{"id":322987,"date":"2026-11-07T08:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T08:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/322987\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T08:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T08:08:20","slug":"teaching-at-pitt-the-power-and-challenge-of-experiential-learning-university-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/322987\/","title":{"rendered":"TEACHING AT PITT: The power and challenge of experiential learning | University Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBy JOSIE RUSH<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a writing instructor, I was using experiential learning before I really knew what it was. After all, if someone wants to improve their writing, they will eventually need to, well, write. They\u2019ll also need to reflect on what they wrote and how they wrote, and they\u2019ll need to consider what worked for their context and what didn\u2019t. If, after a semester of writing and reflecting, students leave my course with a better sense of how to approach writing tasks and more confidence in their ability to navigate the written word, I like to think of their time in class as successful. However, things get trickier when I ask myself how to measure something like \u201cincreased confidence in approaching writing tasks\u201d across the term. Evidence for something like that can\u2019t come from a multiple-choice test, and students often start the course at very different places in terms of how they think of themselves as writers, so how can I ensure I\u2019m accurately assessing this important outcome?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\"JosieI\u2019ve come to think of this sort of concern as a characteristic of experiential learning more generally. Experiential learning requires planning, frequently depends on collaboration and circumstances outside of an instructor\u2019s control, and rarely unfolds in the same manner for any two students. The variability is part of what makes experiential learning powerful, but it\u2019s also what makes it difficult to evaluate. Of all the instructional challenges experiential learning raises, assessment is among the most persistent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAssessing what students make (product) often feels more familiar and comfortable to instructors than assessing how they work (process) or their metacognitive development (learning disposition). In my own writing classes, I find it much more intuitive to articulate characteristics of a successful final portfolio for students than to clearly frame what their affective and metacognitive journeys should look like as they develop as writers throughout the semester. Things get even messier in experiential learning when we consider the caution of Fu et al. (2025) that, \u201can emphasis on process […] means students may emerge from the same experience having learned different things\u201d (p. 9). In my own teaching context, that might look like one student having embraced generative peer reviewing strategies after an essay, while another pinpoints effective methods for iterating an essay\u2019s controlling idea. Both have added to their writing toolkit and cultivated aspects of their writerly identities, but what do their different paths mean for assessment?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore offering some potential ways forward, I want to be careful not to overstate the uniqueness of the challenges associated with assessing process and disposition outcomes. While it\u2019s certainly true that I can\u2019t imagine all of the ways students might demonstrate growth as writers throughout the semester, I also can\u2019t accurately imagine all the ways a finished essay might excel or miss the mark. Assessment, like experiential learning, is always at least a little messy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, my unorthodox advice as instructors begin to consider how to assess experiential learning in their own courses is to first make peace with the innate imperfections of assessment and then consider where flexibility and student involvement might alleviate some of these challenges.<\/p>\n

\n\tStart by imagining the end of the term and picture a student who has gotten a lot out of your course. What would you notice about this student, during the experience and after? When CTL consultants pose this question to instructors utilizing experiential learning, the outcomes they describe often involve a mix of product, process, and learning disposition outcomes. Take a few minutes to name some outcomes and then sort them into the above three categories. There are also opportunities here to lean into the individualized nature of experiential learning and invite students to share what they would like to accomplish by the end of the course, which can increase motivation and clarity. If, for instance, a student in an\u00a0engineering class shares<\/a>\u00a0that they would like to feel a sense of belonging in the field at the conclusion of the semester, an instructor might ask them to more specifically share what that looks like for them: Would their feeling of belonging increase by moving beyond merely following directions on a team to contributing ideas, or perhaps by embracing a \u201cfailed\u201d prototype as a source of information for iteration, rather than solely as a sign they did something wrong?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the process and learning disposition outcomes, ask yourself how you would know a student was achieving them: What would you hear, see, or read? When you consider what could work as evidence of students\u2019 learning, remember that there\u2019s a wide array of options. You might look at what students make during the process, not just at the end, like drafts or prototypes; you could consider something you or a peer observe through an in-process check-in or documentation of collaboration; or you might think about ways that you or a student could capture a moment through a photo, short video, or audio log. Not every outcome requires \u201cperfect\u201d evidence. This is where making peace with imperfection becomes actionable. To determine if evidence is \u201cgood enough,\u201d ask yourself four questions: Is the evidence collectible? Does the evidence tell you something meaningful about a student\u2019s learning? Can you process what you collect across all of your students? Can you describe the meaning of the evidence to someone outside of your course? Consider, too, when it\u2019s appropriate to ask students to collect this evidence, a move that gives students more agency in learning and makes assessing evidence in larger classes more manageable.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany instructors make use of reflections alongside other types of evidence as a way to track process and disposition outcomes in experiential learning. After all, if we want to know how students view themselves as learners throughout the course, or where in their process theynavigated<\/a>\u00a0a challenge, we need to hear from the students. Boud et al. (2013) suggest carefully structuring reflective prompts to ask students to analyze, synthesize, and connect reflections to course concepts. Thoughtfully designed reflective prompts accomplish several things: They help demystify aspects of the curriculum for students (what\u2019s the point of the activities? How do parts of the course connect to the learning outcomes?), and they guide students through metacognitive processes, rather than leaving room for students to simply write, \u201cI had fun and learned a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs instructors, we can take our cues for other types of experiential learning assessments from the above advice about effective reflective prompts. Be explicit about the desired outcome for an activity \u2013 let students know the purpose of what they\u2019re asked to do. Balance structure and flexibility \u2013 including when students might choose or shape the evidence \u2013 when designing assessments to capture evidence of students\u2019 learning dispositions and processes: What sort of activities create room for students to demonstrate learning in ways that are collectible, meaningful, processable and explainable?<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of this makes assessing experiential learning tidy, and it isn\u2019t meant to. When I think back to the question of how I would know a student had grown more confident as a writer, I don\u2019t have a single measure in mind. Instead, I have a clearer sense of what I\u2019m looking for, a handful of kinds of evidence that might show it, and students who have helped define what growth means for them. It\u2019s all imperfect, but it\u2019s also workable. Regardless of discipline, you can begin small. Name one process or disposition outcome, decide what you would hear, see, or read if a student were achieving it, and consider where students might help choose or gather evidence. Ask whether what you\u2019ve collected is good enough to tell you something meaningful about students\u2019 learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJosie Rush is a\u00a0senior teaching consultant\u00a0at the\u00a0University Center for Teaching and Learning.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tReferences<\/p>\n

\n\tBoud, D., Cohen, R., & Walker, D. (Eds.). (1993). Using experience for learning. McGraw-Hill Education<\/p>\n

\n\tFu, J., Hutson, B., Thierer, K., Zhang, X., & Taylor, J. (2025). Experiential learning assessment: A dive into the literature.\u00a0Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning, 6(1), 3-20.\u00a0https:\/\/aalhe.scholasticahq.com\/article\/131785.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JOSIE RUSH As a writing instructor, I was using experiential learning before I really knew what it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1594,10605,497,3398,73,75,74,1164,3315,10604,10603],"class_list":["post-322987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-college","tag-graduate","tag-learning","tag-pitt","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-research","tag-students","tag-undergraduate","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}