Photo: Faculty Focus (blog) |
As a faculty reader of these e-portfolios, I quickly came to the realization that these student writers were considering how and why they learn for the first time. That started me thinking. I wondered why we, as instructors, often discuss our teaching philosophies but rarely consider our learning philosophies and those of our students. I believe that a learning philosophy is different from a learning style, which is often described as an innate student quality. In contrast, a learning philosophy is something that students can develop themselves; they may be constrained by a particular learning style (though some experts now dispute the existence of learning styles), but they can certainly create for themselves their own learning philosophy.
A couple of recent Teaching Professor Blog posts offer some ways we could help students develop their learning philosophies. The November 13, 2013 post suggests writing learning autobiographies, articulating a best learning experience, and becoming metacognitively aware. Then there was the post [January 22, 2014] that identified some positive learner characteristics: good learners are curious; they pursue understanding diligently; good learners know that a lot of learning isn’t fun; failure frightens good learners, but they know it’s beneficial; good learners make knowledge their own; good learners never run out of questions; and they share what they’ve learned. Students could use these characteristics to think about how they approach learning...
As a result of that experience, I have started discussing learning philosophies with students in my courses. When I’ve asked them to consider what might be included in their learning philosophies, it’s apparent that this is not a question they’ve thought about at all. To help them, I generated a set of questions that I suggest they ask themselves after any learning experience:
- How did you learn this?
- What did you learn?
- Why did you spend time learning this?
- Will what you’ve just learned be useful to you in the future? Why? How?
- Are you different now after learning this than you were before? How?
- How did learning this make you feel? Why did it make you feel that way?
- If you were going to learn this again, how would you learn it differently or learn it better?
- Did you get any feedback, say from your instructor or a classmate, as you were learning this? Was it helpful? Did you agree with it? Did you act on it?
- Is the only reason you’re taking this course is that it’s required?
- Why would the university require a course like this?
- Is this (or any course you’re taking) helping you become the person you want to be?
- What do you need to be doing now to make yourself the kind of person you want to be when you leave the university?
Source: Faculty Focus (blog)