Running head: LOOKING BACK

Looking Back: Growth as a Student Affairs Professional from a Semester of Curriculum

Nicole Gottleib
Loyola University Chicago

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Throughout this past semester, I have read a few books in their entirety, whipped up a few
case studies that looked at multiple schools and programs within only the span of a month, and
created a tangible course module for Marquette University among other things. The feats are
not to be taken lightly, and the first part of the semester when I was reading a book a week at
minimum while working two part-time jobs and going to school full-time was something I did
not think I could survive. Survive I did though, and I now realize how much the chaos of those
weeks aided in my professional and personal development. This reflection is a combination of
my experience as a student of curriculum development and design, a review of my areas of
growth and where I still have some work to do, and how this course and my learning within it fit
into my overall experience as a student.
Curriculum Development Philosophy
As a student affairs professional, my philosophy is to help develop leaders who work for
transformative change within their communities, specifically with a focus on change for social
justice. My philosophy as a developer of curriculum does not change much, but instead provides
me with a way to work with students in their leadership development. Throughout my time in
this course this past semester, I have focused specifically on leadership development looking at
syllabi for leadership development courses and developing a syllabus of my own for a
hypothetical leadership development semester-long class. These case studies and applications of
curriculum development have allowed me to strengthen both my interest in developing leaders
for transformative change and my ability to be a successful professional in such endeavors.
One of the core takeaways from this course has been the concept of significant learning.
Although it sounds so commonplace, and I likely used it without much thought in the past, the
phrase now indicates what the goal of all types of education should be in-the-classroom and out

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of it. Fink (2013) stated that significant learning should indicate to others that the students
learning experience considerably and meaningfully affected their lives. Significant learning is
learning that makes a difference in how people live and the kind of life they are capable of
living (Fink, 2013, p. 7). When combined with an emphasis on developing leaders and a focus
on social justice, significant learning is what I aim to provide to my students as a students affairs
professional. Therefore, in order to do so, my curriculum development must incorporate an
emphasis on significant learning outcomes.
The ability to design integrated co-curricular courses and programs is one of the main
learning experiences from this course, and has provided me with a step-by-step process of
developing learning outcomes and connecting those with the activities and assessment methods
used in the course or program (Fink, 2013; Nilson, 2010). Although challenging for me at times,
the backwards process of creating course design is one that will ultimately benefit my programs
and the experiences of my future students, as the goals and takeaways will shape the entire
program or training module. As a philosophy, I intend to develop my skills in focusing on
learning outcomes for students, especially in an outside-the-classroom capacity. Too often,
student affairs professionals are able to put out programs and services for students that look good
on paper or perhaps are well attended, but that are not intentional in their production, with little
to no emphasis on the learning that should occur through that program. I aim to transform my
programming within the field in order to create significant learning experiences for all students,
as learning in no way only occurs within a classroom setting.
With that being said, I also look to build bridges between academic and co-curricular
offerings on campus, as all too often they are seen as separate entities. This is a disservice to
academic departments, who could benefit from providing students with more and creative ways

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to learn the materials presented; to student affairs departments, who could use the support and
recognition that comes with partnering with academics; and to our students, who are not always
able to have significant learning experiences in college and therefore, graduate with less
academic motivation and openness to diversity than when they started (Fink, 2013, p. 3). In
developing curriculum, I aim to work with academic partners in order to bridge the gaps that
currently exist within higher education and to remove some of the silos in institutions. This will
allow me to be a better professional and to enhance my curriculum development skills, as I will
be able to find more opportunities to create significant, transformative learning experiences for
students across many areas of higher education.
Reflections on Core Assignments
Case Studies
The process of creating multiple case studies in course design and curriculum
development including a basic overview of institutional core curricula, a more detailed look at
specific course syllabi, and an assessment of service-learning programs at a variety of institutions
allowed me to dig deeper into this aspect of higher education. As a professional focused on
students affairs, rather than continuing through academia as an instructor or PhD candidate, I
found the case studies to be challenging at times. In looking for leadership development
programs, specifically during the course syllabus case study, I had to bend my interests to fit
them into a classroom setting. However, that experience allowed me to see how syllabi creation
does not simply have to be only for academic courses and also allowed me to develop an interest
in partnering with academia in the future in order to provide classes for credit that focus on skills
that are typically learned outside-the-classroom.

