Experiential Learning Reflection

Students at MSUM are continuously developing the skills they’ll need for their future careers. Unfortunately, they don’t always realize it and find it challenging to communicate their skills, especially to employers (NACE, 2022).

These two reflections will help you:

• realize which skills you have developed through experiential learning and how you’ve grown in them,
• describe how those skills relate to your future plans, and
• practice communicating your skills to others, building your confidence for future job searches or grad school applications.

Reflection has been shown to be one of the best ways to learn about yourself and your strengths (Brown et al., 2003), which is why reflection has been incorporated into these exercises.

The skills you will reflect on throughout these reflections are called “Dragon Power Skills.” Dragon Power Skills are transferable, always-needed skills that are essential for success in today’s workplace. These skills will help you in almost every aspect of your work and personal life.

Power Skills:

• Help you transition smoothly into the workplace
• Equip you for long-term career and personal success
• Give you an edge that employers notice when hiring

MSUM established the Dragon Power Skills through research, feedback from regional employers, and campus collaboration. Through your experiential learning, you will increase your confidence and abilities in these 7 skills:

• Communication: Dragons will be able to actively listen and communicate clearly and effectively across contexts, formats, and audiences.
• Collaboration: Dragons will be able to effectively work with people of all backgrounds and perspectives to achieve shared goals.
• Critical & Creative Thinking: Dragons will be able to analyze problems, make informed decisions, and generate thoughtful, innovative solutions.
• Grit: Dragons will be able to demonstrate resilience and flexibility.
• Leadership: Dragons will be able to lead positive change by demonstrating self-awareness, building shared vision, and navigating conflict effectively.
• Professional Presence: Dragons will be able to demonstrate reliability and initiative, contributing in ways that strengthen their organization and communities.
• Technology & AI Literacy: Dragons will be able to approach technology, including AI, with curiosity, apply it with intention, engage with it ethically, and use it to support meaningful, human-centered work.

While you will likely develop in all 7 of these skills through your experiential learning, the reflection exercises will especially focus on these 3 Power Skills: critical & creative thinking, grit, and professional presence.

Each reflection has two parts, a self-evaluation and an opportunity to look forward or back.

Reflection: Before the Experience

• Self-Evaluation: You will self-evaluate yourself on the “Power Skills” to get a baseline before the experience. You will complete this same self-evaluation after your experiential learning to see your growth. Your answers are for your own development and will not impact your grades, so please answer honestly.
• Looking Ahead: You will think about what kinds of situations you might encounter at your experiential learning and identify resources you have to support you.

We encourage you to review the questions in advance and draft your responses before completing the form.

Preview the Before the Experience Reflection Questions

Reflection: After the Experience

• Looking Back: You will explore how you developed three Power Skills (critical & creative thinking, grit, and professional presence) through your experiential learning. You will reflect on what happened related to that skill, what you learned about that skill, and how you might use that skill in the future.
• Self-Evaluation: You will complete the same self-evaluation that you took in the Pre-Experience Reflection, to see your growth in the Power Skills from where you started.

We encourage you to review the questions in advance and draft your responses before completing the form.

Preview the After the Experience Reflection Questions

If you are doing the experiential learning for credit, your instructor may choose to grade your responses.

The rubrics evaluate the specificity and completeness of your response, not whether your experience, choices, guesses, or feelings were "right." There are no correct answers. We are looking for your honest, detailed reflection including naming challenges, mistakes, or things you are still unsure about. We are not looking for polished answers that avoid the real story.

Reflection Rubric: Before the Experience Reflection Rubric: After the Experience

Only Career Studio staff have access to individual responses, unless you share it yourself. We use aggregated reflection data to see how well MSUM’s experiential learning is helping students build their skills and to make improvements over time. Your individual reflection helps us identify trends, but it's never attributed to you.

Individuals associated with your experiential learning, such as your course instructor or your student employment supervisor, may ask you to share your results with them.

For example:

• Course instructors may grade your responses if you are doing the experiential learning for credit. See the “Will My Reflections Be Graded” section for more details.
• Student employment supervisors may discuss your responses with you, such as during performance reviews.

Responses will not be shared automatically. At the end of the survey there will be an opportunity for you to have your responses emailed to yourself. You can then share that email as needed.