The Goals of a University Education are not to merely get a 4.0 GPA and score a position in a high profile PhD or MD or whatever program. These are possible, but the goals of a university education are to gain the abilities you need to inherit, understand, and advance human understanding in whatever and wherever you decide to make your contribution.
As educators in CHEM 210 and 215, we are sincerely interested in changing your mind, i.e., in carrying out a transformation in the way you think and learn.
Rote learning is not going to get you there. Solving new, unfamiliar problems is what all professionals need to be able to do. You must understand: no one, except maybe being a winner on Jeopardy, pays you for regurgitating known facts.
In 2012, a pair of educational psychologists named Slavich and Zimbardo looked at 40 years worth of research on college and university education, and they concluded there is a set of conditions for what it means to have been successfully educated. As an educated individual, you will have been transformed (their word) in these three ways:
(A) You will master the concepts of at least one field. This does not mean having a list of facts; it means integrating many things into what you know: facts, methods for how facts are used, and understanding about how facts/methods are generated and evaluated. For example, your professors are practicing experts in their fields who continue to create new knowledge as a part of their profession. Conceptual understanding allows you to apply and adapt ideas, operations, and relationships fluidly as you encounter new situations in the field.
(B) You will improve your ability to learn. You should never stop learning how to learn, because the approaches are as varied as there are different areas to study. As an educated person, you should actively build your toolbox of skills for learning. If you are spending 8 hours a week doing something that only achieves a “C” grade, there is a temptation to think that you just need to increase the time you are spending, but you will end up spending 16 hours doing something that achieves a “C” grade – learning how to do the wrong thing even better. You need to expand your repertoire.
(C) You will gain learning-related attitudes, values, and beliefs. One value that is important to scientists is skepticism, and yet you will never see “skepticism” listed on the syllabus! As a trained scientist, your instructor cannot help but approach the subject with the innate skepticism that came through that person’s education. Category (C) includes all of the traditional liberal arts goals: how to write and speak clearly, how to construct an evidence-based argument, how to bring order out of confusion, an appreciation of visionary solutions to difficult problems, the ability to function as an educated citizen, how to learn from failure, how to deal with ambiguity, and many others.
A skilled teacher will have learning goals for a class that will provide opportunities for you to grow and develop in these three areas.
To learn more about rote and meaningful learning, see: Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them,
http://cmap.ihmc.us/publications/researchpapers/theoryunderlyingconceptmaps.pdf
To learn more about the three goals for a university education, see: Slavich, G. M., Zimbardo, P. G., Transformational teaching: Theoretical underpinnings, basic principles, and core methods. Educational Psychology Review 2012, 24(4), 569-608.
LINK: doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9199-6
Essay 1: You have autonomy
Essay 2: The learning skills you enter with
Essay 3: Post-COVID dialed up autonomy
Essay 4: Resources and their useful use
Essay 5: Practice explanation: Control over when you make errors
Essay 6: Testing: It’s called performance for a reason
Essay 7: Transformational Learning: Resistance is Futile
Essay 8: Grading: Scales are good; curves are bad.