The learner’s role In The CBA

Learning requires from the learner to go through a process of personal appropriation. Because of this conception of learning, the learner continually questions his own convictions. This permanent questioning leads the learner to revise his prior-knowledge and its scope to compare his own representations with those of his classmates, to search for information and validate it through consulting various sources of documentation or people in possession of information.

This presupposes that the learner creates situations of learning and assessment relating both to the process and the results. The interactions with his classmates and his teacher help the learner to:

• Make a representation of situations.
• Find various ways of performing tasks.
• Construct and call upon various resources.
• Proceed to an assessment of his progress during the activities and at the end of activities.

To do so, the learner will appeal to cognitive, affective and motivational strategies in order to set a balance between his previous knowledge and his newly acquired knowledge.

The reflection the learner will operate on his own learning processes will assure the quality of his acquisition and facilitate his retention.

Since learning is a challenging intellectual process, while accomplishing a task, the learner displays appropriate behaviours while doing a specific action. This is performance.

By focusing more on the learner, the teaching objectives facilitate the learning assessment. Thus, diagnostic, formative and summative assessments make it possible to redefine the globality of assessing act as well as the interdependence between the different moment when it takes place.

Besides, the pedagogical objectives insist on the principle that only what has been clearly stated can be assessed at the end of the learning process. Because he focuses his action on the learner and his learning process, the teacher determines the teaching objectives in terms of development, decides on the choice of appropriate methods, situations, assessment tools, ways of reinvesting pre-requisites and types of remedial work.

Thus the meaning of assessment changes: from being a final external sanctioning action (normative, summative and certificative), it becomes the driving force for learning.

It allows judgement and appropriation on one hand and motivation on the other hand.

Through making the learning objectives explicit, the teacher proposes to give the learner meaning to his task, and shows him that the result to reach is accessible.

The proper wording of these objectives clarifies the object of the learning process. It is only then that a great autonomy can be achieved.

Even if all the pupils do not achieve the same objectives at the same time, their formulation facilitates the organisation of a personalized pedagogy and gives new impulse to the learner’s involvement.

Mutual commitment between teacher and learner through a language comprehensible to both partners allows a better definition of the contract between teacher and learner, that is to say the result to be achieved by the learner.

It will also facilitate the identification of the different commitments of each partner, the final evaluation of the project and improve communication between the partners.