Most classes involve lecture, assignments, and then tests. The structure of this class was quite different than a traditional class, yet it works so well, and in my case better than traditional classes. I think the way this class is laid out makes it a poster child for liberal learning. It covers all five of Concordia’s goals for liberal learning and more classes should be structured in a similar way.
The Unique Way of Learning This Class Encourages
The way the class is structured encourages a very independent approach to learning and allows us, the students, to take advantage of a learning style that suits us best. By encouraging this independent learning, it not only helps us learn about the topic, but also about our own personal learning styles and how to solve problems in the future. Even if I never talk about anything I used in this class again, I will still use the skills I learned in it on a daily basis in whatever career I find myself in. These skills include finding information, applying outside information to the information presented in class, and developing our own questions about the topic. Additionally, I think this class encourages a learning style and class set up consistent with graduate school. As graduate school is a path many of us will follow, learning these skills before hand gives us that much of an advantage once we get to graduate school as well.
The learning encouraged by the class also helped with developing a deeper understanding of the overall material of my majors. As a neuroscience and psychology major I have learned about most of the diseases talked about in the class, but I have never really gotten into the why. This class for me felt more like a more advanced extension of psychopathology, as I got to learn the ins and outs of all these diseases and this encouraged me to think deeper about these topics outside of class. This exemplifies one of the cores of liberal learning, developing an understanding of interdisciplinary perspectives. Without this class I would have not learned the ins and outs of these diseases I am so interested in nearly as well as I have. Especially since many of the papers we read are new perspectives on things and getting an understanding on new perspectives has allowed me to further my own understanding on the topics.
Encouraging Responsible Participation in the World
While this class doesn’t involve actually going out into the community and getting us physically involved, it still encourages us to be engaged in the world. Simply by being informed about these things encourages us to be engaged, as the first step to fixing a problem is understanding the problem to begin with. The learning in this class encourages us to understand each individual part of the problem, as we all go out and learn a lot about thing and then share it. This is another way this class encourages us to participate in the world, it teaches us how to present information to others in a way that helps them understand the problem we are learning about. Additionally, the discussion questions every Friday encourage us to think deeper about the problem and share our own perspectives on the issue. This can help us think of potential future areas of research, that some of us may be interested in, issues involving that research, and also ethical problems about the problem in general.
The way this class encourages us to participate in the world the most is through these blog posts. Blog posts are available to anyone in the public, and a key part of making this information accessible is figuring out how to present it in a simplified way. Many people in the public aren’t going to know what cAMP is let alone a synapse, so figuring out how to present information in a way that is digestible to the general public is a key skill this class encourages us to develop. In order to make a difference in the world you need to get peoples attention and then you have to get them to understand it. If people can’t understand what you are saying, they aren’t going to care about the message you are trying to tell them. This is why I think this is the most valuable skill that this class teaches in relation to engaging with the world around us.
What Does Learning at a Liberal Arts Institution Mean to Me?
Learning at a liberal arts institution means learning how to become a well rounded individual in the modern world. This means teaching skills that enhances our ability to learn and understand the world around us, rather than just solely teaching us the information that we need to know about our major and future careers. I think Concordia does a great job at this and this class really exemplifies why. As stated earlier, most classes are simply lecture, assignment, and tests. For many classes, this is the only way to effectively teach the information, but for other classes, such as this one, there is much more effective ways to learn not just the information but learn in general. By requiring us to find our own information, putting it together, and presenting it in our own words, we learn much more than just the class content and it helps us become the well rounded individuals that Concordia aims to turn us into.
In the end, this class taught me much more than just neurochemistry. I was able to refine my problem solving skills permanently, and these skills will be very valuable moving forward. The refining of these skills have also helped me be more confident in my own abilities, as well as my ability to feel confident in not knowing something. Even when I wasn’t sure about something, I still felt confident enough in this class to give it my best shot. While this has been a year of growth in all aspects of my life, this class has been a large contributor in my growth as a student. In the end, maybe the neurochemistry was the friends we made along the way (credits role).
1.) https://www.eschoolnews.com/district-management/2017/07/20/classroom-redesign-achievement/
2.) https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=cartoon+earth
Feature Image: https://missiontolearn.com/make-reflection-daily-habit/
