A tutor and a student together propose a model for integrated student and staff engagement that concentrates on developing students' core abilities. They build upon their respective experiences of self-managed problem-based learning and of the purposeful promotion of core abilities. They explore the potential of collaborative interaction between trainee tutors and their students who are both freshly engaged in self-managed experiential learning. The authors' use of the Kolb cycle as a framework is exemplified in the student author's experiential learning. The authors relate and comment upon the tutor's iterative attempts to overlap experiential learning cycles for trainee tutors and their students and to extend the emerging model by adding purposeful peer interactions and regular evidence-based evaluations. Their completed scheme features a partnership wherein tutors' growing experiences of structuring and facilitating socio-constructivist learning are integrated with students' reflective reviews of recent developmental experiences.