The Experiential Learning (EL) Framework provides a common foundation for designing high-quality Experiential Learning Activities (ELAs) and ensuring consistent designation across IUB. Every ELA should align with:
EL Framework
EL Design Principles
The EL Design Principles provide a common framework for designing high-quality ELAs. Together, they help ensure that experiences intentionally support student learning, career readiness, and meaningful engagement.
Note: All design principles should be incorporated into Applied and Professional ELAs. Exploratory ELAs may include those principles that are appropriate to the experience.
All ELAs should be designed to support three core learning outcomes:
- Authenticity: Students will demonstrate the ability to apply and adapt academic knowledge to the complexities of authentic, real-world environments.
- Career Focus: Students will articulate and demonstrate career competencies (e.g., teamwork, communication, and problem-solving) through the successful completion of collaborative projects or professional tasks.
- Meaning Making: Students will critically reflect on their experiential learning to examine how the experience influenced their understanding of ethical frameworks, personal and professional values, and/or civic responsibility.
Learning outcomes specific to the ELA should be clearly articulated in the syllabus or program materials, integrated into the course or program design, and accompanied by appropriate methods for assessment.
Preparation should provide students with the background knowledge, orientation, and skill development needed to engage in the experience thoughtfully, ethically, and purposefully. Preparation should include opportunities for:
- Contextual Background: Providing historical, cultural, organizational, or social context relevant to the experience or community.
- Logistical Orientation: Communicating practical information such as schedules, locations, safety protocols, roles, responsibilities, and expectations for participation.
- Skill Development: Developing the communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, technical, or other skills necessary for success in the experience.
- Goals and Intention Setting: Helping students identify personal, academic, and professional goals and connect those goals to the experience.
Mentorship should provide meaningful opportunities for
- Feedback: Students receive regular formative feedback, as well as a final assessment, from an IU faculty or staff mentor (or an appropriate delegate) with the expertise needed to provide guidance throughout the experience.
- Professional Network Development: Students build professional relationships within and beyond the university that support their continued academic, career, and professional development.
Reflection should encourage students to make meaningful connections among their experiences, their developing understanding of themselves, and the broader implication of their learning.
Reflection activities should include structured opportunities for students to examine:
- Ethical principles, the implications of their actions, and different ethical perspectives within their academic discipline and/or broader community.
- Their role as professionals and citizens within organizations, communities, and society.
- How the experience shaped their personal, academic, and professional growth.
A substantial body of scholarship supports reflection as a core component of experiential learning, particular community-engage learning. Relevant resources may be referenced here.
Students should have opportunities to demonstrate their learning and achievement of the ELA learning outcomes through authentic evidence of their knowledge, skills, and competencies. Demonstration of learning may include one or more of the following:
- Scholarly or Public Presentation: A final project, report, publication, presentation, exhibition, performance, portfolio, or paper shared with a public audience or appropriate academic community.
- Professional Deliverable: A product, plan, recommendation, prototype, or other tangible deliverable completed for a client, community partner, employer, or other external stakeholder.
- Authentic Performance: A demonstration of professional practice, technical proficiency, or applied skills evaluated by faculty, mentors, employers, community partners, or other appropriate stakeholders.
EL Activity Types
IUB recognizes 12 Experiential Learning Activity (ELA) activity types, organized into four broad categories. Each activity type has a definition and a corresponding rubric that outlines its distinguishing characteristics and the EL Design Principles used to guide designation.
Every ELA must be designated with at least one activity type. Experiences that align with more than one activity type may receive multiple designations.
Use the definitions to identify the most appropriate activity type(s) and the rubrics to determine whether the experience meets the expectations for designation.
Community Engaged Learning
Community engaged learning is an instructional approach in which students collaborate with community partners to address authentic community-identified needs, issues, or opportunities through reciprocal partnerships. Through the integration of academic learning, critical reflection, and community engagement, students contribute to community impact while advancing their civic, personal, and professional development.
Community Engaged Learning Rubric
Student Leadership
Student leadership is a mentored experience in which students lead a group, team, or organization toward achieving shared goals through collaboration, decision-making, and multi-directional influence. Through structured mentorship, reflection, and evaluation, students develop leadership capacity while advancing their personal, academic, and professional growth.
