Why Understand the Student Development Theory?

“One remembers best what one knows better than one remembers what one knows about.”

What is this? A tongue twister? Actually it is trying to explain the connection between Student Development Theory and experiential learning. Yes, I do agree that it could have been worded better, but the point that it is trying to make is student development is the base of experiential learning and it is rather catchy isn’t it? These Student Development skills can also be adapted into skilled facilitation and while building a shared vision.

One way of explaining Student Development Theory is Arthur Chickering’s psychosocial model in which he developed 7 vectors that students move through while in college.  I remember learning these vectors for another leadership class that I took and I remember it specifically mentioning that these vectors aren’t necessarily in order and they are vectors, not a pyramid. This means that students can revisit a vector and everyone moves through them differently. For example, I feel like I revisit the first vector, which is establishing communication skills, when I’m in awkward social situations and have problems communicating. As students move through these vectors, they develop and explore their identities. Experiential learning uses the idea of different identities to tailor learning to each individual student.

Perry’s Cognitive Theory of Student Development explains different types of learning, including Dualistic learners who tend to like more structure and Relativistic learners who tend to like less structure. So what does this have to do with experiential learning? Well, I think experiential learning is a tool that is used to help each type of learner learn on their own terms. This is where that great tongue twister above comes in. It means that with experiential learning, learners learn on their own terms by doing not by hearing. And because it is on their own terms, they can manipulate the amount of structure or anything else they need to learn best.

It is also important to understand the Student Development Theory while looking at the skilled facilitator approach. The skilled facilitator approach looks at behaviors in an organization’s ground rules to make the organization effective. In order to do this, the organization needs to establish ground rules, so students involved need to move through Chickering’s vectors in order to communicate (discuss/explain reasoning and intent) to establish ground rules. Not only does the members of the organization need to move through the vectors, but the facilitator needs to as well. The facilitator needs to take the “low-level” approach which I thought was a really interesting idea. This idea is that the facilitator needs to act as little as possible to increase effectiveness. Everything this person does has short and long term reactions, so the facilitator needs “emotional intelligence.” Coincidentally, Chickering’s fifth vector deals with understanding your emotions in interpersonal relationships. I like how once again, another approach is based on establishing identity, or the Student Development Theory.

The final article we had to read discussed building a shared vision. It stressed that “An organization must start the process of building a shared vision by encouraging others to create personal visions.” In order to create a personal vision, I think a person has to understand himself or have some sense of identity, which is back to the Student Development Theory. I think the Student Development Theory is all about students developing and understanding their own identities. Experiential learning is also on the student’s own terms and skilled facilitation and developing a shared vision requires the student to understand himself.