To Lecture or Let Go: A Comparative Analysis of Student Speech Outlines from Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered Classrooms

During recent years, some college classrooms have moved away from traditional teacher-centered lecture pedagogies toward learner-centered strategies. Relatively little empirical evidence exists to date assessing the utility of such pedagogies. This exploratory study examined the content and structure of student speech outlines from teacher-centered, lecture-based classes and from learner-centered discussion and experiential-based classes that implement Kolb's (1984) cycle of experiential learning. The results of this examination suggest that students in learner-centered environments do create better outlines than students in teacher-centered, lecture-based classrooms. Future studies should test the generalizability of these results on larger student populations and across curricula.