Through my time at Loras College, I have been given many opportunities to learn the value of experiential learning and to learn from and reflect on these out of class experiences. My many different learning experiences at Loras have contributed to my growth and competence especially when it comes to active learning and reflective thinking, as well as my knowledge about education and my future as a teacher.
At Loras, I have had the chance to take part of a plethora of learning experiences, and I would say they were all valuable in their own way. When thinking of the Loras disposition of reflective thinking, I know reflective thinking should be used constantly, especially when experiencing new adventures. At Loras, I was given many opportunities to be a reflective thinker, but two experiences stand out the most in my mind.
My sophomore year at Loras, I was blessed to be able to take one of Loras College’s J-term study abroad classes. For this class, I travelled to Greece for my own “Greek Odyssey”. While there, our class toured the country – north, east, south, and west – to see and experience the culture and history from ancient times to modern. During this trip we kept journals to keep our thoughts and experiences. This trip was the first time I had left our country, so my journal became a very important place for me to document my experience. During this trip, possibly from seeing places from all times of history, I began to think deeper about myself and about the world around me. My journal from this trip reflected this type of deeper thinking.
(For images of journal click here).
The next experience of reflective thinking – which is really two experiences that I am putting together – is from my service trips through Loras. My first trip was my junior year at Loras, which is when I travelled to McKee, Kentucky, and my second trip was my senior year when I travelled to Camden, New Jersey. These experiences, though vastly different – impoverished rural area to impoverished urban experience – took me away from my secure, well-known life, to a life exceedingly different from my own. My eyes were opened from my own first-hand experiences during these trips. We were required to keep a journal on these trips, but I would not have needed one to make me reflect deeper, such were the experiences.
(For images of journal click here).
The second disposition I chose, active learning also took place in many different places. This active learning was often directly linked to the reflective thinking. Reflective thinking happened before and after my active learning experiences. The instances mentioned above for the reflective thinking were important to me due to the fact that they were also active learning experiences. In Greece, I was not just hearing about history, but exploring it and seeing it in a tangible way. On my service trips, I was not just learning about the circumstances of the people in that area and talking about social work, but we were meeting the people, helping them, talking to them, and seeing their lives first hand.
My trip to Greece and my service trips were not the only times that I participated in active learning. I am very thankful for this as my own learning style leans on visual and kinesthetic. I like to see what I am learning about and take an active part in seeing how things work. In my education classes, there is a good mix of lectures and active learning throughout the courses. Of course, this is very important due to the fact that education is a very hands-on experience. Through active learning, I am able to try out new approaches within lesson planning, behaviorally, and teaching-wise. Without, active learning, I could have many theories about the classroom on these subjects, but not much of a notion on how they would work within the classroom.
(View images from service trips here: McKee and Camden. View images from Greece: One, Two, and Three ).
Loras also helped to build my self-discipline skills due to the many opportunities it offered. Between work, classes, clubs, service, and intramurals, I was encouraged to know my schedule and work to plan out my schedule so that I could get my work done and in on time. These self-discipline skills will be necessary for me to accomplish my future goals in becoming a teacher. This, though, is not the only way that Loras offered learning experiences related to my future goals. The Education Department also offered (and required) quite a bit of time to be spent in the classroom each semester. Some of these experiences seemed similar, but due to working with new people and being with different students, there was always something new to learn – no two experiences were ever alike. In working to build my self-discipline and prepare my future goals, it was all a part of active learning and then reflecting on how the activities and plans went. Thus, Loras dispositions followed me throughout my activities and time at Loras.
Through my time at Loras, I believe a value that has fit me best, would be “They read and they understand”. I have always been an avid reader, but not for strictly informational text. Coming to Loras and having to read informational text was hard for me – and it still is. But through my experience at Loras, I have had the chance to put the information I have read in these texts to use for many classes through active learning. These experiences have allowed me to make connections between what I read to real life, which gave me a chance to value and better understand what it was I had to read. Another aspect of Loras as a liberal arts college that I deeply value is that of open-mindedness. I feel Loras really opened my life up to new experiences – from travelling, to service trips, to meeting new people, to trying new food, etc. The list could go on and on. I feel this has now become a new strength of mine. I am willing to listen to a conversation and hear someone else’s side of the story or argument and then reflect on what I have learned. I even had a class that gave the students different scenarios in which we had to debate for certain sides of an argument, which might be a side a person may not have agreed with. These foundations to my learning experiences will be carried with me for the rest of my life.
(Link to Ethics Case Study paper here).
My learning has not been perfect though. I have had gaps and challenges, just as any other person might. One such gap, for myself, is the lack of time or efficient scheduling for me to explore the different subjects and classes that I was interested in. I love to learn – I could spend years at college exploring different content areas I am interested in. At times though, it felt like beyond the required liberal arts classes, Loras was not giving me much time or available classes for me to explore more in my learning. I did go beyond and get a Greek and Roman studies minor – purely because it is an area I am interested in and wanted to know more about, though I may never use the minor – but it was difficult to fit these classes into my schedule at times. Another challenge for myself, as mentioned earlier, is my struggle to get myself to read informational texts. This struggle, along with many other distractions, led to much procrastinating on my part. It was not that I handed assignments late, but I pushed them to last minute. The good news is that I was able to make connections between the texts (when I finally read it) to what I was experiencing in and out of the classroom.
Through my time at Loras, I know what I learned will help me to make a difference in the world, no matter how small. This difference can come from my teaching of my students in my classroom, to service trips, in my travels, or from simply holding the door open for someone. Loras has taught me that there are many ways to make a positive difference in the world. Loras has helped to make me an active learner, a reflective thinker, more open-minded, and prepare me for my future.