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Additionally, the ability to dig deeper into what institutions and specifically ones that
have personal meaning to me, whether because of my attendance there or my interest in working
there in the future offer for core curricula, and what they include as institutional missions was
an eye-opening experience. I was able to learn more about what institutions chose to offer and
why, and learn how many institutions are not very articulate in providing reasoning behind
academic offering decisions. This experience flowed nicely from knowledge gained during my
first semester in the higher education program, as both my American Higher Education and
Student Affairs Profession courses highlighted the importance of institutional mission and how
often it is there but not fully followed or utilized in decision-making processes at institutions.
Finally, my understanding of service, charity, service-learning, and experiential learning
grew exponentially during this past semester. Service-learning was not something I was very
familiar with prior to attending Loyola, as my undergraduate experience at a large, public,
research institution did not have the same emphasis on service-learning as a private Jesuit
Catholic institution. Additionally, with a double major in communications and theatre, servicelearning was not a priority in our classroom conversations, in comparison to education or social
work majors, for example. I gained a much better understanding of what service-learning should
be and what institutions offer for service-learning, and the dissonance between those two at
times. I was also able to recognize that the Office of Campus Life where I currently hold an
assistantship calls what they offer to students service-learning, but does not offer almost any
learning alongside the service. Prior to this course, and the service-learning program case study,
that distinction is not something I would have made. However, I now realize that service and
learning must have a symbiotic relationship (Jacoby & Associates, 1996, p. 5) and that the
hyphen is vital in designating that relationship.

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Syllabus Creation
This project proved the most challenging for me personally, due to my invested interest in
outside-the-classroom engagement. I appreciated the experience of creating my own syllabus
from scratch, a task I did not expect to tackle in my graduate program experience. However, I
struggled developing a course that met my ideals of leadership development in a co-curricular
setting that also met the parameters of what Fink (2013) and Nilson (2010) consider necessary in
a syllabus and course design. This was mainly due to my desire to not incorporate grades or
homework because I was trying to envision the course as something students choose to take
outside of academia not as something they would earn credit in or would have to complete for
their program. I felt the assignment requirements restricted my freedom in how I would design
my ideal leadership development course, and I ended up creating one that would count for credit
and did incorporate homework and readings.
Nonetheless, although not quite how I would envision a leadership development offering,
the experience of creating my own syllabus was a rewarding one. I learned that I need to focus
on the specific learning outcomes I would like students to achieve, especially in outside-theclassroom programming. If I create a program that does not have specific goals for the students,
what is the point of offering such a program? One of my larger takeaways is my need to
continue to work on utilizing the basic formula of learning outcome creation in order to focus in
on creating specific goals that stem from Blooms (as cited in Fink, 2013) taxonomy. This
includes outcomes that are student-centered, clear and concise, use action verbs, are measurable
and observable, are realistic and transferable, and are tied to the ultimate mission of the
program/department/institution (DePaul University, 2011).
Module project for Marquette University

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To be straightforward, this project was challenging, frustrating, and ultimately, a relief to

complete. An area of growth for me is working under pressure without being provided with a lot
of detail. This assignment hit the core of that personal weakness and caused me to look at how I
handle large, significant projects without fully understanding the requirements or goals of the
project at the start. I pride myself on being able to accept constructive criticism and to take
feedback into account in my work, both professionally and within a classroom setting, but this
project also challenged me in that capacity. I found that I am less receptive to feedback when it
comes from people I do not have a relationship with, and therefore it was hard to take Kim and
Shauns mid-project critiques and advice without feeling like my worth and value as a student
and professional in the field was diminished.
However, with that being said, this experience was also beneficial because of those
challenges. I learned that I can work extremely well with a small group in a classroom and
project development setting, something I was not so sure about after being out of the classroom
for quite a few years. My experience working with a team, with Brody Tate and Megan Segoshi,
was nothing but positive and I appreciated the balance we all provided and how we each
contributed to the project through our individual strengths and expertise. Additionally, having
their support as we worked through the feedback from Marquette on this project was extremely
beneficial, as we all worked to produce a product that we were proud of, that incorporated our
passion for social justice education, and that was student-focused.
The module development project also allowed me to enhance my skills in creating
significant learning opportunities for students, and to focus on my skills in developing learning
outcomes, activities, and assessment methods that are integrated and connected (Fink, 2013). It
also allowed me to expand my understanding of service-learning, specifically in the intertwined

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nature of service and learning of such programs. This allowed me to reflect on my understanding
of the continuum and distinction among service programs outlined by Furco (1996), and how
service integrates with social justice education and transformative experiences in learning about
social justice.
ePortfolio
The experience of creating an ePortfolio for this course has been the most impactful
practice for me. Honestly, I would recommend this course to other first-year students in the
higher education program for this experience alone though there are obviously other elements
that would cause me to recommend it as well. The ability to utilize Taskstream in such depth
was extremely beneficial for what I will have to do during my second year, and allowed me to
feel significantly less stressed about what is expected of me at the conclusion of this program.
The ePortfolio experience highlighted the importance of reflection in learning
experiences, which also connected back to many of my other courses in the higher education
program. Although the majority of my experience at Loyola thus far has included reflection
assignments and reflection opportunities within classes, it has not been expressly addressed until
this course. In discussing the importance of reflection while also reflecting regularly ourselves, I
was able to become more aware of my learning as it progresses. This also put another phrase
often tossed around in higher education but not necessarily clearly defined previously into
perspective, the idea of active learning, or anything that involves students in doing things and
thinking about the things they are doing (Bonwell & Eison, as cited in Fink, 2013, p. 115).
Through this course and the ePortfolio development process, I have definitely become more
aware of my ongoing active learning within the overall higher education program.
Additional Significant Learning Experiences

