The Skillful Teacher

Student Learning Journals
Student learning journals are regular summaries of students’ experi-
ences of learning. In contrast to the three classroom research instru-
ments outlined above, they require considerable time and energy to
complete. They can be highly revealing, but writing them is ardu-
ous and sometimes difficult. There is nothing more intimidating than
being asked to fill a blank page with reflections about learning, par-
ticularly if the teacher has not modeled this. In my view, asking stu-
dents to write journal entries, but giving them no help as to how this
might be done, is a mistake. If students are to take journal writing
seriously, then they must be given some specific guidelines on what
a learning journal should look like, they must be convinced that it’s
in their own best interests to keep such a journal, and their effort in
Understanding Our Classrooms
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KILLFUL
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EACHER
doing this must in some way be publicly acknowledged and
rewarded.
I have found it helpful in this regard if the teacher keeps and dis-
tributes to students her own learning journal. This modeling of self-
disclosure serves two purposes: it provides an example of what a
journal might look like, and it also earns for the teacher the right
to ask students to engage in this activity. It is important to empha-
size, however, that the teacher’s journal should not be a catalog of
stunning revelations documenting the transformative power
of learning. Such a journal will only provide an intimidating tem-
plate that will bias the students toward inventing transformative
moments, whether or not these have actually occurred. The
teacher’s journal should contain plenty of entries that reveal that
nothing particularly significant happened that week.
Some examples of questions you might include as prompts for
completing learning journals are the following. I would not ask all of
these, by the way, only two or three.
What have I learned this week about myself as a learner?
What have I learned this week about my emotional responses to
learning?
What were the highest emotional moments in my learning activi-
ties this week?
What were the lowest emotional moments in my learning activi-
ties this week?
What learning tasks did I respond to most easily this week?
What learning tasks gave me the greatest difficulties this week?
What was the most significant thing that happened to me as a
learner this week?
What learning activity or emotional response most took me by
surprise this week?
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What do I feel proudest about regarding my activities this week?
What do I feel most dissatisfied with regarding my learning activ-
ities this week?
I usually tell students not to worry if their answers to these ques-
tions overlap or if they feel one question has already been answered
in their response to an earlier question. I do ask them to try and
write something, however brief, in response to whatever questions
are chosen as prompts. Even noting that nothing surprised them, or
that there were no high or low emotional moments in their learning,
tells them something about themselves as learners and the conditions
under which they learn.