Running head: REFLECTIONS OFA LEARNER AND EDUCATOR

Reflections of a Learner and Educator

Ashley Trewartha
Loyola University Chicago

REFLECTIONS OFA LEARNER AND EDUCATOR

Whenever I am asked where in student affairs I want to work, I usually say something
along the lines of: I dont know, but I love learning. One of my top strengths is Learner, so
wherever I go in higher education, I want to be able to create learning opportunities for
students. I love learning so much that I try to sneak it into everything I do: from using movies
to explore social issues and systems of power and oppression to presenting training in a fun way
to teach resident assistants how to incorporate learning into programming. When I chose Loyola,
Curriculum in Higher Education was a course I knew I wanted to take. Through this course, I
have learned about the process of learning and how to create meaningful learning opportunities
both inside and outside of the classroom, I have explored what makes learning so exciting for
me, and I have learned to view myself as an educator who can create intentional opportunities for
learning no matter where in higher education I work.
Philosophy of Curriculum Development
My philosophy of curriculum development is heavily influenced by my philosophy on
education. My undergraduate experience at a public, land-grant institution instilled in me the
idea that education is to be used to benefit the public good and to improve the human condition.
My purpose for entering student affairs as a field was to encourage and prepare students to use
their education to benefit the lives of others and to work toward a more socially just world. bell
hooks (1994) wrote that:
The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The
classroom with all its limitations remains a location of possibility. In that field of
possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and
our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we

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collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as

the practice of freedom. (p. 207)
To educate for with the purpose of improving the human condition, I believe it is crucial to face
reality, (hooks, 1994, p. 207) to understand the current condition of our society, to open our
minds and our hearts through human connection and shifting perspectives, to imagine a new
reality, and to use the knowledge and skills we build through education to create a new reality.
This vision of education calls into question the role of the teacher. Teachers automatically have
power over students because they determine the learning goals of a course, they create the
assignments and the grading system, and, in the way that our current education model works,
they are seen as the holders of knowledge. However, if educators are to educate students in ways
that allow students to imagine and create a new reality that improves the human condition,
educators must give students the freedom to seek and create knowledge, dismantle the power
structures that exist in the classroom, and take responsibility for the learning that occurs. Course
curriculum and learning opportunities outside of the classroom should reflect the values and
goals of education.
Because my philosophy on education is rooted in transformative education and education
for social justice, my philosophy on curriculum development includes curricular strategies that
encourage viewing the world and ideas from new perspectives, learning that draws on ones
experiences and identities, and learning opportunities that encourage human connection.
Throughout the process of learning about curriculum development and learning, I have reflected
back on my own undergraduate experience. What experiences, both inside and outside of the
classroom, have been transformative in my life? The learning experiences that were the most
transformative for me were the ones that encouraged me to see the world from a new

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perspective. They were the ones that required me to do more than memorize facts for a multiple
choice exam. They were the ones that allowed me to see my own experiences, values, and
passions reflected in course content and learning activities. Learning about the process of
creating significant learning experiences has helped me understand what made many courses and
learning experiences so crucial to my transformative education and how I can create these
experiences for students.
Connections to Course Content
Together, the course readings, case studies, syllabus development project, group module
project, and eportfolio comprised the six types of learning from Finks (2013) taxonomy of
significant learning. The course readings provided foundational knowledge about significant
learning, curriculum development, how individuals learn, and the benefits of a variety of learning
opportunities that colleges and universities offer to students. The case studies, syllabus
development, and module project provided opportunities to apply and integrate foundational
knowledge to real components of higher education that we may encounter in our work. Because
the activities required us to apply course readings and reflect on how the course readings related
to each activity, I remember the course content better than other course readings that I did not
utilize as much in the learning activities. The module project required us to learn how to learn in
the sense that it taught us how to guide students through a learning process based on the
foundational knowledge we had through course readings. The reflection components
incorporated into learning activities as well as in class helped me recognize why what we were
learning was important. Finally, the eportfolio and the ways in which we were encouraged to
reflect on our own experiences beyond the class contributed to the human dimension and caring

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components because I was able to make connections to my own life and work, as well as my
values and interests.
For learning to be significant and meaningful, connections should be made across
learning activities, across courses, and with a students own experiences. One way in which this
occurs is through backwards design (Fink, 2013). By starting with developing learning
outcomes and connecting learning activities throughout the course with assessment, everything
within the course can be better integrated, build off of each activity, and contribute to an overall
significant learning experience (Fink, 2013). Many of the students I work with get frustrated
with the busy work that they have in some of their classes. Throughout this course, all of the
work that we have done has felt relevant to what we were learning and added value to my
experience. In connecting all elements of the course back to the learning outcomes, it helps
avoid that busy work mentality that students experience.
Creating connections also occurs through reflection. Every course assignment included a
reflection component that required tying the assignment to course content and the students own
experiences. Fink (2013) stated that:
As humans, we have the capacity to change the meaning of our ideas and experiences
but only when we pull our original meanings up to the conscious level and reflect on
what new meaning we want those ideas or experiences to have. (p. 118)
Reflection can be used to help students make meaning of what they are learning and connecting
that learning to their own aspirations and future goalsthe what, so what, and now what (Fink,
2013). In our course, reflection allowed us to process what we learning, why what we were
learning mattered, and what we planned to do in our own work with the new knowledge we
have.

