PDF The Difference Between Teaching and Telling
Creating More Learning-Centered Community Colleges is the title of a “monograph” written by Terry O’Banion in 1997, and published by the League for Innovation. Everything O’Banion had to say about community colleges applies to universities as well. Later this year I will publish a series based on his work. For now, I would like simply list the principles he espouses. According to O’Banion, the environment we want to create for our students is one that …
- … creates substantive change in individual learners.
- … engages learners in the learning process as full partners, assuming primary responsibility for their own choices.
- … creates and offers as many options for learning as possible.
- … assists learners to form and participate in collaborative learning activities.
- … defines the roles of learning by the needs of the learners.
- … along with its learning facilitators* succeed only when improved and expanded learning can be documented for its learners.
* Those learning facilitators are the instructors. I bet you knew that. 
These six principles describe, in major part, what distinguishes teaching of telling. I will expand on these with tips and advice for what you can do to create a learning-centered classroom.
© 2010 Paul A. Hummel, Ed.D.
Revised June 26, 2010
