Assessing Experiential Learning
Experiential learning assessment measures student learning through practical, applied, and context-specific tasks and experiences. Unlike traditional assignments such as multiple-choice tests or final papers, experiential learning focuses on how students learn and how they apply their learning. Thoughtful assessment design makes that learning visible in ways that are clear, supportive, and fair.
At the University of Alberta, experiential learning includes a range of approaches that support active engagement, reflection, and application. Explore definitions, learning types, and examples available through the University of Alberta Experiential Learning website.
Assess both the learning process and the application of learning
Experiential learning assessment attends to both the learning process and application of knowledge, skills, or concepts. Students are not only completing assignments or projects. They are building skills, testing ideas, responding to challenges, and making sense of their experiences. Assessment is intended to give you a fuller picture of student learning in practice.
Experiential learning assessment extends beyond a final submission by helping students develop ways of thinking and working they can apply in future contexts. Assessing an experience captures how students reflect, respond to challenges, connect theory to practice, and develop their thinking over time.
| Learning Process | Active Learning |
|---|---|
| Focuses on how students reflect, make decisions, respond to challenges, and develop their thinking over time. | Focuses on how students use and communicate what they have learned in practice. |
| Examples might include a reflection journal or an annotated draft. | Examples might include a case analysis or presentation. |
Use inclusive and flexible design principles
Experiential learning assessment is strengthened by approaches that are equitable, flexible, and responsive to student needs. Two useful frameworks are alternative assessment and Universal Design for Learning.
Apply principles of alternative assessment
Alternative assessment and experiential learning are linked by their focus on practical application. While experiential learning engages students in solving actual professional or daily challenges, alternative assessment captures that learning by evaluating performance in those specific contexts.
To ensure these assessments are inclusive and supportive, experiential learning is designed as:
- engaging: relevant to the world in which students live and work
- equitable: accessible and supportive of diverse learners
- flexible: allowing for student agency through choices and input
- developmental: fostering growth over time
Design for Process and Product Feedback
A strong experiential learning assessment includes both formative and summative approaches. Formative assessment supports growth during the learning process, while summative assessment helps you evaluate how well students have integrated theory with practice by the end.
Reflection is an important assessment tool in experiential learning because it helps make learning visible. Reflective writing can be used either formatively or summatively. Formative reflection supports learning in progress, while summative reflection evaluates how students make sense of experience afterward.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment is used during the learning process to provide ongoing, low-stakes feedback.
| Assessment Strategy | Purpose | Example in Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Check-ins or progress updates | Monitor how students are navigating the experience. | Use Wooclap to run a quick poll, open-ended question, or confidence check during class to surface questions, challenges, or emerging themes. |
| Short reflective responses | Connect experience to course concepts. | Ask students to reflect briefly on a decision, challenge, or observation from a placement, project, simulation, lab or community-based activity. |
| Drafts, prototypes or planning documents | Support revision before final submission. | Provide feedback on a draft policy brief, project plan, lesson design, lab procedure, or prototype so students can revise before the final assessment. |
| Peer feedback | Help students test ideas and learn from others. | Use FeedbackFruits to support structured peer feedback on draft work or group member feedback during a collaborative project. |
| Process documentation | Make learning visible over time. | Ask students to document key decisions, revisions, challenges, or shifts in understanding across a project, placement, or simulation through brief logs, annotations, or progress notes. |
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is used at the end of a learning experience to evaluate how well students have integrated theory with practice. In experiential learning, summative assessment often asks students to apply knowledge, make justified decisions, communicate with a particular audience, or reflect critically on what they learned through experience.
| Assessment Strategy | Purpose | Example in Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Applied project or case-based assignment | Students can use course concepts in context. | Develop a policy brief, client recommendation, case analysis, program plan, or resource for a specific audience or disciplinary context. |
| Presentation or showcase | Students can synthesize and communicate their learning. | Deliver a presentation, poster, pitch, demonstration, or public-facing showcase that explains the project, key decisions, and resulting recommendations. |
| Portfolio | Assess learning across time and across pieces of work. | Compile selected pieces of work, reflections, and evidence of growth from a placement, project, lab, or community-based experience, with commentary explaining what was learned. |
| Reflective Journals | Students can make sense of experience in relation to course concepts. | Use FeedbackFruits to support structured peer feedback on draft work or group member feedback during a collaborative project. |
Looking for more assessment guidance? The University of Edinburgh’s Reflection Toolkit has guidance on designing and assessing reflection-based assignments.
