Trending Towards a Learner-Centered Design

Hi, Im into my second year as a full-time college instructor after a few years of parttime work, and am currently working on a Professional Master of Education degree.
Throughout my course-work and within my college setting, Im seeing the trend in a
transition from a traditional teacher-centred design towards more of a learnercentred approach. Id like to share a couple of quick thoughts about this and look to
spark some dialogue surrounding any challenges or strategies anyone has used
during this transition.
Ive found a lot of influence in reading works by Elizabeth Vallance, Elliot Eisner, and
Ann Marie Hill. These authors have helped me understand the various Conceptions
and Philosophies of Education that drive the curricular designs, and demonstrate a
changing philosophy as designs trend towards a learner-centred approach. The
Realism philosophy which has been dominant incorporates conceptions of
Technology and Personal Success, which utilizes the teacher as a subject specialist,
is highly outcome based, and focuses on specifics. This is beginning to sway
towards a more Pragmatic philosophy with such conceptions as Self-Actualization
and Personal Commitment to Learning, where emphasis is put on both content and
process, and recognizes students as individuals.
My question surrounds this transition in practice. Has anyone been actively
involved in creating a more learner-centred curricular design, and what has this
looked like in your context, in terms of teaching style, activities, and assessment?
My current program involves both theory courses and practical labs. The theory
courses are still very much the teacher-driven lecture, classic of post-secondary
education, with groups of 30-65 students. Assessment consists of multiple choice
exams with a small selection of short-answer questions. Im looking for ideas to
make this experience more student-centred, but struggle with the number of
students and time constraints of grading evaluations beyond multiple choice exams,
or having to utilize class time for something more novel like oral interviews. Faculty
feel even more constrained by the fact that graduates must write a six hour
multiple choice test to become certified in their field, so we feel our job as faculty is
to prepare our students for this, so this is how we test.
Recently in our lab courses we have switched from high-stakes evaluations and
graded outcomes, to a pass/fail grade, as we try to motivate our students to a
degree of mastery and teamwork, and reduce the purely results/performance driven
attitude, and overall morale and student approval has improved as a result.
So again, both as a current student and teacher, what has been the experience in
other contexts? Has anyone had experience with this change, and are there any
strategies that might prove valuable for transitioning from the traditional lecture to
a student-driven design, while still maintaining a high level of course content?
Additionally, if anyone has any resources theyve found helpful geared towards this
design transition and would be eager to share, Id be most indebted!
Thanks!

-Jason.
Here is a link to my personal blog following my course work towards my PME.
http://jlanepme810.weebly.com/