Helping Students Take Control of Their Own Learning

What does learner-centered education look like, and how can we best put it into practice? This helpful book by experienced educators Don Mesibov and Dan Drmacich answers those questions and provides a wide variety of strategies, activities, and examples to help you with implementation. Chapters address topics such as positioning students at the center of the lesson and teachers as coaches, making tasks relevant and engaging, incorporating the affective domain and social-emotional learning, assessing learning, and more. Appropriate for new and experienced teachers of all grades and subjects, this book will leave you feeling ready to help students take control of their own learning so they can reach higher levels of success.

Don Mesibov has worked at a school for emotionally disturbed children, been a middle school English teacher, taught courses on constructivism at local colleges for 22 years, and worked for a teacher's union. Additionally, he is director of the Institute for Learning Centered Education, an organization he founded in 1995.
Dan Drmacich was principal of the nationally renowned School Without Walls in Rochester, New York, a public school, and a member of the New York State Performance Standards Consortium, which requires performance-based assessments and a yearlong project to demonstrate competency for graduation rather than standardized tests. Dan is currently cofounder and coordinator of the Rochester Coalition for Public Education, an organization focused on research-based, progressive school reform and social justice.