Assessment and Reflection for Experiential Learning

Faculty who incorporate experiential learning into their courses will need to consider how to assess students’ engagement and final products, as well as how to facilitate students’ reflection on their own experiences outside the classroom. We offer guidelines for thinking about assessment in general, sample rubrics from Boston University and beyond, and ideas for student reflections, as well as self- and peer-assessment. 

Guidelines for Faculty for Assessment

As with any assessment, assessment of experiential learning activities should always be conducted with the goals of the activity in mind. Backwards design, as the process is called, involves setting out specific learning objectives for a unit, planning student activities and assignments in order to achieve those objectives, and assessing student work as evidence of their progress toward those objectives.

For faculty teaching undergraduate courses, the learning outcomes of the BU Hub provide a natural starting point for this kind of backwards design. Within this approach, a group project with experiential learning culminating in a final slideshow and presentation to an outside client may be assessed differently depending on the focus of the learning outcomes in different courses.

If the course has specific learning outcomes in teamwork and collaboration, for example, faculty will want to assess students’ teamwork explicitly. If the course has a digital/multimedia expression learning outcome, more emphasis may be placed, in assessment, on the slides themselves. If the course is focused on oral and signed communication learning outcomes, on the other hand, assessment may place more emphasis on students’ delivery of the presentation accompanying the slides. For each different set of learning outcomes, therefore, faculty will want to use specific criteria and rubrics that assess those outcomes.

Individual and/or Group Assessment

Faculty will need to decide between individual and group assessment (or a combination of the two), based in part on the structure of their experiential learning task and their purpose for including it in the course. Note that many, though by no means all, experiential learning projects are group-based; in those contexts, instructors may decide to assess only the group work (sometimes including process as well as final products/deliverables) or the group work plus an adjustment to the grade based on individual contributions (sometimes based on peer assessments from a student’s groupmates).

  • BU’s own Questrom Team Learning site provides a robust collection of resources and rubrics for faculty assessing teamwork and group final products. These resources are particularly applicable for longer-term group projects and include samples of team contracts, peer assessments, and video clips about the importance of an equitable and inclusive approach to assessment, as well as guidance on grading team performance and assessing team learning.
  • Tufts University offers insights for deciding when to use groups, forming groups, attending to group dynamics, and grading. Tufts also shares ways to encourage students to learn from each other in groups, detailing types such as buzz groups (discussion-focused), or jigsaw groups (each person completes a discrete task).]
  • Albertus Magnus College offers guidance and examples on how to assess a student’s learning during a group activity/project, as well as the content knowledge acquired afterward.

Ungrading and Nontraditional Assessment

In some cases, faculty will prioritize ungrading and nontraditional assessment over formal, traditional grading. For faculty looking for resources on equitable and inclusive assessment:

There are also many short videos in the Center for Teaching & Learning-Digital Learning & Innovation lightning talk video library, exploring different ways of assessing and reflecting.

Rubrics

When developing rubrics, or adapting some of the samples linked below, faculty will need to consider whether to use student-created rubrics, instructor-created, or a combination of the two. In some cases, instructors may ask students to identify particular areas for growth for themselves (individually or as a group) and may then assess students specifically on their progress in those areas. At other times, instructors (or even outside partners) have specific criteria in mind for the final product, and these final criteria might translate naturally to a rubric.

MetroBridge offers resources and support to faculty who wish to integrate experiential learning into their courses while collaborating with external partners. The resources provided are very helpful for faculty who are unsure where to begin assessing experiential learning when the product is designed for an external partner.

  • Longer-term projects may also be assessed differently–with a greater emphasis on process and on team contributions, perhaps–than a one-shot project that is shorter in duration
  • Larger classes, with up to 200 students engaged in similar projects, may have a different approach to assessment than smaller classes, as faculty will need to consider how many peer or self-evaluations they can realistically review and consider as part of their grading process.

In all cases, though, faculty should approach assessment transparently and with an eye to potential equity concerns; some of the resources linked in the section below specifically address these concerns.

Additional Note on Assessment and the BU Hub

Many courses that use experiential learning activities carry Hub unit of Teamwork/Collaboration, which emphasizes “the ability to collaborate with these diverse groups …[and] to collaborate with people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives, build consensus, and compromise for the good of a broader purpose.”

Given the learning outcomes for this Hub unit, faculty will want to ensure that students don’t merely work in teams to complete an assignment, but that they are actually able “to identify the characteristics of a well-functioning team” (LO1), “assign and undertake roles and responsibilities amongst members of a team; give and receive feedback within their own team and to meaningfully process this and other feedback, such as from additional teams, from an instructor, and/or in self-reflection; [and]… engage in meaningful group reflection.”

Additional Hub units relevant for assessing experiential learning activities range from Oral/Signed Communication to Creativity/Innovation, and more. Faculty will want to carefully consider their primary course learning outcomes to decide which aspects of an experiential learning project to emphasize in assessment.

Why Reflect on Experiential Learning (EL)?

