When people say university learning style is vastly different to high school learning style, what exactly does that mean? Quicker pace, more independence, Anything else?
Well, it’s quite different on a lot of levels:
- the teaching style is quite different - This is probably the biggest one. There’s lots of different ways you could learn at uni vs in high school where just one teacher takes you for one semester and all activities are done in that one classroom. This can vary from lectures, workshops, seminars, labs, etc.. Each one of these is slightly different in how you are taught and what activities you’ll do in them. Each unit (subject) can also be different to others.
- Learning style also differs in that you can pick times that suit you better (sometimes) and sometimes the mode in which you do them. You might take an 8am lecture and choose to watch it online instead of doing this in a lecture hall (think a giant educational movie theatre with someone talking at a lectern at the front). On the other hand, you might not be able to choose when or where - sometimes there’s only a 10am Thursday lab that you need to be there in person for to get attendance marks. It’s very context-dependent.
- You might have one lecturer the entire semester or ten, it depends. You have to adapt to the situation and won’t necessarily have the same lecturer or even see the same classmates each week at uni.
- There’s sometimes pre or post activity work e.g. you might have to do some reading before attending a lecture or a report due after a lab.
- How you get assessed also varies more. Now you might be assessed while on an internship or placement, or you could be assessed on how well your contraption works, on top of essays and orals.