Teacher vs. Student vs. Human Centered Learning

    Kevin Broohauser describes the three basic learning types as being teacher centered, student centered, and human centered. The difference between each type of learning is whose preferences guide the project most strongly. Teacher and student learning types are guided by teachers or students respectively, while human centered learning is based on the eventual consumer of whatever is being produced. Each type of learning is appropriate for different level tasks. While teacher centered learning is effective for memorization and student centered learning is a good fit for tasks involving understanding and applying concepts, human centered learning might be a better choice for creative endeavors like the 20% project. After learning Broohauser’s views on this subject, I believe that my project has unfortunately existed almost entirely in the realm of student oriented learning when it could probably benefit from a human oriented approach. While the current student centered approach has allowed me to explore programming and design to the extent that I am interested in, if the project was guided by the type of empathy for the user that Broohauser describes it could result in a more interesting or useful final product while also forcing me to explore avenues of learning that I have so far ignored because on the surface they seem unappealing. In the future I will try to incorporate more human centered learning into my project in the interest of producing a simulation that is actually desirable to the user.