As I articulated on the first day of class, I chose the course because I can see where curriculum design and development can be infused throughout higher education.  Specifically being in The Department of Residence Life for the past two years, I have seen many ways where we could better deliver and assess our programs.  Using this framework, I entered the class with my eyes wide open and wanting to understand how to integrate the learning throughout my professional experience.  Now that I am done with the course, I firmly believe that the course should be a required first course for our program because of its transferability across disciplines and even outside of the field.  As Wagner and Compton’s (2012) book illustrated, we, as educators, must create environments where we challenge our students while meeting them at their developmental levels.  Throughout the course content and experiences, this course has challenged me to critically think about my own philosophy of curriculum development and find ways to transfer this learning into the professional setting.  Additionally, I really appreciated the ability to not only try out various forms of learning and apply our content to our project with Marquette’s Center for Teaching and Learning.  Throughout this reflection, I aim to show the evolution of my philosophy of curriculum development, my connections to course content and professional practice, and my own self-assessment of my growth and learning throughout the semester.

Philosophy of Curriculum Development

            I remember early conversations with my peers about how I saw this course fitting into my professional goals and continued learning in this program.  As I mentioned on the first day of class, I was interested in thinking outside the ‘syllabus’ and how to construct learning environments for students across student affairs.  Even though I did not think that I would be creating a syllabus as a project for this course, I was able to use that experience to help me understand what it means to create intentional learning environments for students.  For me, the process of curriculum development is about answering the question of: how can we create an environment where students are challenged to obtain, retain, and generate knowledge?  For many of our authors this semester, the issue in higher education was less about tenure, budgets, and structures.  Rather, the challenge was for educators to find unique ways to educate our students who represent a changing demographic of our institutions.  As a student affairs practitioner, this is an interesting shift in mindset, considering that we are often at the mercy of budgets and structures and sometimes put the student experience second to the operation of a university.  Throughout the semester, I was challenged to un-learn the traditional ‘learning environment’ and find ways to incorporate curriculum theory into my work.

            I would argue that my most significant learning this semester was around the creation of learning outcomes and goals that helped to reshape the traditional notion of a ‘learning environment.’  I really resonated with Nilson’s (2010) discussion about using learning outcomes or goals to help design the learning process for students.  For Nilson, creating learning outcomes should be the first thing we accomplish, because they will set the stage creating learning experiences and evaluation measures.  In the Marquette project, Brett, Katerina, and I spent a considerable amount of time drafting our learning outcomes, knowing that they were really our ‘jumping off’ point for the rest of the project.  Without a solid foundation provided by intentional and properly constructed learning outcomes, students and administrators can be lead astray when planning learning experiences or assessment.  While it may take a lot of time for us to construct learning outcomes (which isn’t the ‘sexy’ part of our jobs), this step is crucial when designing learning experiences for our students. 

            In addition to the construction of learning outcomes to create intentional learning, I also resonated with Fink’s (2013) explanation of the significant learning experiences.  Specifically, I have been challenged this semester to find ways to find the intersections between the experiences and find ways to leverage this learning.  While integrating all of Fink’s components may take time to perfect, reflecting on the intersections of learning experiences has been important for me to understand how to put this into practice.  As Fink (2013) explains that finding ways to integrate and connect the significant learning experiences “means that teaching is no longer a zero-sum game.”  In other words, we “don’t automatically have to give up one kind of learning to achieve another” (p. 37).  For me, this approach gets at the heart of my understanding of curriculum design.  It is on the intersections where we can engage multiple learning styles and create learning experiences for students that challenge them to take ownership over their learning.  While this is a difficult process to put into practice, it is important that I reflect on this course experience and understand how I can apply multiple forms of learning into my practice.

