Making Learning-Centered Teaching Work: Practical Strategies for Implementation

This is a substantially expanded and enhanced revision of Phyllis Blumberg’s acclaimed and bestselling book, Developing Learner-Centered Teaching: A Practical Guide for Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2009).

This easy to follow how-to-guide provides faculty with both a thorough introduction to this evidence-based approach to teaching and practical guidance on how to progressively implement it to strengthen the impact of their teaching. It demonstrates how they can integrate  learning-centered teaching into their classroom practice without sacrificing content and rigor, and how to positively engage students in the process by demonstrating its impact on their mastery and recall of key concepts and knowledge.

An added outcome, given that learning-centered teaching is correlated with improved student learning, is the resulting assessment data that it provides faculty with the measures to meet the increased demands by accreditors, legislators and society for evidence of improved teaching and learning outcomes. Phyllis Blumberg demonstrates how to use rubrics to not only satisfy outside requirements and accreditation self-studies but, more importantly, for faculty to use for the purposes of self-improvement or their teaching portfolios.

She provides examples of how the rubrics can be used to ascertain whether college-wide strategic plans for teaching excellence are being met, for program review, and to determine the effectiveness of faculty development efforts. The book includes the following features:

• Boxes with easy-to-implement and adaptable examples, covering applications across disciplines and course types
• Worksheets that foster easy implementation of concepts
• Rubrics for self- assessment and peer assessment of learning-centered teaching
• Detailed directions on how to use the rubrics as a teaching assessment tool for individuals, courses, and programs
• List of examples of use classified by discipline and type of course

Phyllis Blumberg offers Making Learning Centered Teaching Course Design Institutes and workshops on this and other teaching and assessment topics. Half day to multiple day modules.

For more information or questions contact blumbergphyllis@gmail.com, or IntegrateEd.com

PhyllisBlumberg is a consultant and presenter focusing on the learning process, assessment of student learning outcomes, and effective teaching in higher education. From 1999 to 2019, she was the director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the Universityof the Sciences in Philadelphia, where she was also assistant provost for faculty development, as well as research professor in education and professorof psychology.