While I had never really considered my education a journey, after reading Matthew Sanders’ “Becoming a Learner,” I can now see that there are specific steps to accomplishing what I need to while in college. Sanders gives information about the generalities of becoming a particular type of person while in college. I hadn’t thought of my education in that manner before, but he makes a good point when he describes the learning process as only one aspect of becoming a contributing and successful member of society. He specifically asks, “what do we need to do in order to become” (1) the type of person we need and want to be. My answer to that is three-fold.
The first of these three things is to understand the difference between a student and a leaner. As Sanders indicates, a student can change his or her perception of the entire learning process if we look at learning as ongoing rather than static. Success isn’t necessarily measured in achieving good grades, but rather in meeting our own objectives for the learning process.
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"My Journey to Becoming a Learner".
The second thing I need to understand is how being an active learner rather an a passive one is imperative to honing the necessary skills for my college and career success. I need to seek out ways to learn, apply what I learn, and motivate myself rather than to look for someone else to do those things for me. And, I especially need to get out of the mentality that I need to “learn for the test.” I have an old family friend who is a physician. He told me once that he had what he called “the wheelbarrow method” for learning – he studied for each text, filling up his wheelbarrow of information, and once the test was over, he “dumped” his wheelbarrow of that information and started filling it with information for the next test. He said he realizes now that was a really ineffective way to learn, as he didn’t retain much and struggled later in medical school. Nicholas Soderstrom and Robert Bork explain that the goal of learning should be “to create relatively permanent changes in comprehension, understanding, and skills” (n.p.) that support long-term retention.
Finally, the third thing is to put specific actions into place. For example, I need to take time to schedule my study time, organize my learning strategies, and stay on top of assignments. A little preparation will go a long way in not only completing each course, but successfully learning from them.
- Sanders, Matthew L. “Becoming a Lerner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.
- Soderstrom, Nicholas C. and Robert A. Bjork. “Learning Versus Performance.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11 Mar. 2015. pp. 176-199.
