The Student-Centered Education Design in the Age of Automation: A Case Study

Abstract

Research into educational design has highlighted the growing concern of learner disengagement in English as Foreign Language classrooms. This issue has received increasing scholarly attention, as the need for reskilling in the era of automation has impinged the way foreign languages are taught and learned at the university level. However, the degree to which this occurs is little explored. This paper intends to investigate the career-related factors that influence learner engagement in the learner-centered education design. Drawn upon Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory and the Biggs’ constructive alignments, this paper intends to explicate the possibilities of guided career planning, transferrable skills practice, and technology-assisted multimodal assessments to resolve learner engagement problems in response to automation-induced skill shortages in future workplaces. This paper reports a case study of a standard 45-minute teaching session designed for a first-year foundational course involving a total of 22 undergraduate students. A portfolio of interactive technology platforms (e. g. , Sli. do, Kahoot) and professional tools (e. g. , MBTI, SWOT) are employed. The results revealed improved engagement in learner-centered environments with career-oriented exercises. While the findings cannot be regarded as representative, they point to the positive direction of learner- centered education design in the age of automation.