Teacher controlled vs. Student centered classroom

Teaching with all the control is easier on the teacher because they do not have to plan for all possible thought processes that might be brought into the classroom and how each student will come to a unanimous classroom conclusion. One way of making the students feel like they are in control is to offer alternative homework assignments that get at the same information so all students are still learning the same material, but the students got to choose some aspect of what they have to do so they might feel more motivated to finish the homework.
In the kindergarten classroom that I was in for fieldwork each day the teacher would go over the days of the week routine with her students where she stood in front of the class and pointed out what day of the week, what day of the month, and how many days of school they had attended up to that point. This is an example of a teacher controlled interaction because the students would all pay attention to the teacher and the props she was using and recite the information along with her to demonstrate that they knew the information as well. Whenever the students would get ahead of the teacher since this happened every day and became routine for most students the teacher would stop or slow down to make sure everyone was reciting the information together. In this way the teacher maintained her control of the situation. A student centered activity that I did not observe directly but heard about was when the students got to pick stories that they would read on their own.
The students seemed to get bored while reciting the days of the week material, whereas the students would ask me sometimes while doing other activities if it was reading time. The difference here being that the students were more motivated to do something that they had more control over or was centered around their interest and less motivated to do something that they were required to do everyday.