Connections to Field and Course Content

            I have already been able to utilize our learning this semester throughout my work in The Department of Residence Life.  As our fall training quickly approaches, our training committee (of which I am a member) is beginning to re-think our approach to multiple parts of our training program.  Over the past few years, we have fallen into the trap of ‘that is the way we always do it’ and have continued to provide the same experience with little to no changes in our programs or delivery of information.  With another graduate student in the program, we worked to reimagine the way our department could provide learning experiences around community building and administrative responsibilities.  I am fairly certain that last year I would have started to create programs and experiences for our students as I saw fit without any consideration of learning outcomes.  As we began the process this semester to change the delivery of fall training, we first stopped to think about learning outcomes that speak to the department and university’s goals for their position as a Resident Assistant (RA) or Learning Community Assistant (LCA).  Thinking specifically about our community building training plan, we created learning outcomes that spoke directly to our department’s desire for our student staff to perform their role ‘in partnership with our residents’ and the university’s desire to build programs around The Loyola Experience.  For example, our selected outcomes for this part of training were: describe how their (RA/LCA) personal approach to community building impact the experience of their residents, identify the Loyola Experience milestones and apply them to the development of their community, and articulate The Department of Residence Life’s expectations around community building in the residence halls.  Through the creation of these goals, we were able to create specific presentations that spoke to the various experiences of our student staff members (new, returning, and LCAs) and address some specific needs for their communities (recognizing that we have various ages of students living in our halls).

            This project was definitely a great way for me to get my feet wet with creating learning outcomes and thinking about ways to create significant learning experiences through the department.  In addition to the connections to my role, I have also seen connections between this course and my coursework in the program.  Specifically thinking about my Social Justice, Student Development Theory, and Leadership classes, I have seen some of these concepts in action.  Through the use of dialogue and social media throughout the courses, my professors have found unique ways to deliver the course content in a way that responds to the changing learning styles of our generation of student.  As I reflect on my Leadership class last semester, I believe that the Twitter assignment was one of the ways I was able to connect the course content to my own practice throughout the semester.  This assignment challenged us to present our thoughts and challenges to our peers in a concise way and integrate outside resources to guide and enrich our class discussions.  This could be an example of the integration of Fink’s (2013) significant learning experiences of application, learning how to learn, and caring.  While there were many assignments and learning experiences that I could highlight, this one stands out to me over the last year as being impactful. 

Self-Assessment and Conclusion

            Given the amount of work required for this course (specifically the first half), I have been impressed with my ability to juggle the many assignments and perform to high expectations.  As I look at my written work, I am excited to see that I have continued to integrate the course readings throughout the assignment and find ways to bring this learning into my own professional practice.  This was a goal I set out to accomplish at the beginning of the semester and have appreciated seeing my growth in my mastery of the material and writing ability.  Even though I did struggle with the syllabus reflection, I believe that my writing showcased my ability to integrate, reflect, and think deeply about the course content.  While this class didn’t focus on becoming a better writer, I believe that my work has continued to show an improvement of my writing skills and ability to create bridges between professional practice and the course content.

            In addition to my written work in this course, I believe that my contributions to class have shown my continued growth throughout this program.  As an extrovert, it is very easy for me to share in class discussions.  In the past, I have struggled with finding a balance between speaking and listening, which I really improved upon in this course.  Even though there was a lot of material to cover for classroom discussions, I was impressed by my ability to speak up and step back when necessary.  An area where I can continue to improve was my contributions towards the latter half of the semester.  Given a lot of commitments both academically and personally towards the end of the semester, I was definitely preoccupied and did not provide input when it could have been helpful.  As I continue on in this field, I know that I need to recognize the space I take up in conversations and continue to find consistency in my approach.

            Finally, I have really enjoyed finding big and small ways to connect the course content to my own professional practice.  As I mentioned earlier, I have begun to find ways to do this in my assistantship and want to continue to challenge myself and my peers to heed Fink (2013), Wagner and Compton (2012), and Nilson’s (2010) advice for creating learning environments that are intentional and challenge students in multiple ways.  I have appreciated the experience that has come from this course and look forward to continuing to apply this learning to my future career and passions.