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ELPS 430

Final Reflection

Throughout my experience in the Curriculum in Higher Education course, I feel that I have learned

a great deal, and grown both professionally and personally. This class has allowed me to develop a

philosophy of curriculum development, reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses, make connections

between the course readings and assignments, make connections to other courses and my professional

work, and consider important themes about learning in higher education. With each project for this

course, class discussions, and the ePortfolio, I have been able to synthesize the learning from this course.

This course has helped me think critically about the ways in which I developed curriculum in my own

teaching experience as an adjunct instructor of Sociology courses at the College of Lake County.

Additionally, in my full-time role in Institutional Effectiveness, the course has provided a deeper

understanding of assessment, as well as the ways I might apply course concepts to workshops and

professional development opportunities I lead.

Philosophy for Curriculum Development

My philosophy for curriculum development has emerged through both the course readings and

the experiences of creating curriculum for Marquette Universitys Center for Teaching and Learning. My

curricular philosophy might be most simply summarized by John Hatties guidance for teachers to know

thy impact (Zegarac, 2013). As I think about my own experiences developing curriculum for Sociology

classes and a variety of staff and faculty workshops, I dont think I really had a concrete approach prior to

taking this class. Much of the time, I think I fell back on my own prior experiences in higher education,

using the methods and strategies I had experienced as a learner, not unlike many novice instructors (Fink,

2003). At best, I could say that I had established learning outcomes, and I had used some elements of

active learning and connecting course content with student experiences through assignments like weekly

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reflections. However, I lacked a clear cohesion and philosophy for curriculum decisions; I could not have

expressed a rationale for curricular choices or the ways in which my teaching really affected students. In

short, I did not know my impact. As Hattie, suggests, a key mind-frame for educators is to recognize that

my fundamental task is to evaluate the effect of my teaching on students learning and achievement, not

simply to know how the student or curriculum influenced learning, but to recognize that ones own

decisions and role as an educator holds relevance to students learning (Zegarac, 2013).

Although this is simply stated, I have learned how much more complex such a statement is to

achieve in reality. Knowing and evaluating my teaching effect requires not only a philosophy for

curricular development, but an adoption of a thorough, intentional, ongoing process for developing

curriculum. Central to my philosophy and subsequent process is the understanding of how people learn.

As Bransford, et. al. (1999) write, the transfer of knowledge most effectively occurs through the reliance

on prior knowledge and building on students own experiences. I seek to balance this learner-centered

approach with assessment-centered, as well as knowledge-centered approaches in my curriculum

development. As Fink (2003) suggests, beginning by exploring the situational factors of learners can help

the instructor to better establish not only learning goals and methods of assessment, but also an

organizational structure of information to facilitate learning that is key to the knowledge-centered

approach (Bransford, et.al., 1999). Situational knowledge of ones students can be important for any type

of learning environment, which should rely on an understanding of how students might connect materials

to their prior knowledge or own lives (Nilson, 2010), but it is especially important in experiential learning

practices which inevitably integrate students experiences with classroom content.

With some foundation for understanding the students I might expect to enroll in a course I am

developing, I would next focus on the learning outcomes, much like in Finks Integrated Course Design

Model (2003). Setting measurable goals for student learning can establish a clear destination for any

curriculum and help maintain focus. While I see a utility for all of Finks types of significant learning in

his taxonomy, I find myself most interested in emphasizing caring and learning how to learn, and see the

other aspects as perhaps a means to those ends. For example, students certainly would need some

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foundational knowledge of an unknown topic, and they might apply and integrate concepts, learning

about themselves and others through that process; however, my ideal for learners would be that through

those learning experiences they value the course content and develop a deeper commitment that propels

them to self-directed, further learning. I am drawn to a combination of Nilsons suggestions for an

outcomes-centered approach and Finks taxonomy of significant learning. In developing my own sample

syllabus for this course, I developed outcomes based on Finks taxonomy that were organized by

foundational, mediating, and ultimate outcomes, a suggestion from Nilson (2010). Additionally, I

displayed the outcomes in a sort of flowchart as Nilson (2010) recommends. In my own work, I hope to

continue organizing outcomes using these methods as it greatly helped me to develop the rest of the

curriculum.

