OLE Experience in Practice Prompt Examples

Note: The Assessment Committee, in partnership with Alyssa Melby (at the time in the Smith Center) and Karil Kucera (Professor of Art and Art History and Asian Studies, and at the time Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary and General Studies), developed a sample prompt for instructors to adopt in their OLE Experience in Practice courses. This prompt was initially piloted in Summer 2023 with an internship reflection seminar and the Rockswold Health Scholars program.

Prompt:

Thinking back/Using your Journal as a source to your [OEP experience], give specific examples [a paragraph for each] of how you:

• Identified a new or growing vocational or academic interest
• Connected your OEP learning and any content/knowledge from your other St. Olaf courses
• Used your knowledge and skills to contribute to a community*

*Some notes on community and ILO 3 more generally: (1) Faculty may wish to be more descriptive about which community(ies) as it pertains to your OEP experience, e.g., research community, fellow classmates, St. Olaf campus, Northfield non-profit, local community, workplace community, etc. (2) In addition to helping students define and identify “community” students may also benefit from identifying and naming specific roles in the community. The committee encourages faculty to help discern, model, and name specific skills/roles relevant to the OEP experience. These roles are likely specific to the particular discipline/experience.

Note: The reflection portion of this assignment addresses the OEP learning outcomes.

Final Presentation and Reflection-30 points

Final presentation and reflection:

In groups of 3-4 students will give a 10-15 minute presentation on a topic of their choice related to their learning in the class, as well as submit a 2-3 page reflection paper (per person) based on prompts handed out. This project is meant to showcase their growth, learning and understanding of the topics focused on in the class. It is also meant to highlight learning the student will take back home with them and apply to their studies and work.

Presentation 20 pts:

Aspects to highlight in presentation:

• Identify two (each) key events in Aboriginal and Maori history and relate these to current day community culture.
• Identify two (each) elements of Aboriginal and Maori culture tied to storytelling and its usefulness in therapeutic settings for individuals and family systems.
  • Does the presentation identify elements of Aboriginal and Maori culture and/or history tied to storytelling/narrative and its usefulness in therapeutic – or other helping settings that group members are interested in – for individuals and family systems. Does it give an example from class experience or readings? Does it demonstrate more insight into this example as well as a basic understanding of Narrative Therapy?
  • Does the presentation reference the culture, history and/or use of storytelling of Maori and Aboriginal cultures?
  • Does the presentation highlight what the students believe to be important learning points from the class?
  • Is the presentation professional? Did students share visuals, stories, or examples to engage the class?

Reflection 10 pts:

Aspects to highlight in reflection:

• Compare culture, history and use of storytelling of Maori and Aboriginal people to your own understanding of Native American cultures. Give 3 (total) examples.
• How have academic or vocational interests been influenced by this class? Do you have any new interests? (1 paragraph)
• What is an example of prior coursework that was connected to this class experience? (1 paragraph)
• What skills did you share and roles did you play in contributing to the community in this class? What knowledge and skills from this course will you bring back to the St. Olaf community or others you are a part of? (1 paragraph)
• Please reflect, using elements of Narrative Therapy, on your past experiences, this class and future experiences. This can be related to professional plans, family, social – any aspect of your experience.
• Please also reflect on preparing the group presentation and how working together went.

OLE Experience in Practice

Use this form and the description of the OLE Experience in Practice below to answer the following questions in English, drawing on your experiences in Spain both in and outside the classroom. Each response should be 150-200 words in length.

St. Olaf College OLE Core General Education Curriculum | OLE Experience in Practice Requirement

Description:

Students will engage in work that integrates academic and experiential learning by applying classroom theories and ideas in a practical setting and/or drawing upon experiential learning to advance their understanding in an academic setting. All students will have the opportunity to benefit from the mentoring, guided inquiry, and reflection that characterize experiential learning.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

Students will:

1. Identify emerging vocational and/or academic interests based on the experience.
2. Integrate prior/concurrent coursework with the experience.
3. Evaluate skills and roles, including those that help them contribute to the community.

Questions:

1. How were you able to connect knowledge and experience gained in prior St. Olaf courses with your learning in Spain?
2. How did you use your knowledge or skills to contribute to the course group and/or your homestays or others in the Spanish community? (This could also include the pre-departure orientation sessions.)
3. How has the January term in Spain helped you think about your vocational and/or academic interests?

Note: Part B is the section that relates specifically to the OEP learning outcomes.

FINAL: Integrative Research & Reflection Paper

Purpose

The acts associated with composing this paper enable you to identify and integrate a specific theme from your civic engagement project into discourse with the environmental literature, and it provides a space for you to reflect on how the experiences you have had, including work with a community partner, informs your current and post-St. Olaf trajectories. Moreover, this culminating assignment asks you to discuss how acquired knowledge gets synthesized and translated into actions that forward environmental initiatives and organizational goals.

Tasks

Throughout the semester you have done research to support the aims of a project with a community partner, analyzed and discussed contributions from the environmental literature, examined your preferred or default perspectives in environmental study, and considered frameworks of environmental leadership and justice that moved others into action. All of these activities intersect in this final paper and you will leverage your prior work to document your learning through the following tasks.

