Each term at Dartmouth, we spend 10 hurried weeks skimming texts, flicking through flashcards and clicking our way through lecture slides. We memorize incessantly, filling our minds with facts that we have trouble remembering days after the exam, let alone the next term or year. During finals, we count down the days until summer or break, pushing through exams with the knowledge that, in just a few days, our work will be done. Our terms culminate in a blurry haze of half-packed boxes, quick goodbyes and futile attempts to sell back the books we just spent nights pouring over. We leave determined to put our classes behind us and get on with the next term.
At some point over break, we fill out course assessments, haphazardly clicking through a few multiple choice questions to rate our classes, receive our grades and put a definitive end to our relationship with last term's courses. When we get back to campus several weeks or an off-term later, we neglect to pick up the final papers or exams we spent so long preparing, instead preferring to confine last term's work to last term and jump head first into new classes.
The process of consuming information and spitting it back out has come to define our educational experience at Dartmouth. With only 10 weeks to gain a basic understanding of a new subject, our professors must move quickly through material, challenging us to demonstrate our ability to take in and process information rapidly. However, the fragmented nature of the D-Plan is not singularly responsible for the superficial manner in which we engage with our course material. Instead, we as students are. In large part, we've resigned ourselves to an academic culture of consumption, in which our courses are a means to achieve short-term goals good grades and jobs after graduation.
To gain value from our academic experience, we must engage not only with the lecture slides and texts on the syllabus but also with the larger structures and ideas that unite these sources. To learn without asking why we are learning is to forgo the most salient and enduring part of our education: the connections that emerge between subjects and individuals.
Reflection allows us to move from the minutiae of facts and figures to the big picture ideas that unite courses and subjects. Our capacity to memorize and retain information is finite; reflection helps us winnow from quantity to quality, allowing us to assess the information that is most critical moving forward. Furthermore, by asking why and how we are learning, we come to situate ourselves within the material. We can assess our own understanding and realize how we evolve over time as students and citizens.
Last term, I was asked to submit a written summary of the successes and challenges I faced during each assignment of a project-driven engineering class. Initially, I was irritated at having to review work I considered finished. However, as the term went on, I began to see connections between earlier problems and later solutions. I could trace the evolution of my thinking process, recognizing areas where I improved or continued to fall short.
What if we were asked to re-evaluate our papers after we handed in the final drafts? To reflect on tests after we took them? What if we were asked how we've changed as a result of our coursework, to think critically about the evolution of our personal outlook and opinions? What if guided reflection were the norm rather than the exception in the classroom? Although certain classes are undoubtedly more suited for written reflection, there is room to ask why and how we are learning in every subject. If our professors set a precedent for reflection through writing assignments and class discussion, we will come to see reflection as a critical component of the learning experience, a practice that informs our learning and our broader outlook, rather than a quick form to fill out after finals to get our grades.
Ultimately, however, the onus for allotting time to reflect on our coursework is on us. Classroom time is limited, and, in large part, should be devoted to covering content. We can ask professors to integrate reflection into their teaching; however, the answers to why and how we learn come from us. By actively reflecting on our courses, we can challenge the prevailing culture of information consumption and create understanding that endures well past the 10 weeks of the term.
