Welcome to ITLC Lilly Traverse City! Enjoy the beauty of Grand Traverse Bay, the colors of autumn, with a supportive community of scholars coming together to advance teaching and learning.
Within the Lilly-verse, it's common to refer to "instructor-centered" and "learner-centered" pedagogies. The latter is considered best practice, while the former is not. My recent experiment with "ungrading" has convinced me that this popular distinction is, at its heart, a false and counterproductive dichotomy. This session unpacks these supposed opposites and argues that the real center of instruction is learning in and of itself. We'll discuss why this is important by considering movements like ungrading and how well-intentioned pedagogical choices can work against student success and impede the learning process. Outcomes: 1. Explain why thinking in terms of instructor-centered education versus learner-centered education is problematic. 2. Distinguish the competing motivations and justifications behind pedagogical strategies such as ungrading. 3. Appraise how their own instructional strategies may not be focused on learning itself.
