Developing as a Learner: Orientation to College Essay Review

Introduction: The Transition from High School to College

When asked why an individual wishes to attend college, quite often the expected response is "to get a better job." Perhaps in response to this phenomenon, the second section of Orientation to College: A Reader on Becoming an Educated Person — a collection of essays assembled by Elizabeth Steltenpohl, Sharon Villines, and Jane Shipton — is entitled "Developing as a Learner." In this section, the editors address one of the most important and often unacknowledged processes a student must go through when facing the challenging transition from high school to college. In addition to adapting to a different way of life, students must also adapt to a different method of learning.

Bridging Classroom Learning and Everyday Experience

The second section of the text, entitled "Developing as a Learner," is divided into three parts, each authored by different and prominent figures from various facets of educated life. In the essay "Thinking and Learning: Learning Systematically from Everyday Experience," Robert M. Smith stresses the fact that the division individuals often make between school and life is frequently an artificial one. One must be learning constantly over the course of one's life, not simply in the classroom. A student should apply the lessons learned in daily life to the classroom, and bring what one learns in the classroom back to the world outside.

The last essay in this part of the section, "Changing Concepts of Learning" by Graham Gibbs, expands upon this notion. Gibbs suggests that received conceptions of education are being challenged within the classroom and must be challenged by individual students who wish their education to remain relevant to a changing workplace and personal sphere. The essays addressing the real-world/college-world distinction all stress that college is a unique institution, yet one whose values and experiences will stay with a person for the rest of their life. College does not stand apart from life; rather, the experiences one has in college are informed by life outside it.

Critical Thinking and Reflective Judgment

More focused on the actual dimensions of learned life in the classroom, Stephen D. Brookfield's essay "Exploring Learners' Assumptions" invites readers to question the assumptions they bring with them to college. In a slight departure from Smith's analysis, Brookfield is more interested in how the assumptions of one's daily existence can inhibit open-mindedness and a receptive attitude toward instructors who seek to challenge received ideas. Brookfield emphasizes college's unique capacity to foster critical thinking, and the advantages one can gain from stepping outside, temporarily, the pressures of the workforce and entrenched assumptions. College can grant a student the privilege of being genuinely reflective, if only for a brief time.

"Developmental Foundations of Critical Thinking" by Joanne Gainen Kurfiss and "Learning to Make Reflective Judgments" by Patricia M. King also stress this capacity for reflection, reinforcing the section's central argument that intellectual development in college requires more than passive absorption of information.

Learning How to Learn: Self-Knowledge and Learning Styles

Perhaps the most important thing one learns in college is, as one cluster of essays in this section argues, "learning how to learn." Self-knowledge is critical here. Essays including "Your Preferred Learning Style" by Arthur W. Chickering and Nancy K. Schlossberg, "Competence in Self-Directed Learning" by Malcolm S. Knowles, and "Exploring Self-Directedness in Learning" by Stephen D. Brookfield all converge on this theme. Attaining self-knowledge about the best way one learns and retains information is crucial in college.

Unlike in high school, one's learning in college is dependent upon one's own motivation and initiative, rather than being received passively. A relatively short span of time is spent in the classroom compared to high school, but this does not mean that one is being educated less — only that one is required to take greater responsibility for one's own education. Am I an aural, visual, or kinesthetic learner, or some combination of all three? Students must ask themselves these questions in order to gain the maximum benefit from the college experience.