The term “Process Education” was first used in the early 1970’s and referred to the process of educating students rather than the end product of that education. In 1994, Pacific Crest began using the term to articulate a philosophy which encompassed and impacted each of the key educational processes (teaching, learning, mentoring, curriculum design, and assessment) they focused on. Process Education is a fitting term for what Pacific Crest is advocating with respect to growing learner performance and utilizing self-reflective thinking.

The articulation of Process Education has evolved over time and reflects a synthesis of the change processes taking place in higher education. Elements of all of the following are found in Process Education: active learning, student-centered learning, mentoring, assessment, use of technology and the learning paradigm.

A concise definition for Process Education (PE) is as follows:

an educational philosophy which focuses on building students’
learning skills (in all domains) and developing “self-growers.”

Elaboration of three terms within the definition can help to clarify its meaning.

Process Education is a philosophy rather than a particular method or set of methods. Each process educator, guided by this philosophy and its underlying principles (see page 8), must choose how to best implement the philosophy by customizing an approach (from a broad set of techniques, processes, and tools) to suit his or her own unique context and learning environment.

A team of educators worked with Pacific Crest to research and identify key processes and skills

fundamental to learning in multiple contexts. The resulting Classification of Learning Skills for Educational Enrichment and Assessment identifies 15 key processes and more than 275 specific skills from four domains: cognitive, social, affective, and psychomotor. Building students’ proficiency with skills from this extensive classification is a primary objective of Process Education. This objective significantly influences decisions made with regard to creating productive learning environments and determining criteria for student performance in a course.

Learners can be described and classified according to their level of performance in the learning process. The two endpoints on this continuum of performance are trained individuals and self-growers. Self-growers are high performing individuals who have a highly developed set of skills across all domains. They have especially strong self-assessment skills which allow them to self-mentor their own growth and continually improve upon their performances.