With clear outcomes, I would develop educative assessment activities followed by learning

activities much like Fink (2003) characterizes them. Through my work on the Marquette project and the

creation of a sample syllabus, my tendency in curriculum design is to overlap several assessment and

learning activities. Fink (2003) recognizes that this is a legitimate strategy, and I employed it

intentionally through my projects. As Nilson (2010) suggests, plenty of assessment opportunities will

help facilitate learning, and I strive to provide feedback either directly or through peer or self-assessment

with any possible opportunity. Practicing these approaches through course assignments, like the peer and

community-partner assessments built into the syllabus I constructed or the pair-and-share activities in the

Marquette professional development modules that are meant to create space for immediate peer and

facilitator feedback, has helped me to reflect on my prior work as well. In prior experience teaching a

Sociology of Families course, I asked students to write weekly reflection papers connecting an experience

of their own, or one they saw in media to a topic from that week. While it served as both a learning and

assessment activity and perhaps had some positive elements to draw on students experiences, it was

always a challenge to provide timely feedback to these frequent assignments, which Fink (2003)

encourages. This course, and particularly reading Rendns (2008) myriad strategies for contemplative

practices, has encouraged me to think more creatively about the types of learning and assessment

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activities that can draw on students experiences and leverage the situational factors so important to the

learning process.

Overall, my philosophy on curriculum development focuses on setting goals for learners and

assessing how well my curricular and pedagogical decisions helped learners achieve those goals. Both for

the determination of goals and for the development of activities that will help those learners achieve the

learning outcomes, knowing the learners and their own experiences are essential. Through both my own

experiences as well as the Marquette project, I have developed an appreciation for practical

considerations in curriculum design. In many ways, knowing what will work or not in a curriculum

design goes back to knowing your audience, or knowing the situational factors Fink (2003) refers to. In

my own curriculum process, I think it is important not only to understand the situational factors at the

beginning of the process, but to continually return to them throughout the design process, asking if each

outcome, assessment activity, and learning activity will not only respond to, but ideally leverage the

learners prior experiences and knowledge. Although I have less experience as an instructor using

experiential learning, I see it as a highly impactful means of facilitating the learning my curriculum would

set out to achieve. As I continue to develop as an Institutional Effectiveness professional and educator, I

know my curricular philosophy will continue to refine certain strengths and grow in other areas.

Self-Assessment

Throughout the semester, I feel that I have grown in several ways, but still have much to learn. I

feel most confident with concepts from Finks (2003) ICD model and assessment of learning. Like a

well-designed course should, this course allowed me to build on some of my own prior, basic knowledge

from work experiences developing curriculum, defining learning outcomes, and evaluating learning to

provide feedback or make improvements to programs or curriculum. Especially through the Marquette

project where I spearheaded the module on assessment of experiential learning, I felt like I was able to

expand on my knowledge and develop assessment into a strong suit of mine. Although some of the

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additional readings about assessment that I did in preparation for the Marquette project focused on

institutional assessments of service-learning programs, and were not always useful for the course-level

focus most faculty in the workshops would have, I found these readings to be interesting and especially

helpful for my work on institution-wide assessment activities in my full-time job. Also through the

Marquette project, the syllabus case studies, and the practice of designing a sample syllabus, I feel

confident in the backwards design and core elements of Finks (2003) ICD model. As I simultaneously

developed workshops for faculty at College of Lake County and for the Marquette project, and received

feedback throughout both development processes, I felt like I especially grew a keen attention to

situational factors and the audience, which was faculty in both settings.

Despite these key areas of strength, I know there are other aspects of the course that I still want to

learn more about. First, I feel that I learned a tremendous amount about experiential learning, and

particularly service-learning, which I knew little about prior to entering the course. The case study of

service-learning programs as well as the Marquette project as a service-learning experience were both

highly beneficial to my learning. Where I would still like to develop is practicing service-learning from

the position of an educator rather than as a student. In my sample syllabus, I utilized community-based

research, and applied some of the experiential learning concepts, but this was hypothetical. As my group

members and I have learned through our group project, applying ideal theories in curriculum design can

be complicated by the practical considerations that come with a real-life scenario. I certainly would not

have traded any experience in our course, but I personally feel that I could grow (and hope to have the

opportunity to) by trying to implement a service-learning course as an instructor.

Additionally, I would like to expand my understanding of and application of critical reflection.

While I acknowledge that my identity as a heterosexual, white, male, places me in a position of privilege

in many settings in our society, I do not have the student development theory background that seemed to

serve many of my classmates well when discussing this topic. Precisely because of my privileged

position, I feel that it is especially important for me to explore my identity in relation to learners in my

workshops or classrooms. As a researcher, I see some overlap with the concept of reflexivity, where the

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researcher addresses his or her own position in relation to the research subject(s) and context studied

(Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Although I have practiced reflexivity in my research work, I feel less

confident facilitating critical reflection or creating critical reflection assignments and hope to continue to

develop those skills.