Co-construction Criteria
Building assessment criteria with students can clarify expectations, help students understand what quality work looks like, and support student agency in assessment.
You can involve students along a continuum of co-construction. At one end, you define the criteria and invite students to clarify them. At the other end, students take a more active role in shaping the criteria. Moving along this continuum can increase student agency while still allowing you to decide how much structure and guidance to provide.
| Level of Agency | Approach | Student Role | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Low (instructor-led) |
Unpack | Clarify and respond | You share draft criteria, and students point out what needs clarification |
| Medium (consultive) | Brainstorm | Contribute ideas | Students describe what success looks like and suggest possible criteria |
| Medium to high (collaborative) | Prioritize | Weigh and refine | Students rank criteria by importance and help shape emphasis or weighting |
|
High (co-creation) |
Create | Help design | construction |
Increasing student agency in this way can support ownership, reflection, and engagement, making assessment more meaningful and more closely connected to practice.
Design assessment for larger classes
Experiential learning assessment can be both purposeful and manageable in larger classes. The key is not to reproduce small-class strategies at scale, but to design assessments that are structured, transparent, and feasible to administer across a larger number of students.
In larger classes, you can think about assessment design in three areas:
1. Structural approachesBalance clear instructions and expectations for assignments with student agency by using:
- shared assessment structures with some student choice built in
- assignments broken into stages that build on one another and staggered deadlines, allowing students to receive feedback before final submission
- rubrics to clarify expectations and support consistency, including criteria related to both the learning process and how students apply their learning
Create more touchpoints for feedback without relying only on instructor comments by using:
- peer feedback, group feedback, or self-assessment to create more feedback opportunities without relying only on instructor comments
- group check-ins or short progress updates to surface common questions and challenges
- feedback on key points in the process where it will have the most impact
3. Technological approaches
Leverage tools that make participation, feedback, and assessment processes more manageable, such as:
- Wooclap for check-ins and in-class responses
- FeedbackFruits to support structured peer review
- Canvas and AI-supported comment banks to support efficient feedback processes
Planning for larger classes may require simpler or more streamlined forms of experiential assessment, but it does not need to mean less meaningful learning. Thoughtful structure can help you balance flexibility and fairness while managing ability.
Putting it into practice
As you design or revise an assessment:
- identify what you want students to learn through the experience
- decide how students will show both their learning process and how they apply their learning
- build in opportunities for feedback, flexibility, and clear criteria
- adjust the assessment so it remains manageable in your course context, including in larger classes
Learn more
Anderson, K., Gupta, S., Nava Buenfil, F., & Verrinder, G. (2022). Using experiential learning and authentic assessments to support students to become competent health promotion practitioners. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 33(Suppl. 1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/hpja.654
Elkhoury, E. (2024). An Equitable Approach to Academic Integrity Through Alternative Assessment. In: Eaton, S.E. (eds) Second Handbook of Academic Integrity. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54144-5_135
Fleckney, P., Thompson, J., & Vaz-Serra, P. (2025). Designing effective peer assessment processes in higher education: A systematic review. Higher Education Research & Development, 44(2), 386–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2024.2407083
Fu, J., Hutson, B., Thierer, K., Zhang, X., & Taylor, J. (2025). Experiential learning assessment: A dive into the literature. Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning, 6(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.61669/001c.131785
Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. (2026). Lesson 3: Assessing an EL activity. University of Calgary. https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/module/experiential-learning/assessing-el
Wilson, J., Yates, T., Gobeil, M., Aitken, A., & Lewis, K. (2024). Experiential learning assessment in post-secondary education. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2024.3.16934
Zhan, Y., Boud, D., & Du, Z. (2025). Designing for authentic assessment: A scoping review. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-025-01588-9
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