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Mission Statement
The mission of the NFC is to create awareness about learner-centered
education (LCE) at all levels in post-secondary institutions, with an
emphasis on enhancing the success of students with disabilities. In creating
the NFC, our intent is to foster leadership, innovation, and collaboration
among faculty and institutions toward the common goal of designing learner-centered
environments that are universally inclusive.
Background
In 1999, the University of Arizona received a grant from the U.S. Office
of Postsecondary Education for a Demonstration Project to Enhance and
Ensure Learning for Students with Disabilities (PEEL). Through PEEL grant
activities, faculty at fifteen partner institutions are learning how to
design significant learning experiences for diverse learners. The success
of the PEEL grant and its positive impact upon faculty and TA development
efforts at the University of Arizona and PEEL partner institutions provided
the impetus to develop the National Faculty Center (NFC). The NFC receives
its funding through a congressional award managed by the Department of
Education as well as from the PEEL project.
The growing diversity among learners in higher education in the United
States presents new challenges to post-secondary institutions. Chief among
those is the issue of how to facilitate the success of all students. While
there is no ideal solution to this issue, we believe that a learner-centered
approach to teaching and learning offers many possibilities for effectively
addressing the needs of students with disabilities, students of different
ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic minority students, international
students, and other diverse learners. The work of the NFC focuses on students
with disabilities to showcase how learner-centered education can transform
the learning experience. We have chosen to focus on students with disabilities
for two reasons. First, the needs of students with disabilities continue
to be neglected at the post-secondary level, despite the heightened attention
to diversity today. Second, we know that students with disabilities who
do not finish college are at an even greater disadvantage later in life
than non-disabled students who do not have a college degree.
Program Philosophy: Learning-Centered Education
Historically, the focus of teaching in the United States has been on
the delivery of content, often at the expense of the learning process
and the learner's ability to access and apply that content. Many students
experience difficulty learning in a content-centered model, particularly
students with disabilities. The term 'learning-centered' refers to enhancing
learning by designing all aspects of the learning environment to respond
to the needs of diverse learners and by applying state-of-the-art information
about learning to this process of design. By this definition, a learner-centered
instructor or institution strives to favorably impact every learner, regardless
of his or her diverse characteristics.
The central premise of the PEEL grant and the NFC is that instructors
knowledgeable in designing learner-centered environments can better facilitate
learning and maximize the potential for academic success of all
learners. Our goal is for the NFC to serve as a catalyst for positioning
learners at the heart of the instructional process. This will enhance
students' educational experience by making content accessible and meaningful
and by actively involving learners in the learning process. An enhanced
educational experience, in turn, maximizes potential for long-term success
both in and after college.
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