Clinical, Practicum, and Student Teaching
These experiential learning activities are governed by discipline-specific accreditation, certification, and licensure requirements. Programs should use the professional standards and assessment criteria established by their accrediting or regulatory bodies.
Internship
Internships are supervised work-integrated learning experiences in which students apply and develop disciplinary knowledge, professional skills, and career competencies in an authentic work environment aligned with their academic and career goals. Through guided practice and feedback, students gain professional experience while advancing their career readiness.
Student Employment
Student employment is a supervised on-campus work experience intentionally designed to help students develop transferable professional skills and career competencies. Through meaningful workplace responsibilities, mentorship, and reflection, students strengthen their professional readiness while contributing to the mission and operations of the university.
Student Employment RubricUndergraduate Research
Undergraduate research is a mentored process of inquiry in which undergraduate students investigate a research question or creative scholarly problem that contributes to knowledge within a discipline or interdisciplinary field.
Undergraduate Research Rubric
Creative Activity
Creative activity is a mentored process in which students develop, produce, perform, design, curate, or present original artistic, creative, or professional work that contributes to creative practice, artistic expression, or cultural understanding.
Creative Activity Rubric
Project-Based Learning
Project-based learning is an instructional approach in which students engage in sustained inquiry to address authentic, complex problems or challenges that lack predetermined solutions. Through the development and implementation of solutions, students apply disciplinary knowledge while generating new understanding, innovative products, or entrepreneurial solutions.
Study Abroad
Study abroad is an academic experience in which students engage in learning outside the United States through coursework, research, internships, service, or other experiential activities that foster intercultural competence, global perspectives, and disciplinary learning. Programs are approved and evaluated through the university's Education Abroad approval process.
Study Away
Study away is an academic experience in which students engage in learning through travel within the United States to explore regional cultures, communities, environments, or professional contexts. Through structured preparation, guided experiences, and ongoing support, students apply academic learning while developing cultural awareness and place-based understanding.
Engagement Classifications
Exploratory
Introduces students to authentic professional, community, research, or creative contexts through structured observation, guided practice, simulation, or other introductory experiences. Students explore real-world applications of their learning while developing foundational knowledge and skills with limited responsibility for outcomes.
- Examples: Field trips, authentic case studies, simulations, role-playing activities, job shadowing, informational interviewing, Q&A sessions with professionals, and hands-on building or creating within a classroom/university context.
Applied
Engages students in sustained participation under structured supervision in authentic professional, community, research, or creative settings. Students apply disciplinary knowledge and skills while contributing meaningfully to projects, receiving ongoing mentorship, and developing professional competencies.
- Examples: Internships, field experiences, undergraduate research, client- or community-based projects, creative productions, leadership experiences, and study abroad or study away programs with experiential components.
Professional
Provides students with sustained, high-responsibility engagement in authentic professional, community, research, or creative settings. Students demonstrate independence, leadership, and accountability while making meaningful decisions, assuming ownership of their work, and applying their learning at an advanced level.
- Examples: Professional internships with substantial autonomy, honors theses, independent research or creative projects, leadership of community or client-based initiatives, student teaching, clinical placements, and immersive experiential programs.
ELA Resource Library
Effective Experiential Learning (EL) design, whether for a course or a co-curricular activity, relies on a close alignment between desired learning outcomes for participants, the authentic evidence used to assess learning, and the design of the learning experience and support structures. By starting with the end in mind, you ensure the entire experience is intentionally structured for deep, high-impact learning. This intentional approach is known as the backward design model (Wiggins & McTigh, 2005).
- Additional resources from the Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL) to support the assessment of ELAs:
- CITL: Developing Learning Outcomes - Guidance on creating meaningful and measurable learning outcomes.
- Community Engaged Learning Guides and Assessment Tools - Practical resources for designing and evaluating community engaged learning experiences. A list of reflection questions for CEL can be found under CEL Guides.
- Additional resources to help with ELA assessment:
- Reflective Framework for Experiential Learning - A structured approach to creating reflection activities that serve as a key component of assessment and growth.
- Student Payment Guidelines - In certain cases, students may receive financial compensation for their participation in ELAs. This guidance helps ensure that all student payments are made in accordance with university policies.