Running head: FINAL REFLECTION

Final Reflection
Angeline T Jones
Loyola University Chicago

Michelangelo once said I am still learning. When this quote was first introduced to our
course, I only thought of it as wise words spoken by a wise man. At the time I had never

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considered the immense meaning behind them. Following my undergraduate career, I knew that
I did not know everything, but I thought I knew enough. I had gained admission into graduate
school; I had graduated from my undergraduate institution with top grades and great
recommendations. I was not complacent in thinking that I knew everything but I had had my fair
share of both good and bad instructors. Enough to think that coming into a curriculum
development class, I would know how to create a course that not only would students love, but
also be able to successfully learn all the things I wanted them to. I very quickly learned that this
was not the case and that I was nowhere near the end of my educational experience.
When reflecting and considering my own personal philosophy of curriculum
development, at the heart of it, is understanding how people learn and how this can change and
be influenced by factors outside of the classroom. Coming from a psychology background,
understanding how someone learns something new has always interested me and always been
something that I felt I understood fairly well, from a psychological standpoint that is. Someone
takes in new information. It gets coded and moved into memory. What I had not considered
however, were the outlying factors that can influence this. Learning had always been described to
me in very certain, cut and dry terms. Extraneous factors were not mentioned. Where I began to
see this come into question was when reading Bransford works.
In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (1999), Bransford introduces
the idea that it is not just what happens inside the classroom and the classroom atmosphere that
can affect how students learn. Children are born with certain biological capacities for learning
(p. 234). From this, we know that we are literally born to learn. What affects this and what
types of factors come into play with this include many things. From a students home life, to
their cognitive ability to grasp new information, as well as the applicability of the content to that

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particular student; there are so many more variables at play that I had not previously considered.
My personal philosophy hinges on knowing my students and creating the most effective space
that I possibly can, in which to create significant learning experiences for them. Reflecting on
my undergraduate experience, two of the best courses I had were Anthropology courses, both
with the same instructor. As a psychology major, I had no real interest in the anthropology from
the start but I needed a Non-Western course to complete my degree. What helped me be so
successful in the course and encouraged me to pursue another course with that instructor was the
way in which she made the content applicable to us. It was a bit easier for her to do this because
our class size was smaller, but the way in which she presented the information and gave us
tangible examples, allowed us to make connections and apply the knowledge in ways that may
have otherwise simply gone over our heads. My philosophy is to know my students well enough
to be able to create those impactful experiences and to be able to adapt myself to keep my
students learning at the center.
I feel that so many times, actual student learning is pushed by the wayside to make way
for standardized testing, especially at the high school level. Students are conditioned to learn
what they need to score well on the AP test or the ACT or SAT, not what will make them
successful college students over all. By creating a setting where assessment is not only
measurable, but also meaningful outside of simple numbers assigned to a student, my philosophy
centers on learning that consists of more than just regurgitation of terms or information,
regardless of the content I am covering. I am not nave to the fact that this is much more
challenging at the college level, but from my experiences, I know that it can be done. By
creating learning activities and assessment activities that are still formal, I would strive to bridge

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the gap of learning just to be able to repeat the information, and learning to be able to apply the
knowledge in a way that is meaningful to the student.
When reflecting on my growth throughout this course, I would say that my selfassessment would be predominantly positive. I feel that overall I am much more confident in my
ability to not only articulate what effective learning strategies are and what they consist of, but
also an understanding of what makes students able to learn most effective. In psychology there
is always the ongoing argument of nature versus nurture. In the case of curriculum development
and creating significant learning experience, I think that it is not as much a question of one or the
other, but what combination of both is ideal for effective student learning. I learned from
Bransford that there are so many factors that go on outside of the classroom, that have a bearing
on a students effectiveness within the classroom that in my opinion, it is impossible to claim that
it is just one or the other. I feel that one area that I have made significant progress in is
developing learning outcomes for my courses. At the beginning of the course I felt as if I was
sort of floundering with regard to my learning outcomes. I had always been taught that testing
was the best ways to measure students grasp of course material, because that is how I was
assessed. I now understand that there are many other ways to not only measure students
learning, but also different ways to assess student growth. By studying and utilizing Finks
Taxonomy of Significant Learning, I can say that I now better understand the different dimension
within which learning can occur, and that not all of these can be measured in the same ways.
While I can say with certainty that I am much better now at this point in the course, at writing
learning outcomes, I know that it is still an art I have not yet mastered.
From all of this, I feel that I can now call myself an educator. Prior to this course, I took
ELPS 425: Student Affairs Profession in Higher Education. In that course Dr. Darren Pierre