Reflection is a versatile tool that helps students make the most of EL. By analyzing their experiences and decisions, students can consider how EL has transformed them as critical thinkers and observers, learners in specific disciplines, and/or as individuals training to enter a specific professional field. Reflection helps students develop and apply habits of mind and new skills to future challenges.

Having students reflect at various stages during EL helps faculty reflect on their practice and their position in relation to students and their relationships with them, both inside and outside the classroom space. Students’ reflections enable faculty to get to know students in different social, intellectual, and linguistic spaces.

This knowledge enables faculty to better know how to shape course content and to work with individual students. But reflection also helps students take more active ownership of their learning which motivates them to transfer what they discover through EL to other contexts that are meaningful to them.

Resources

When to Reflect on EL

Reflection can be helpful during all stages of experiential learning.

Pre-Reflection

Taking stock of their thinking at the start of a course or before an experience gives students a specific record of their initial perspectives that they can return to develop a clearer, deeper sense of how their thinking and strategies change.

Students can use pre-reflections to:

  • set initial goals for the course and/or experience
  • explore how their thinking has already evolved due to relevant prior experiences
  • analyze their predictions/preconceptions about what will happen at a site or event or during work with a community partner
  • examine their initial feelings about the field or profession they are entering and/or their initial sense of their identity in relation to this field/profession.

Reflecting on Processes in Progress

In the midst of courses, internships, practicums, and other experiences, connections can be drawn between them and a range of other elements.

Students can use reflections midway through experiences to:

  • link early experiences to later experiences to consider how their strategies are transforming through EL
  • apply theory from assigned materials or background knowledge to experiences
  • connect their individual experiences to experiences of classmates or community partners to compare the impacts of shared experiences
  • link their fieldwork to literature reviews from a specific discipline
  • determine how they will use their experiences in assignments and/or to revise assignments.

Some faculty use this resource from Carnegie Mellon University about grading methods for group work and sample peer/self-assessment rubrics. You can explore many assessment styles in an easy-to-read table format.

Transitions and Transfer

Reflecting on how they can carry strategies into future contexts helps students gain even more long-term benefits from EL.

Students in Boston University Hub classes and other non-major courses can use reflections to:

  • Choose what skills or habits of mind they think will be most helpful to transfer to future contexts relevant to them
  • Consider how they can apply a specific skill or habit of mind to a specific future context relevant to them
  • Look back on observation notes/fieldwork and brainstorm how they can apply sharpened observational skills to future classes or professional contexts
  • Reflect on how they explored creativity/innovation through EL in this specific course and consider what approaches they can apply to their major classes, internships, or professional contexts
  • Analyze how they used critical thinking/problem-solving during specific experiences and consider how they can revise those strategies in future situations
  • Reflect on how they might revise the steps of their research process in this context to fit their future research
  • Reflect on how their strengths and the challenges they faced during their research process in this course can shape their future research experiences.

Students in upper-level major courses and pre-professional contexts can use reflections to:

  • Enhance skills and competencies specific to their field or profession
  • Analyze types of situations they experienced that are common to specific professional contexts and plan future strategies to use in those contexts
  • Deepen their evolving professional identities by choosing more specific sub-fields or trajectories on which to focus in the future
  • Challenge preconceptions and stereotypes that might prevent them from performing their future jobs
  • Gain a clearer understanding of their own positionality in relation to the field or profession they are preparing to enter.

Assessing Reflection

Teachers may choose to assess reflections or not. The types of assessment faculty pursue should be shaped by the specific purposes of reflection in the course. The CTL provides a brief Reflection on Reflections with questions to get started and a document with links to many sample rubrics.

When offering feedback on reflections, it can be helpful to create an active dialogue by asking questions that will help students think more deeply about specific ideas or experiences they have already addressed, by encouraging them to explore specific further areas in future reflections, and by suggesting new approaches for reflection that students may want to try.

As you consider what types of responses to reflection might work best for your course, you may find it helpful to check out these resources from J. Elizabeth Clark’s presentation “Reflective Writing for Project-Based Learning” (2022). Her models for assessing reflection offer useful examples for faculty, and this rubric on assessing reflection by Barbara Glesner Fines of Southern Methodist University may also come in handy.

Acknowledgements

This resource is part of the Bridge Builders Experiential Learning Toolkit and was contributed by Holly Schaaf (Senior Lecturer, Writing Program, College of Arts & Sciences); Christina Michaud (Associate Director of ELL Writing and Master Lecturer, Writing Program, College of Arts & Sciences); Joan Salge Blake (Program Director and Clinical Professor, Nutrition, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College); Victoria Perrone (Director of Student Life and BU Partnerships and Chemistry Teacher, Boston University Academy).

The Bridge Builders Experiential Learning Program (2022-2024) was jointly sponsored by the MetroBridge Program within the Initiative on Cities and the Center for Teaching & Learning and supported with funding from the Davis Educational Foundation. Read more about the Bridge Builders Program.

Last updated April 4, 2024