Theory

Rogers was discouraged by the emphasis on cognitivism in education. He believed this was
responsible for the loss of excitement and enthusiasm for learning. Rogers' point of view
emphasized the inclusion of feelings and emotions in education. He believed that education and
therapy shared similar goals of personal change and self-knowing. He was interested in learning that
leads to personal growth and development, as was Maslow.

His 1983 book, Freedom to Learn for the 80's presented his full theory of experiential learning. He
believed that the highest levels of significant learning included personal involvement at both the
affective and cognitive levels, were self-initiated, were so pervasive they could change attitudes,
behavior, and in some cases, even the personality of the learner. Learnings needed to be evaluated
by the learner and take on meaning as part of the total experience.

Rogers outlined attitudes which characterized a true facilitator of learning:
1. Realness - the instructor should not present a "front" or "facade" but should strive to be aware of
his/her own feelings and to communicate them in the classroom context. The instructor should
present genuineness, and engage in direct personal encounters with the learner.
2. Prizing the Learner - This characteristic includes acceptance and trust of each individual student.
The instructor must be able to accept the fear, hesitation, apathy, and goals of the learner.
3. Empathic Understanding - The instructor can understand the student's reactions from the inside.

Rogers warned that a non-judgmental teacher is sure to arouse suspicion in older students and
adults, because they have been "conned" so many times. The wise teacher is aware of this and can
accept their initial distrust and apprehension as new relationships between teacher and students are
built.
Some idea of what Rogers learned about methods of facilitating learning can be obtained from his
guidelines for facilitating learning (Rogers, 1969, p. 164).
1. It is very important for the facilitator to set the initial mood or climate of the group or class
experience.
2. The facilitator helps to elicit and clarify the purposes of the individuals in the class as well as the
more general purposes of the group
Rogers goes on to say about the facilitator: If he is not fearful of accepting contradictory purposes
and conflicting aims, if he is able to permit the individual a sense of freedom in stating what they
would like to do, then he is helping to create a climate for learning.
3. The facilitator relies upon the desire of each student to implement those purposes which have
meaning for the student, as the motivational force behind significant learning.
4. The facilitator endeavours to organize and make easily available the widest possible range of
resources for learning.
5. The facilitator regards himself/herself as a flexible resource to be utilized by the group.
6. In responding to expressions in the classroom group, the facilitator accepts both the intellectual
content and the emotionalized attitudes, endeavouring to give each aspect the approximate degree
of emphasis which it has for the individual or the group.
7. As the acceptant classroom climate becomes established, the facilitator is able increasingly to
become a participant learner, a member of the group, expressing his/her views as those of one
individual only.
8. The facilitator takes the initiative in sharing himself/herself with the group feelings as well as
thoughts in ways which neither demand nor impose, but represent simply a personal sharing which
students may take or leave.
9. Throughout the classroom experience, the facilitator remains alert to the expressions indicative of
deep or strong feelings.
Rogers goes on to say that these feelings should be understood and the empathic understanding
should be communicated.
10. In his functioning as a facilitator of learning, the leader endeavours to recognize and accept
his/her own limitations.
Rogers also had much to say about education. Freedom to Learn is a classic statement of educational
possibility. The concern with people speaking about their experiences in order to theorize and learn
from them, the concept of the human organism as a whole, and the belief in the possibilities of
human action have their parallels in the work of John Dewey. Carl Rogers was able to join these with
therapeutic insights and the belief, borne out of his practice experience that the client often knows
better in how to proceed than the therapist. He was also a committed practitioner who looked to his
own experiences (and was, thus, difficult to dismiss as an academic). In short, he offered a new way
to break with earlier traditions.
Carl Rogers was also a gifted teacher. His approach grew from his orientation in one-to-one
professional encounters. He saw himself as a facilitator one who creates an environment for
engagement, learning, and growth. He provided educators with some fascinating and important
questions with regard to their way of being with participants and the processes they might employ.
One of his more fascinating studies was on feedback. He discovered five ways in which we give
feedback. They are listed below in the order in which they occur most frequently in daily
conversations (notice that we make judgments more often than we try to understand):
o Evaluative: Make a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the other
person's statement
o Interpretive: Paraphrasing - attempt to explain what the other persons statement means
o Supportive: Attempt to assist or bolster the other communicator
o Probing: Attempt to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point
o Understanding: Attempt to discover completely what the other communicator means by her
statements

Nondirective," "client-centered," and "person-centered." are the terms Rogers used successively,
at different points in his career, for his method. This method involves removing obstacles so the
client can move forward, freeing him or her for normal growth and development. It emphasizes
being fully present with the client and helping the latter truly feel his or her own feelings, desires,
etc.. Being "nondirective" lets the client deal with what he or she considers important, at his or her
own pace.

Education. Rogers views our schools as generally rigid, bureaucratic institutions which are resistant
to change. Applied to education, his approach becomes "student-centered learning" in which the
students are trusted to participate in developing and to take charge of their own learning agendas.
The most difficult thing in teaching is to let learn.

Empathic understanding: to try to take in and accept a client's perceptions and feelings as if they
were your own, but without losing your boundary/sense of selve.

Personal growth. Rogers' clients tend to move away from facades, away from "oughts," and away
from pleasing others as a goal in itself. Then tend to move toward being real, toward self-direction,
and toward positively valuing oneself and one's own feelings. Then learn to prefer the excitement
of being a process to being something fixed and static. They come to value an openness to inner
and outer experiences, sensitivity-to and acceptance-of others as they are, and develop greater
ability achieve close relationships.

