Development of a New Framework to Guide, Assess, and Evaluate Student Reflections in a University Sustainability Course

Many institutions of higher education increasingly place a focus on various forms of experiential education, including personal reflections. While much work has been done in this and related areas, the resources currently available are not sufficient to effectively guide, assess, and evaluate student learning through reflection. Guiding students through the process, assessing their work, and providing an evaluation presents challenges for educators. This article discusses a new framework, a robust rubric, and a guide that students and evaluators can use to support experiential learning through reflection. The framework and resources are based on a grounded investigation of student reflections that were compared to various models from the literature. The framework and resources discussed in the article were developed over a period of five years and with more than 1,600 students. Our purpose here is to describe the development of this framework, to provide a description of the rubric and guide, and to share the lessons learned. This framework and accompanying materials will, we hope, be a useful resource for educators and students wishing to support experiential learning through the use of reflection.