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Finally, learning should include making connections to the learner. If education is to be

used to improve the human condition, those who receive an education must be able to understand
how what they are learning should be incorporated into their own lives and the work that they do.
Fink (2013) noted that:
Significant learning is learning that makes a difference in how people liveand the
kind of life they are capable of living. We want that which students learn to become part
of how they think, what they can and want to do, what they believe is true about life, and
what they valueand we want it to increase their capability for living life fully and
meaningfully. (p. 7)
Through this course, I have been able to make connections between what I am learning and how
I can incorporate it into the work that I do with students. For example, in supervising resident
assistants, providing opportunities for them to explain what they are learning, to reflect on what
they have learned about themselves as a result of the position, and to articulate what they want to
get out of their experience can help me facilitate a significant learning experience for them.
Connections across Learning Experiences
Elements of curriculum development and higher education practices can be connected to
other aspects of higher education and the work student affairs educators do with students. One
clear example is the influence that curriculum and the classroom experience has on student
development. Nilsen (2010) noted how students often begin college in a dualistic mindset,
perceiving the world in black and white and viewing authority figures as all-knowing. Curricular
elements such as reflection, which allows students to make meaning of their learning can be used
as a tool to guide students through dualism and into more advanced cognitive stages in which
they understand that authority figures are not all-knowing and that values, knowledge, and

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perspectives are always open to change (Nilsen, 2010). Another relevant theory is selfauthorship (Baxter Magolda, 2008). Many course are structured in ways that do not give
students much self-efficacy or responsibility over their own learning. Creating learning
environments in which students are forced to make choices and take responsibility for their
learning could help them learn to affirm their own choices and practice creating paths for
themselves.
Self-Assessment of Learning
I truly believe that we get out of experiences what we are willing to put into them, and
that has certainly been true of my experiences in this course. Despite being told that a paper
could be successfully completed in three to five pages, I consistently went beyond that. Though
this is partially due to me still learning how to be succinct in my verbal and written
communication, I attribute the length of my work and the time I spent on my work for this class
to my genuine interest for the course material and wanting to learn more. For me, the highimpact learning and the freedom that I was given in this course to take responsibility for my
learning helped me recognize learning for the purpose of a grade versus learning for the sole
purpose of wanting to learn. In comparison to other courses, I have not worried at all about my
grade, which has allowed me to focus on learning what I want to learn.
Though the course environment was largely set up in such a way that I thrived, there
were areas of my learning that I hope to continue to improve. My voice tends to be strongest
through my writing, but I feel less confident about my verbal communication. This held me back
from taking risks and speaking in class. Even when doing small group activities in class, I felt
that I listened more than I spoke. This also made the group project challenging, particularly
when we would try to create prompts verbally. Finally, I need to continue to work on skimming

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readings. During some of the weeks with a lot of reading, I would read half of it at a regular
pace and end up not having time to even skim the rest. I have struggled with reading
comprehension under a time limit throughout my education, and I could have done a better job
collaborating with peers to process the readings with me before class.
While I have learned a lot about curriculum development, creating learning outcomes,
working in collaboration with peers and another institution, that the hyphen in service-learning is
important, and that internships and undergraduate research are incredible experiences for
students when done well, I have learned so much about myself as an educator and as a learner. I
get really excited whenever I get to make a connection to my undergraduate institution and this
course helped me articulate why that is. My undergraduate institution provided so many
transformative experiences. My passion for creating knowledge and being active participants in
learning were values and skills that I acquired throughout my undergraduate experience. I get
excited about learning when I start to recognize connections, whether it is connections to my
own life and experiences, connections to other things I have already learned, or connections
between different ideas. One such connection, and a fitting way to end this course, comes from
Only Connect: The Goals of a Liberal Education written by the first faculty director of the
living-learning community that I lived in as an undergraduate. William Cronon (1998) wrote:
A liberal education is not something any of us ever achieve; it is not a state. Rather, it is
a way of living in the face of our own ignorance, a way of groping toward wisdom in full
recognition of our own folly, a way of educating ourselves without any illusion that our
educations will ever be complete. (p. 5)

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References
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2008). Three elements of self-authorship. Journal of College Student
Development, 49(4), 269-284.
Cronon, W. (1998). Only connect: The goals of a liberal education. The American Scholar,
67(4). Retrieved from http://www.williamcronon.net/writing/Cronon_Only_Connect.pdf
Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to
designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Nilsen, L. B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.