Student-centred learning (also called child-centred learning) is an approach to education focusing
on the needs of the students, rather than those of others involved in the educational process, such
as teachers and administrators. This approach has many implications for the design of curriculum,
course content, and interactivity of courses. For instance, a student-centred course may address the
needs of a particular student audience to learn how to solve some job-related problems using some
aspects of mathematics. In contrast, a course focused on learning mathematics might choose areas
of mathematics to cover and methods of teaching which would be considered irrelevant by the
student. Student-centred learning, that is, putting students first, is in stark contrast to existing
establishment/teacher-centred lecturing and careerism. Student-centred learning is focused on the
student's needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles with the teacher as a facilitator of learning.
This classroom teaching method acknowledges student voice as central to the learning experience
for every learner. Teacher-centred learning has the teacher at its centre in an active role and
students in a passive, receptive role. Student-centred learning requires students to be active,
responsible participants in their own learning.

Background
Traditionally, teachers were at the centre of learning with students assuming a receptive role in their
education. With research showing how people learn, traditional curriculum approaches to
instruction where teachers were at the centre gave way to new ways of teaching and learning. Key
amongst these changes is the idea that students actively construct their own learning (known
as constructivism). Theorists like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky whose collective work
focused on how students learn is primarily responsible for the move to student-centred
learning. Carl Rogers' ideas about the formation of the individual also contributed to student-
centred learning. Student centred-learning means reversing the traditional teacher-centred
understanding of the learning process and putting students at the centre of the learning process.

Assessment of student-centred learning
One of the most critical differences between student-centered learning and teacher-centred
learning is in assessment. In student-centred learning, students participate in the evaluation of their
learning. This means that students are involved in deciding how to demonstrate their learning.
Developing assessment that supports learning and motivation is essential to the success of student-
centred approaches. One of the main reasons teachers resist student-centred learning is the view of
assessment as problematic in practice. Since teacher-assigned grades are so tightly woven into the
fabric of schools, expected by students, parents and administrators alike, allowing students to
participate in assessment is somewhat contentious.
He thought the role of the teacher was, of course, to facilitate learning, but also to encourage
healthy development. This would require the teacher to have a general positive regard toward the
student, as well as empathy and genuineness. Unlike Freudian theorists and behaviorists, Rogers
actually had a positive view of human nature and believed that with the right developmental
environment, people could become, well, good: independent yet connected and confident of
themselves yet flexible in their beliefs. He believed teachers were an integral part of this healthy
development, which I think we certainly can be
In the early 1960s, Albert Bandura began a series of writings that challenged the older explanations
of imitative learning and expand the topic into what is now referred to as Observational
Learning. According to Bandura, observation learning may or may not involve imitation. For example
if you see someone driving in front of you hit a pothole, and then you swerve to miss it you
learned from observational learning, not imitation (if you learned from imitation then you would
also hit the pothole). What you learned was the information you processed cognitively and then
acted upon. Observational learning is much more complex than simple imitation. Bandura's theory is
often referred to as social learning theory as it emphasizes the role of vicarious experience
(observation) of people impacting people (models). Modeling has several affects on learners:
o Acquisition - New responses are learned by observing the model.
o Inhibition - A response that otherwise may be made is changed when the observer sees a
model being punished.
o Disinhibition - A reduction in fear by observing a model's behavior go unpunished in a feared
activity.
o Facilitation - A model elicits from an observer a response that has already been learned.
o Creativity - Observing several models performing and then adapting a combination of
characteristics or styles.
In one of his experiments, twenty-four preschool children were assigned to each of three conditions.
One group observed aggressive adult models; a second observed inhibited non-aggressive models;
while the control group had no prior exposure to the models. Subjects were then tested for the
amount of imitative as well as non-imitative aggression performed in a new situation in the absence
of the models. Comparison of the subjects' behavior in the generalization situation revealed that
subjects exposed to aggressive models reproduced a good deal of aggression resembling that of the
models, and that their mean scores differed markedly from those of subjects in the non-aggressive
and control groups. Subjects in the aggressive condition also exhibited significantly more partially
imitative and non-imitative aggressive behavior and were generally less inhibited in their behavior
than subjects in the non-aggressive condition.
Some of Bandura's other contributions include:
Cuing
Cuing refers to actions that make stimuli more salient and thus more likely to be noticed. Attention
can be cued directly, e.g., Watch this!, or indirectly by telling your students, I wonder what will
happen when I push this button? In general, cuing includes the directing of attention through
pointing, holding objects up for viewing, telling learners where to look, or asking questions that will
cause them to process information and find the appropriate stimulus.
Self-Efficacy
Bandura also researched self-efficacy. This is part of our "self system" that helps us to evaluate our
performance. Perceived self-efficacy refers to one's impression of what one is capable of doing. This
comes from a variety of sources, such as personal accomplishments and failures, seeing others who
are similar to oneself, and verbal persuasion. Verbal persuasion may temporarily convince people
that they should try or avoid some task, but in the final analysis it is one's direct or vicarious
experience with success or failure that will most strongly influence one's self-efficacy. For example, a
coach may fire-up her team before a game by telling the team how great they are, but the
enthusiasm will be short-lived if the opposing team is clearly superior. People with high perceived
self-efficacy try more, accomplish more, and persist longer at a task than people with low perceived
self-efficacy. Bandura speculated that this is because people with high perceived self-efficacy tend to
have more control over their environment and therefore experience less uncertainty. Also, one's
perceived self-efficacy may not correspond to one's real self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is self-constructed
and is like confidence, but is definite, not abstracted
The dark side to self-efficacy is it can lead to only approaching easy tasks, obsessing over easy or
hard tasks at the occlusion of more important life goals, or learned helplessness (a type of
depression) if self-efficacy is too low