PREP

1300 Assignment
Your College Experience and Transformation: Reflection
Weight: 10% Due: In DC Connect Assignment Submission Folder Week 10 See DC Connect for Dates

Assignment Rationale:

Naturally, your college experience will be unique to you depending on the kind of individual that you are, your motivations for enrolling at
Durham College, and your wider life circumstances. Therefore, this assignment’s aim is to help you get the most out of your college experience,
keeping in mind that a rich and full college experience will help you to meet or exceed your personal definition of success. A key component to
ensuring that you—as a new student—make success in college a reality is to learn about and take advantage of Durham College’s incredible and
varied resources and student supports. Remember that effective learning does not occur in siloes. Durham College supports your educational
experience—complementing what you do in the classroom—by providing opportunities to enrich yourself academically, socially, culturally, and
physically. A great campus resource is Student Academic Learning Services (or SALS for short). SALS offers a variety of workshops throughout the
semester that help you to cultivate the skills you learn in class.

You are required to review all of the awesome resources and helpful people at DC. Information about the resources is posted in PDF’s on DC
Connect. Choose a minimum of 2. You will interact, visit, take a workshop, and document your experience. You will then write a thorough
account of the experience upon which you reflect, self-analyze, and discuss larger themes about your learning. Here are some of the ideas that
you may pursue:

• Mental Health at the Health Centre.
• Physical Health at the Gym.
• Chemistry, Biology, Physics, etc. Expertise from SALS.
• Time Management from SALS.
• Forming a weekly study group.
• Working with an exceptionality and getting accommodations from ASC.
• Mapping out your semester or an assignment with a Peer Coach at SALS.
• Mapping out your program or course sections with a Student Advisor.
• Reviewing an assignment with your professor before it is due.
• Creating a Wellness Plan at the Solace Centre.
• Other ideas? Run them by your professor please.



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PREP 1300 Course Learning Outcomes Evaluated in this Assignment:

• CLO 2: Describe the Durham College and community resources that support personal, educational and career goals to enhance the overall
post-secondary experience.

• CLO 3: Apply best practices in the areas of self-reflection, reading comprehension, note taking, test-writing, informational literacy and
critical thinking, among others, to ensure success in post-secondary courses and subjects.

Instructions:

After you select and interact with some college resources, write a reflective essay or narrative about the experience.

a. Why did you choose that particular workshop to attend? Why did you choose that particular campus service? Self-analyse how this
relates to your learning. Avoid summary, embrace self-analysis.

b. Identify connections between your experience at the workshop and the skills that you are learning in class and in the program
more generally.

c. Critically assess and discuss why it is important to get involved in activities and to take advantage of campus resources outside of
class. How might a more enriched college experience—that includes out-of-class involvement—help you to meet or exceed your
personal definition of academic success? How did participating in the SALS workshop and utilizing campus services contribute to
your academic / personal success?

d. Identify 2 other services on campus that you intend to connect with and tell us why it will be helpful on your journey.

e. Larger Theme: Think back to before the semester began. Who were you then? Who are you now? How have you transformed
during the semester? Can you provide evidence of your transformation?

Be sure to include any images, videos, documents, as evidence of the experience.
AVOID SUMMARY, EMBRACE SELF-ANALYSIS

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2. Please note that your reflective response may be presented in written format, or can be in a variety of alternate formats including audio,
video, multimedia, etc.

a. Note that if you choose to write your response, then the expectation is for roughly 2-3 double-spaced, typed pages (approximately
500 to 750 words). The expectation is for discursive prose, not bullet points. There should be a clear thesis to set up the
discussions and paragraphs should be structured using topic sentences.

b. Written entries must be free of spelling or typographical errors.

c. Note that if you choose to present your response in video/audio format, then the desired length is between 4 and 6 minutes.

d. Video/audio entries must be fluent (i.e. free of fillers such as “um”) and display clear thought organization.

3. Please submit your response as a word doc to DC Connect’s assignment submission folder
4. The assignment will be marked using the rubric below.


Grading Criteria/Rubric:
This assignment will be graded out of 25 points and then reduced to 10% of your overall final grade.
Criteria Excellent/good Fair/satisfactory Needs improvement/ poor Total pts.
Meets all or nearly all of the Meets most or some of the Meets few or none of the
expectations expectations expectations
4-5 pts. 2-3 pts. 0-1 pt.
Evidence SALS workshop completion 0 – Evidence not provided.
2 Services form provided (or other Evidence questionable. Instructor may choose not to grade
5 pts. possible comparable evidence) OR the assignment on this basis alone.
Only 1 Experience
OR Evidence of another
Campus Service Experience

Minimum 2 Experiences
Analysis, insights, and Demonstrates a thorough Analytical effort is demonstrated. Has not adequately engaged with the
making connections analysis and reflection of A fair to satisfactory ability to assignment. It is unclear whether the
5 pts. possible their experience attending a reflect on their experience student actively participated in a
minimum of one SALS attending a minimum of one SALS minimum of one SALS workshop OR
workshop OR other campus workshop OR other campus other campus service experience.
service experience. service experience. Conclusions Little to no analytical effort is
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Draws conclusions and are drawn and some connections evident. A poor reflection of the
makes connections to their are made between the workshop experience overall. Little to no
in-class and out-of-class and their wider experiences at connections are made; little to no
experiences at Durham Durham College. However, conclusions drawn.
College. Discussion is insights may lack depth. Could be
appropriate, comprehensive more comprehensive and
and thorough. thorough.
Specificity and Has fully addressed each of The questions are fairly or There is little demonstrable effort to
relevance the questions in the somewhat addressed; some address the questions posed in the
5 pts. possible instructions. Rich in content/ further elaboration may be instructions. Basic in terms of
detail. Clarity in thought/ required. Fair to satisfactory in content. Few examples or
expression. Draws upon terms of content. Some examples explanations are used to support
relevant and well-detailed or explanations require more observations. Far too general or
examples to support detail—too general or borderline vague overall. Lacks specificity.
observations. Avoids vague at times.
generalities mostly or totally.
Larger Student has reflected on The nature of transformation is Transformation is not address or is
Theme/Transformation their transformation over the addressed somewhat with not met with clear evidence. The
5 pts. possible semester and express the suggestions of evidence. larger theme does not emerge.
nature of their change with
specific and detailed
evidence and examples.
Professional Writing/presentation is Writing/presentation is somewhat Writing/presentation is illogical, not
presentation logical, persuasive, and to mostly logical, persuasive, and persuasive, or incoherent. Frequent
5 pts. possible coherent. Very few or no coherent. Minor presentation errors impede meaning. Needs
errors. Well presented in a errors, or includes some errors improvement or poorly presented
very well-organized manner. that impede meaning. Reasonably overall.
well presented. May have some
organizational or structural issues.
/25

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