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A few experiences within the course are a struggle to reflect upon properly, simply
because they are still happening as I write this paper. For instance, I am proud of the work I did
on the service-learning modules for Marquette, but without knowing their value to the institution
and the feedback from the office we developed them for, it is hard to reflect deeper on the overall
significant learning experience of that project. Additionally, as I look back on the course over
this semester, I wonder how much of what I have learned is strictly developing curriculum and
how much of it is about service-learning. I think I have a solid grasp of both, but when asked to
briefly explain what I am learning in this course, I find myself speaking slightly more to my
newfound knowledge about service-learning than about developing curriculum. While not a
negative outcome, it was not an objective specifically articulated in the course syllabus, which
causes me to wonder if I am misinterpreting some of the learning within the course, or if there is
more of an emphasis on understanding service-learning than initially anticipated.
One significant learning experience I would like to highlight, simply due to my surprise
in finding such a takeaway, was the role Wagners (2012) book Creating Innovators: The
Making of Young People Who Will Change the World had on my thoughts about parenting and
working with elementary-school-aged children. I found the book to be significantly enlightening
when thinking about raising children in my future, and was drawn to passages in the book that
spoke to best practices for combining play, passion, and purpose (Wagner, 2012, p. 26). While
I see how beneficial that concept is when working with college students of all ages, I read the
book with more of an interest in how to incorporate the practices into parenting. Perhaps this
speaks more to where I am currently at in my life and career, and where I look to be within the
next few years as I have been consistently surprised at how often the issue of balancing a

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family with a career has come up for me in my course topics but it was an interesting take
nonetheless.
One particular passage that stood out to me as a higher education and student affairs
professional is a quote from one parent in the book, Robin Chase. Robin stated that as parents,
her and her partner felt it was much more important to teach our kids to be learners and to know
where to go for learning. Besides, where they go for graduate school will matter more than what
college they went to (Wagner, 2012, p. 221). This seems practical in terms of the idea of
developing learners and raising children who can learn instead of just being taught, but also not
necessarily true when you consider outside-the-classroom experience. I can say that my
undergraduate experience will always stay with me, and I will have strong ties to my
undergraduate institution, due to the learning I experienced mainly outside-the-classroom at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. So perhaps the significance of that quote is that students need
to know where to go for learning, but they also need to factor a holistic idea of learning in order
to truly benefit from any educational experience.
Conclusion
To conclude this reflection, I want to briefly address a recent occurrence in my life that
caused me to reflect on my coursework and my experience as a student. On Friday (as in just a
few days ago), my personal laptop was stolen out of my office at the Illinois Institute of
Technology, and all of my coursework from this first year of graduate school went with it.
Luckily, I was able to pull everything I had already submitted this semester from Sakai and
Taskstream, but my documents from my first semester are lost, along with a few versions of final
papers for my courses this semester. This experience caused me to realize three things: 1) to
always, always back up my work and not just say I will do it over the summer when I have more

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free time; 2) that I handle myself very calmly and rationally when something serious occurs,
unlike my demeanor when trivial misfortunes occur; and 3) that my experiences as a student do
not exist in the papers I write or the work I submit, but in the material that is now in my head.
That third aspect of the learning experience from my stolen computer is the one I am
focusing on the most currently: the emphasis on moving away from the material aspects of
education the papers, the grades, the projects and to focus on what truly impacts how I live
my life and how I move forward as a student affairs professional. This is the core of significant
learning to me, the idea that I am learning to become a part of how [I] think, what [I] can and
want to do, what [I] believe is true about life, and what [I] value in order to increase my
capability for living life fully and meaningfully (Fink, 2013, p. 7). I only hope that this recent
experience, and this course as a whole, will help me be more ready to tackle the unknown
challenges that pop up in my career and the learning experiences that do not always provide a
detailed syllabus and outline of every assignment from the get-go.

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References

DePaul University. (2011). Learning outcomes resources. Retrieved from

http://condor.depaul.edu/tla/Learning/LO_resources.html (as referenced in P. Greens
presentation on January 27, 2014).
Fink, D. L. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to
designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Furco, A. (1996). Service learning: A balanced approach to experiential education. Expanding
Boundaries: Service and Learning. Washington DC: Corporation for National Service, 26.
Jacoby, B. & Associates. (1996). Service-learning in higher education: Concepts and practices.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Nilson, L. B. (2010). The complete syllabus. In Teaching at its best: A research-based resource
for college instructors (p. 33-41). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wagner, T. (2012). Creating innovators: The making of young people who will change the world.
New York, NY: Scribner.