Internal Connections

Throughout the course, there were several ways in which I was able to connect readings,

assignments, the group project, and class discussions. A few concepts have been especially meaningful

for me in this course. One of the key elements of the course that I often returned to was the relationship

of the learners experiences to the curriculum. Learning Reconsidered established the idea of

transformative education relying on, among other factors, students leveraging their own experiences and

applying it to their education (Keeling, 2004). For Fink (2003), prior experiences take the form of

situational factors that can inform the assessment and learning activities as well as learning outcomes.

Fink provides a practical guide for integrating this concept into curriculum design. I worked to

incorporate these concepts in my creation of a sample syllabus by including activities at the beginning of

the semester to help match students with semester-long team research projects that could build on the

students prior experiences. Nilson (2010) further emphasizes the importance of practical life applications

of content for adult learners, who are especially interested in the utility of knowledge in their daily lives.

Our group also paid careful attention to situational factors we anticipated among the adult faculty learners

as we created our Marquette curriculum modules and constructed useful tools faculty could carry with

them in their process of designing curriculum. Jack Mezirow (1997) elevates this concept in his

transformative learning theory, which asks not just to consider adult learners experiences, but to

recognize the way their experiences have predisposed them to certain frames of reference which ought to

be critically examined by the learner to construct new understandings and frames of references. Mezirow

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(2003) recognizes transformative learning as an adult form of metacognition, another key concept

appearing through several readings and activities in our course.

As Bransford, et.al. (1999) explain, metacognition refers to ones ability to predict own

performance and monitor levels of learning. It is a type of self-reflection or self-evaluation of ones own

thinking that is critical to the learning process. Experiential learning seems to provide an immensely

valuable vehicle for accomplishing metacognition. Reflection elements of the assignments in this course,

including this reflection itself, have served as excellent metacognitive opportunities. In Kolbs (1984)

view, learning is a continuous process grounded in experience, which can challenge expectations and

make one think critically. Kolb suggests that the educator should not simply try to implant new ideas in a

learner, but also dispose of or modify old ones by allowing the learner to examine and test his or her pre-

existing ideas (1984). When I initially read this, I had a sort of meta- moment where I realized that was

precisely what was happening in our course. I had my own prior experience as an instructor where I

focused heavily on a set learning outcomes and fairly narrow paths for students to simply learn new

knowledge without examining their own learning along the way; in that very moment I was challenging

my own prior ideas. The group project allowed for the opportunity to integrate those new ideas as we

planned activities that compared and contrasted faculty workshop participants experiences with non-

experiential learning courses to potential service-learning courses, and allowed for self-assessment and

reflection. Like Kolb, Mezirow (1997) also emphasizes this type of self-reflection to critique ones own

frames of reference and develop new ones. Yet, Mezirow (1997) sees this leading not simply to a singular

self-reflection, but a broader competency to be able to think autonomously beyond the short-term learning

experience. The continual process of reflecting on ones own assumptions in order to dialog with others

and develop ones frame of reference allows the learner to engage in ongoing transformative learning.

This concept of autonomous thinking seems much like Finks (2003) learning how to learn, where the

learner identifies ways of inquiring further on a topic and becomes a self-directed learner. Again,

experiential learning seems to facilitate this; as McKillip (2009) explains, undergraduate research with

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meaningful collaborations, as one form of experiential learning, helps students develop a life-long interest

in helping to solve problems or answer complicated questions. Many of the reflections in class and on

assignments, but particularly this final reflection and the group project have allowed me to practice this

action of self-reflection, preparing me as an autonomous thinker. This service-learning experience has

built up my capacity to do what Hattie calls for educators to do: practice a sort of critical self-reflection to

evaluate our own teachings effect on students (Zegarac, 2013). Overall, I think these key concepts from

the course have been consistent themes that have greatly impacted me.

External Connections

In addition to the connections I was able to make between content and assignments in the course,

I made several connections with other projects and courses. While taking this course, I was also enrolled

in a course on Enrollment Management in Higher Education. Although this course rarely talked about

curriculum, there were some interesting overlapping connection points. As we discussed alternative

admissions processes, for example, and the evaluation of non-cognitive characteristics or student essays,

we discussed the use of rubrics. Much like the learning goals that are essential to Finks (2003) ICD

model, admissions offices across the country trying to make decisions on factors other than test scores

and grades are assessing students on competencies they hope students will bring to the institution.

Although these are not learning outcomes, they are similar in the sense of how one might measure them.

As admissions offices struggle to evaluate these qualitative characteristics, perhaps something could be

learned from curriculum and assessment literature.

