Application of Learner Centred Pedagogy in a Postgraduate Taught Course: A Sri Lankan Case Study

The use of traditional teaching methods has received criticism for not creating an environment in the classroom to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. For that reason, there has been a shift of the pedagogy from teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness in teaching-learning process. This study presents the experiences of participants and facilitators in a Sri Lankan Postgraduate class where Learner Centered Teaching (LCT) approach was adopted. Sri Lankan education system is still identified with a dominant 'teacher-centeredness' pedagogy.The study aims to explore the extent to which learner-centred pedagogy can foster voluntary participation in a postgraduate taught course. Ontologically the study can be placed within the interpretivist paradigm and adopted qualitative methodology. Reflections and experiences of sixty three participants and two facilitators were thematically analysed. Findings are discussed under three broader themes emerged, namely; feeling the difference and fulfilling the felt need, voluntary participation and a relaxed and an enjoyable experience. According to the findings there was a felt need within participants for a new pedagogy such as LCT because going beyond feeling the difference between pedagogies and participating voluntarily, the participants highlight that they 'enjoyed the learning experience'.