Theorists have argued that learning is an organic process that unfolds in complex ways according to its own pace and rhythm. Because of this, all students learn in different ways. A best practice for assessment of learning (i.e. grading) will accommodate each student differently. The Learning Record requires students to pay attention to their own learning styles, by enabling students to document evidence of their own development in multiple areas. We’ll call these areas the Dimensions of Learning.
The six dimensions that follow can’t really be separated out from one another; rather, these dimensions relate inextricably to one another. Our Course Goals are designed to encourage student development across multiple dimensions. Using the Learning Record helps you measure your progress throughout the semester, picturing your learning as a trajectory across the course.
When you compose your Learning Record evaluations, you will use the Dimensions of Learning to help you analyze how and what you have learned. Read and re-read these descriptions carefully (especially while you write your evaluations): you will likely cite from these descriptions as you craft your argument.
1. CONFIDENCE AND INDEPENDENCE
We see growth and development when learners’ confidence and independence equal their actual abilities and skills, content knowledge, use of experience, and reflectiveness about their own learning. It is not a simple case of “more (confidence and independence) is better.” For example, 1) an overconfident student who has relied on faulty or underdeveloped skills and strategies learns to seek help when facing an obstacle; or 2) a shy student begins to trust her own abilities, and to insist on presenting her own point of view in discussion. In both cases, students are developing along the dimension of confidence and independence.
2. SKILLS AND STRATEGIES
Skills and strategies represent the “know-how” aspect of learning. When we speak of “performance” or “mastery,” we generally mean that learners have developed skills and strategies to function successfully in certain situations. Skills and strategies are not only specific to particular disciplines, but often cross disciplinary boundaries. In a writing class, for example, students develop many specific skills and strategies involved in composing and communicating effectively, from research to concept development to organization to polishing grammar and correctness, and often including technological skills for computer communication.
3. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
Knowledge and understanding refers to the “content” knowledge gained in particular subject areas. Knowledge and understanding is the most familiar dimension, focusing on the “know-what” aspect of learning. In our class, knowledge and understanding might answer a wide range of content questions such as: What is Foucault’s concept of the author? What is “pathos”? These are typical content questions. Knowledge and understanding in such classes includes what students are learning about the topics; research methods; the theories, concepts, and practices of a discipline; the methods of organizing and presenting our ideas to others, and so on. This has both to do with the specific content of our course and the principles of rhetoric and writing we’ll be practicing.
4. USE OF PRIOR AND EMERGING EXPERIENCE
The use of prior and emerging experience involves learners’ abilities to draw on their own experience and connect it to their work. A crucial but often unrecognized dimension of learning is the capacity to make use of prior experience as well as emerging experience in new situations. It is necessary to observe learners over a period of time while they engage in a variety of activities in order to account for the development of this important capability, which is at the heart of creative thinking and its application. With traditional methods of evaluating learning, we cannot discover just how a learner’s prior experience might be brought to bear to help build new understandings, or how ongoing experience shapes the content knowledge or skills and strategies the learner is developing. In this class, students scaffold new knowledge through applying the principles and procedures they’ve already learned to each new assignment: the ordering of the assignments depends on a capacity to apply previous knowledge and deepen the acquisition of new skills.
5. REFLECTION
Reflection refers to the developing awareness of the learner’s own learning process, as well as more analytical approaches to the subject being studied. When we speak of reflection as a crucial component of learning, we are not using the term in its commonsense meaning of reverie or abstract introspection. We are referring to the development of the learner’s ability to step back and consider a situation critically and analytically, with growing insight into his or her own learning processes, a kind of metacognition. It provides the “big picture” for the specific details. For example, students in a history class examining fragmentary documents and researching an era or event use reflection to discover patterns in the evidence and construct a historical narrative. Learners need to develop this capability in order to use what they are learning in other contexts, to recognize the limitations or obstacles confronting them in a given situation, to take advantage of their prior knowledge and experience, and to strengthen their own performance.
6. CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION
As learners gain confidence and independence, knowledge and understanding, skills and strategies, ability to use prior and emerging experience in new situations, and reflectiveness, they generally become more playful and experimental, more creative in the expression of that learning. This is true not only in “creative” domains such as the arts, but in nearly all domains: research, argumentation, history, psychology. In all fields the primary contributions to the field are the result of creative or imaginative work. This optional dimension is adopted here to make explicit the value of creativity, originality, and imagination in students’ development and achievement. Among other things, it recognizes the value of creative experimentation even when the final result of the work may not succeed as the student may hope.