Additionally, several work experiences have provided good opportunities for me to integrate course

materials. During this semester, I collaborated with colleagues at the College of Lake County (CLC),

where I work, to develop faculty workshops about department-level academic assessment. I was able to

leverage some of the tools from our course, like Nilsons (2010) formula for writing learning outcomes

and rubric for assessing learning outcomes. I was also able to practice Finks ICD model as we developed

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these workshops from scratch and together identified learning outcomes and assessment and learning

activities. This helped me learn how I might apply Finks model in practical ways, amidst competing

viewpoints on curriculum design. Although my colleagues and I collaborate very well together on these

workshops, I have found that, practically, there is little time to revisit the literature on curriculum design

when in the throws of actually creating a workshop; instead I tried to apply Finks methods without really

talking about how I was applying his methods. Lastly, I conduct regular training for my colleges data

warehouse. In addition to thinking more carefully about the design of my training, Finks notion of

learning how to learn and Mezirows autonomous learning have given me new perspective. The data

warehouse is an interactive tool where users can create reports and pull data to answer their questions;

Mezirow and Fink have provided some good strategies Im considering for helping faculty and staff that I

train to develop self-directed learning, and recognize the ways in which they can answer their own

questions.

Themes from Curriculum in Higher Education

In addition to the themes already mentioned throughout this reflection, there were some concepts

that were very helpful for me. First, I think it was important to understand that curriculum ought to be

designed in the way that people actually learn. That might seem very simple, but I had expected that we

might perhaps learn about several different curricular design approaches and models based primarily on

teacher practice. Instead, the focus on learners and especially the science to build rationale for using such

an approach to design curriculum was helpful for me. As someone who works in Institutional

Effectiveness, I am often questioning why people follow certain processes and asking about evidence that

supports their processes. In this course, the evidence was clearly presented through readings about how

people learn and became a reoccurring theme too; we made decisions in creating syllabi and professional

development modules not by considering what the instructor might enjoy or be comfortable with, but

what would best suit the learners process for engaging with new knowledge. It was especially interesting

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for me to think about how important each curricular decision can be to the learning that results.

Ultimately, using Finks (2003) model, and keeping in mind several authors research on learning, the

resulting theme is that curricular decisions hold great importance and should be driven by considerations

of the learners and desired learning. In the case study of various syllabi, it was evident that this is not the

design approach taken by many faculty. To be sure, being learner-centered is challenging and time-

consuming, but this course has inspired me not only to incorporate this approach in my own work, but to

encourage others to do the same.

Another important theme that emerged for me was the utility and significance of experiential

learning. Prior to this course, I had little experience with service-learning, and certainly had not

considered the various models of experiential learning or the purposes they could fulfill. Given the

elements of effective learning environments, it seems important to shift high-impact, experiential learning

to the center of curriculum design instead of a separate, side element. Through the case study assignment

researching service-learning programs at five institutions, I was able to see a range of integration of

service-learning with the rest of the institution. Although service-learning seemed well developed at a

couple of institutions, it appeared to always be a separate program with some participation, not a

pedagogy applied widely throughout the faculty. While I can appreciate the difficulty of shifting

experiential learning, which requires the hard work of a learner-centered approach as well as other

challenging design work, to a common practice among faculty, I still have optimism that it can gradually

be moved in that direction. The Marquette project modules will help facilitate this shift at Marquette, and

perhaps also Loyola. With a continuum of experiential learning models that can serve different purposes

as Furco (1996) describes, there seems to be options for many disciplines and environments.

For me, the significance of this lies not only in my better understanding of service-learning as a

pedagogy with high expectations and rigor, but in the rationale and research behind it. Again, my

professional lens often draws me to question why an approach might be used. This course and the

service-learning group project greatly helped me to see the impactful learning that can transpire through

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experiential learning. Despite the challenges, the benefits are numerous; experiential learning calls the

educator to be intentional about design, clear about expected outcomes, and cognizant of the

transformative learning process (Howard, 1993). It has the potential, especially through critical service-

learning (Donahue & Mitchell, 2010), to benefit traditionally disadvantaged students and narrow

achievement gaps (Brownell & Swaner, 2010). It pushes the educator to establish much of the

groundwork essential for assessment of student learning and evaluation of instruction. It can develop the

educator as a self-aware, autonomous thinker, who evaluates his or her own impact on the learner,

precisely the characteristics I strive for in my own philosophy of curriculum design and teaching that I

have developed through this course. It hardly belongs as a side dish; it is not the salad, or the pita, or the

tahini, but the main dish, and it comes with dessert. Overall, this has been one of the most impactful

learning experiences I have had, which has only helped to demonstrate the significance and power of

experiential learning and effective curriculum design.

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Donahue, D. M. & Mitchell, T.D. (2010). Critical service learning as a tool for identity exploration.
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Nilson, L.B. (2010). Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors. San
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Zegarac, G. (2013). Know thy impact: teaching, learning and leading. An interview with John Hattie In
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