far cry from the curriculum based around lectures of outlined information that has been deemed relevant and presented year after year unchanged. Students need to be challenged and stimulated in ways that were never before practiced in a classroom. With every course that I teach, the lesson plan needs to be reverse-engineered from the assessment of the needs from the outcome of the course. Likewise, the presentation of material needs to be developed to meet those needs. The same courses may change year to year based on the changing needs of the workforce and that flexibility needs to be supported and reflected in my [the professors’] practices and in the information that is being presented within my courses.
This means that I need to stay current on the needs of my students and the expectations of the workforce for which my students are preparing. Professors who are practicing professionals in the field that they teach are invaluable assets. In a field such as new media, the art is objective, so the responsibility lies both with the students and the professor to make sure that the students understand the fundamentals and how to harness their creativity to create their final product; but that is not enough. In a constantly changing field of new media, it is also up to the professor to ensure the confidence of the students with the proper tools needed to create a polished final product that can be presented in a professional and timely manner. My “learning-centered” environment is based around collaboration, interaction, open forum discussion and deadline-driven production-oriented “real-world” examples. With this teaching philosophy, the students will graduate with the necessary skills and a robust understanding of the field in which they hope to gain employment.