At Loras, I have had the chance to take part of a plethora of learning experiences, and I would say they were all valuable in their own way. When thinking of the Loras disposition of reflective thinking, I know reflective thinking should be used constantly, especially when experiencing new adventures. At Loras, I was given many opportunities to be a reflective thinker, but two experiences stand out the most in my mind.
My sophomore year at Loras, I was blessed to be able to take one of Loras College’s J-term study abroad classes. For this class, I travelled to Greece for my own “Greek Odyssey”. While there, our class toured the country – north, east, south, and west – to see and experience the culture and history from ancient times to modern. During this trip we kept journals to keep our thoughts and experiences. This trip was the first time I had left our country, so my journal became a very important place for me to document my experience. During this trip, possibly from seeing places from all times of history, I began to think deeper about myself and about the world around me. My journal from this trip reflected this type of deeper thinking.
(For images of journal click here).
The next experience of reflective thinking – which is really two experiences that I am putting together – is from my service trips through Loras. My first trip was my junior year at Loras, which is when I travelled to McKee, Kentucky, and my second trip was my senior year when I travelled to Camden, New Jersey. These experiences, though vastly different – impoverished rural area to impoverished urban experience – took me away from my secure, well-known life, to a life exceedingly different from my own. My eyes were opened from my own first-hand experiences during these trips. We were required to keep a journal on these trips, but I would not have needed one to make me reflect deeper, such were the experiences.
(For images of journal click here).
The second disposition I chose, active learning also took place in many different places. This active learning was often directly linked to the reflective thinking. Reflective thinking happened before and after my active learning experiences. The instances mentioned above for the reflective thinking were important to me due to the fact that they were also active learning experiences. In Greece, I was not just hearing about history, but exploring it and seeing it in a tangible way. On my service trips, I was not just learning about the circumstances of the people in that area and talking about social work, but we were meeting the people, helping them, talking to them, and seeing their lives first hand.
My trip to Greece and my service trips were not the only times that I participated in active learning. I am very thankful for this as my own learning style leans on visual and kinesthetic. I like to see what I am learning about and take an active part in seeing how things work. In my education classes, there is a good mix of lectures and active learning throughout the courses. Of course, this is very important due to the fact that education is a very hands-on experience. Through active learning, I am able to try out new approaches within lesson planning, behaviorally, and teaching-wise. Without, active learning, I could have many theories about the classroom on these subjects, but not much of a notion on how they would work within the classroom.
(View images from service trips here: McKee and Camden. View images from Greece: One, Two, and Three ).
Loras also helped to build my self-discipline skills due to the many opportunities it offered. Between work, classes, clubs, service, and intramurals, I was encouraged to know my schedule and work to plan out my schedule so that I could get my work done and in on time. These self-discipline skills will be necessary for me to accomplish my future goals in becoming a teacher. This, though, is not the only way that Loras offered learning experiences related to my future goals. The Education Department also offered (and required) quite a bit of time to be spent in the classroom each semester. Some of these experiences seemed similar, but due to working with new people and being with different students, there was always something new to learn – no two experiences were ever alike. In working to build my self-discipline and prepare my future goals, it was all a part of active learning and then reflecting on how the activities and plans went. Thus, Loras dispositions followed me throughout my activities and time at Loras.
Through my time at Loras, I believe a value that has fit me best, would be “They read and they understand”. I have always been an avid reader, but not for strictly informational text. Coming to Loras and having to read informational text was hard for me – and it still is. But through my experience at Loras, I have had the chance to put the information I have read in these texts to use for many classes through active learning. These experiences have allowed me to make connections between what I read to real life, which gave me a chance to value and better understand what it was I had to read. Another aspect of Loras as a liberal arts college that I deeply value is that of open-mindedness. I feel Loras really opened my life up to new experiences – from travelling, to service trips, to meeting new people, to trying new food, etc. The list could go on and on. I feel this has now become a new strength of mine. I am willing to listen to a conversation and hear someone else’s side of the story or argument and then reflect on what I have learned. I even had a class that gave the students different scenarios in which we had to debate for certain sides of an argument, which might be a side a person may not have agreed with. These foundations to my learning experiences will be carried with me for the rest of my life.
(Link to Ethics Case Study paper here).
My learning has not been perfect though. I have had gaps and challenges, just as any other person might. One such gap, for myself, is the lack of time or efficient scheduling for me to explore the different subjects and classes that I was interested in. I love to learn – I could spend years at college exploring different content areas I am interested in. At times though, it felt like beyond the required liberal arts classes, Loras was not giving me much time or available classes for me to explore more in my learning. I did go beyond and get a Greek and Roman studies minor – purely because it is an area I am interested in and wanted to know more about, though I may never use the minor – but it was difficult to fit these classes into my schedule at times. Another challenge for myself, as mentioned earlier, is my struggle to get myself to read informational texts. This struggle, along with many other distractions, led to much procrastinating on my part. It was not that I handed assignments late, but I pushed them to last minute. The good news is that I was able to make connections between the texts (when I finally read it) to what I was experiencing in and out of the classroom.
Through my time at Loras, I know what I learned will help me to make a difference in the world, no matter how small. This difference can come from my teaching of my students in my classroom, to service trips, in my travels, or from simply holding the door open for someone. Loras has taught me that there are many ways to make a positive difference in the world. Loras has helped to make me an active learner, a reflective thinker, more open-minded, and prepare me for my future.