22 Student Reflections

When Everything is Completed!

Think about how everything went and what you can do differently in the future.  Many of us set high expectations of ourselves on our first industry projects and forget about the limitations of time during a semester. How do you plan better on your future work and employment opportunities?  When you finish your Capstone reflect on the experience.  Self-reflection can be difficult but will be invaluable to your personal and career growth. Reflection is a critical process – it is not just a story of ‘what happened’, but instead it is a task in thinking about the effects and impact your journey and observations will have on your future self, professionally and personally. Reflection should be honest and balanced.

Part I: Personal Goal Setting

Usually done during the first week of the semester. This will help to prepare and get students into the right mindset to take on a project successfully. It will also be useful to refer back to these goals when completing an end of semester Reflection Piece.

1. Prioritize: What makes you happy? What do you value most?
2. Plan: Decide your (attainable) goal, what will it look like when you’ve achieved it? What will the benefits be?
3. Get Advice: How can you gain support from others? Where may you receive inspiration?
4. Don’t Give Up: What daily challenges might you see instead as an opportunity for growth?
5. Celebrate: How have your past achievements made you feel? How will you feel when you achieve this goal?

Part II: Reflection Piece

To be completed during the final week of the semester. Students must answer at least one question from each of the following categories:

Cognitive Reflection

• How has your experiential activity related to the readings, discussions, and lectures in your courses? Provide specific examples of related course concepts and describe the context in which the concepts related to your experiential learning activity.
• Did your understanding of course material/concepts you have studied improve as a result of your participation in this experiential activity? Provide examples.
• What complexities do you now see in the concept that you were not aware of before?
• Did your understanding of the experiential activity improve as a result of the course material/concepts you have studied? Provide examples.
• In what specific ways are concepts of course material you have studied and the experience the same and/or different?
• Upon reviewing the experience, identify and describe an example of a different approach (e.g., decision or action) you could have taken. Envisage the impact of such a change.
• What are the most important learning moments you take with you from this experience?
• How can you educate others or raise awareness about this experiential activity?
• What new skills have you learned since beginning your experiential activity?

Process Reflection

• What expectations did you have about your experiential activity? Do you have a different picture of your experience than you had before you began it?
• What would you like to change about your experience?
• What were the benefits from participating in this experiential learning activity? Did anything surprise you? If so, what?
• What did you do that seemed to be effective? What were your personal contributions to the experiential activity?
• What did you do that seemed to be ineffective?
• What were the most difficult parts of the experiential activity? Why?
• What were the most satisfying parts of the experiential activity? Why?
• What have you done in this experiential activity to make a difference? What impact do you think you have had?
• What type(s) of a role did you endeavor to fulfill during the experiential activity? Examples include leader, collaborator, challenger, creator, team-builder, innovator, etc. Were you effective within this/these roles?
• Identify and describe your approach as a team member. Was it effective? Why?
• What do you think was your most valued contribution to the experiential activity?
•  How do you see you role with this experiential activity? How does that compare with how others may see your role?
• What personal characteristics made this experiential activity successful?
• Identify and describe an awareness about a personal characteristic that has been enhanced by reflection on your experiential learning activity.
• How does the experiential activity relate to your long-term goals?
• How have you been challenged?

Affective Reflection

• Would you do this again? Why?
• Describe what you have learned about yourself as a result of your experiential activity.