1. Identify a specific theme of interest relevant, either directly or indirectly, to your civic engagement project experience. Effective ways to do this include:
   • Review entries in your project journal
   • Notice related topics in the class readings and the project on which you worked
   • Discourse with others, including your peers in this class.
   • Consider your interactions with the community partner and the broader community. Reflect on what you know about the organization or group’s goals and approaches: Which aspects of your experience did you find most important, interesting, challenging, frustrating, or surprising? What questions did these aspects raise about your specific project and the environmental issues that the organization addresses through its programs? What does integration and application look like in environmental work?
2. Evaluate the research you have completed for the civic engagement project and how it connects to the theme you have identified.
   • Where are the opportunities to make arguments or generate reflections that find support in the environmental literature?
   • The community partner and its offices (or meetings) constitute an experiential “text” that you should use to reflect on and document your learning.
3. Evaluate the other class activities to ascertain how they connect (or do not) to the theme you have identified. Where are the opportunities to make arguments or generate reflections that find support from those resources? Contributions of other courses with possible intersection?
4. Conduct additional research within the environmental literature that addresses holes in the prior evaluations (steps 2 and 3) or builds out the conversation within that literature and your theme.
5. Synthesize your research, experiences, journaling and assignments into the paper. Make sure you include at least 12 scholarly sources in a suitable bibliographic format. You may find it helpful to think of this as a set of two smaller papers.
   • Integration and application in environmental studies (approximately 4-5 pages)
   • Personal development & future plans (approximately 2-3 pages)
6. Revise, clarify, spell-check, grammar check, proofread…

Additional Guidance

Use GreenFile, GreeNR, Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, and other databases/resources to locate and use at least 12 scholarly sources – journal articles, chapters, monographs, government publications, and many others. All sources should be as current as possible, preferably published in the past decade. You may use 3 of the resources from our class readings as sources for your paper.

Part a: Integration and application in environmental studies

Connect your community based work to your curiosities and conversations in the environmental literature.

1. Begin with a brief (1 paragraph) introduction about your ACE project.
2. Next include a succinct (1 page) statement of your specific topic that describes the source of your interest and a thesis for your narrative. Support this statement by summarizing or sharing brief excerpts from your journal or other work; if the inspiration for your topic also came from our class readings, use an appropriate style to cite the source.
3. Discuss what your scholarly sources say about your topic (3-4 pages).
   • Briefly summarize the main points of your scholarly sources, making explicit the way in which they relate to your topic.
   • For any empirical research conducted or reports, briefly identify the hypothesis and method and limitations of the studies you read about.
   • Connect the scholarly sources to your civic engagement experience by considering questions such as: How might the information in the scholarly sources been employed in the project? Are the organization’s current practices supported by scholarly sources? Based on the scholarly sources, what recommendations would you make about the project or organization’s goals?

Part b: Personal development and future plans

Reflect on the extent to which your civic engagement project related to your personal development, vocational discernment*, and future professional and personal goals. (3 pages):

1. Discuss the extent to which any readings, class discourse, and project experiences applied to you personally, in relation to your interests, values, attitudes, and beliefs.
2. Discuss the extent to which your project and related activities fostered behavior and thinking that was meaningful to you personally.
3. Discuss the extent to which our readings, class discourse, and project experiences contributed to your understanding of ways to implement environmental knowledge, skills, and values in a variety of settings, including vocational discernment.
4. Discuss the extent to which your project and related activities promoted opportunities to assess your abilities, knowledge, motivation, and work habits.
5. Discuss the extent to which your experiences in this course helped you develop or identify skills and gain experiences relevant to your career goals and emerging vocational framework.

*At St. Olaf, vocation is who you are called to be and what you are called to do across all the parts of your life – not only in professional work, but also in your family and friendships, community engagements, relationship with the earth, search for meaning, and pursuit of justice. It’s living your life on purpose, directed toward both your personal flourishing and the common good. St. Olaf’s definition of vocation

References

Employ an appropriate citation style used in any area of environmental inquiry and creative practice and create a Cited Works list at the end of your paper. You simply need to be consistent with the style you choose. Some common styles include: APA, MLA, Chicago, Ecological Society of America, American Chemical Society, American Economic Association, etc.

Final Reflection on Research Experience Assignment

Instructions: Write a 1.5-2 page summary (double-spaced) reflecting on your growth as a researcher (and/or consumer of research) from your personal experiences designing and conducting a research study in this class. Please consider all the research experiences associated with this class, including, the mini labs, the development and execution of your team research project, the presentation of your research, the Piper Center Lab, etc. In your reflection, please describe, in detail:

• Any emerging vocational and/or academic interests based on your experiences doing research in this class
• The specific skills you practiced or gained in this class that may contribute to your overall personal or academic growth
• Any specific skills or course knowledge that you brought from other classes (within or outside [discipline]) that you’ve taken at St. Olaf that may have helped prepare you to conduct your own research
• Your individual contributions to your team research, your strengths, and areas of improvement

You will be assessed for answering each of the points (A-D) outlined above.