Students today are becoming more interested in international opportunities for study, and are drawn to alternative programs such as international service learning and international internships. These programs, however, must be carefully designed. In this paper, the authors propose using tools that go beyond the traditional understanding of reflection, in order to deepen the academic linkages to experience through reflection that leads to refraction. The authors introduce refraction as the transformative learning process that helps students understand and identify the intermediate processes of learning that aid the development of critical thinking skills. Refraction centers learning by integrating and elaborating the experience, the academic subject matter, and the context by examining assumptions and biases. To illustrate how the authors assess refraction, they present examples of student work and their assessment in an international service learning course and in an international internship. They believe that both purposeful design and the assessment of student work for reflection, critical thinking, and refraction moves educators forward to the achievement of course objectives and learning goals within the international context. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 2 notes.)