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pushed us to consider ourselves as not only Student Affairs Professionals but also as Student
Affairs Educators. I entered this program with the mindset that I would be an administrator
when I graduated. I had never considered myself an educator. I changed my major very quickly
in undergrad when I realized that Elementary Education was not for me. Following that, I did
not think that I would ever be an educator again; until Dr. Pierres course and until this course.
Specifically when creating my share of modules for the Marquette Experiential Learning
Project, I began to feel more confident in my ability to not only create course content, but also be
able to effectively present the content that I had created.
The most prevalent connection that I am able to make between the course readings and
the ways in which I applied them to my coursework, assignments, and group project would be
the way in which I continually used Dee Fink. Over and over again, I found myself going back
to Fink, referring to a post-it note I had used to mark a page with important information and how
it related to what I was currently working on. Finks work is one that I feel permeated all areas
of my work in this course. Due to the fact that many of the areas I found that I struggled with
throughout the course related to learning outcome development, Fink quickly became my go-to
reference. The most prevalent example of how Fink influenced my course would be my modules
within our group project for Marquette. Not only did his Integrated Course Design Model shape
how I created my modules overall, but it also shaped the way I developed my learning outcomes,
activities, and assessments. By urging me to create my learning outcomes in conjunction with
my learning activities and assessment activities through the use of his 3-column-table, I was
forced to look at the whole picture of my sessions, and piece them together as one. What exactly
did I want my students to have gained by the end of it? How did I want to measure what they
had learned? How could I creatively present the information I needed to convey. By asking

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these questions, especially when working on my Students as Creative Educators Module, I came
to view myself more and more an educator, as opposed to simply a Student Affairs Professional.
This connection is one that I have had trouble bridging into other courses this semester.
When thinking of Student Development Theory and the ways in which I am able to
connect course readings across the two, I find it somewhat difficult. So much of theory, is
exactly that: theory. Until the situation arises that I feel that I am able to view a student within a
particular theory and understand their development, it is hard to see a clear connection across
courses. Looking back however, as I previously mentioned, my Student Affairs Profession
course urged me time and time again to view myself as an educator. Not being able to define a
clear cut connection between this course and Student Development Theory is something that has
troubled me for some time now and that I am still working through. Because all three courses
could be seen as working in conjunction, it is even more frustrating to me to not be able to find
the link, even though I know it should be there. I think that in order to resolve this, it would take
me simply looking for deeper connections, and trying to take a step back, so to speak, and
looking at the larger picture. So much of what students experience happens both in and out of
the classroom. Specifically with college students, their identity formation is still at a very fragile
state and this can play into their classroom experience as well. I think from a very general level,
this is where I would draw a connection between the three, but I feel that this is very surface
level. I feel the need to challenge myself to delve deeper and try to visualize the connection in
order to make it something tangible for myself to be able to utilize to the benefit of my students.
Again, because I know the connections are there somewhere, I believe that this is something
personal that I might continue to trouble to find a resolution and uncover the connection.

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Overall, I feel a shift in my level of confidence as a result of this course. I feel that I can
speak with authority in reference to what makes learning and education effective for students. I
feel that I now have the tools and the literature to be able to back my claims and defend the
learning outcomes I have created. From this I feel confident in calling myself a future Student
Affairs Educator. While I am not sure if teaching is something I would actually go into, I feel
confident in knowing that I have the abilities to do so. One of the major themes which occurred
for me which I believe it is imperative for any course is to have an understanding of what you are
looking to get from the course. I initially took this course, based off of recommendations from
other students. As soon as I received the syllabus, I knew it was going to challenge me in ways
that I was not quite ready for, but felt up to the challenge. I felt that this class did an incredible
job of pushing me to think of myself as more, to ask more of myself, and to push myself. By
thinking any less, I would be doing my students a disservice.

References
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (1999). How People Learn: Brain,
Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

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Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to
developing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.