Student-Centered Learning for the Confirmed Lecturer

Research shows that the traditional classroom teaching method known as lecturing, in which the instructor (lecturer) primarily speaks and the students primarily listen and take notes, is very ineffective 1,2 .Many alternative methods of teaching and learning, that are basically studentcentered rather than teacher-centered, and which require the students to be active rather than passive in the learning process, have been developed.In spite of these facts, many engineering professors continue to teach using the traditional method, mainly because of the perceptions that the proper use of student-centered learning methods requires excessive instructor preparation time that interferes with research-related requirements; and excessive use of time in the classroom that prevents coverage of all the required course content.This paper describes how, by using a pedagogical approach known as constructive alignment 3 , learning in the classroom can be significantly increased without excessive preparation time or reduction of content coverage.