This case study is concerned with the way learning journals are used on an engineering degree course at a university. The course context, which itself involves experiential methods, is outlined, and the way the learning journals are used is described. But the main value of this case study is a set of advice to journal writers which was generated by the students themselves.
The course context
The learning journals are used as part of an interdisciplinary course which runs alongside eight parallel specialist science and engineering courses which students take in their first year. The purpose of this interdisciplinary course is to focus on the learning and communication processes taking place in the rest of the engineering course. There is no fixed syllabus and the topics which are covered arise out of students' identification of their learning needs and include processes such as: explaining, problem solving, reasoning, testing hypotheses, analysis, evaluation, setting and using criteria, and improving group processes.
The course employs a cyclical process based on the experiential learning theory involving three stages of reflection:
| 1 | The identification of learning needs from past experience, which leads into an exploration of the chosen topic through experiential methods. |
| 2 | Introspection about the topic to form a sharper definition of what has been learnt and what remains, which leads into a consolidation of learning. |
| 3 | Appraisal of learning, comparing aspirations with achievements, which identifies areas for future learning and unresolved learning needs. |
(This process is described in: To Each According To His Needs, Garry, A.M . and Cowan, J . Aspects of Educational Technology Vol. XXI. Kogan Page. 1986.)
The journal
This interdisciplinary course involves three hours of class activities each week, spread over two days. Reflection is a crucial aspect of the three stage learning process, and on the evening of the second day students write an entry into a personal learning journal. This entry summarises what the learner has learnt and is thinking about or has identified as personally significant or what is unresolved about the topic which has been tackled. The journal is immediately submitted to a tutor who acts as a commentator: questioning, suggesting and commenting, but never judging, correcting or directing. The purpose of the comments is to encourage further reflection. The journals are handed back very quickly so that the learning issues are still very much alive for the students. In practice the students pick up and read the comments immediately they are available, often spending more than an hour going through them carefully and thinking more about what is in the journal. This often leads to further entries in the journal.
There is no exam on the course but the journal is taken in at the end of the year and assessed in terms of the quality of effort and reflection indicating the degree of engagement of the student with the course. This quality is not possible to fake.
The students gradually become very adept at using their journals to help them to identify their learning needs and problems, to reflect on these and to identify ways forward. But at the outset they can have a lot of difficulty getting to grips with what they are for and how they can be used. Students with science backgrounds are often poor at expressing themselves in writing and may be unused to focussing on human processes instead of scientific content. These are some of the problems students encounter:
A small group of these engineering students were interviewed as they read through their tutor's comments on their journals in order to explore what they wrote and why, and what responses from the tutors were useful. Afterwards they joined in a brainstorm to generate advice to other students about how to get the most out of writing a learning journal. The students then shared out the ideas which were generated in the brainstorm and wrote up notes on each. Finally a collection of tidied up notes was circulated for comments. The advice which emerged is reproduced below.
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ADVICE ON WRITING A JOURNAL Starting off If you have trouble getting going in writing your journal:
Once you have got going, ideas will tend to lead on to other ideas and before you know it you will be into your journal. Think about good and bad, strengths and weaknesses A good way to get started in thinking and writing about your experiences and ideas is to list what is good and what is bad about them, for example what is good and bad about a design. Alternatively, you can list your strengths and weaknesses on the topic:
Use simple English and clarify what you write Avoid mumbo-jumbo, waffle or vocabulary which is not easily understood. Try to use simple English: that makes you realise exactly what you meant when you review your journal. And the audience (whoever they are) should be able to understand it easier too! Aim for a well-structured journal: summarise points and repeat for emphasis and clarity if necessary. Refer to the previous journal entry A good starter for a journal entry is to refer back to your tutor's comments on your previous journal entry. Read them and check you understand them:
By setting out to answer these outstanding questions you will find that the new journal entry has a definite structure. Be yourself Write down your own thoughts and feelings. Don't copy them from someone else. Be honest. If you make things up or engage in wishful thinking this won't help you, nor will the comments you get back from your tutor. Remember that the journal is for you to explore your feelings and concerns your development. You can only learn from your journal if have enough courage to face yourself as you really are. Don't worry about the reactions of your tutor while you are writing Don't change your thoughts or feelings in any way. Write exactly what you want and don't think about the comments you might get back. Be positive Think about what emerges from experience which is positive, productive and useful - how else will you make progress? Decide who you are writing for It may help you to write for a specific person or audience: a friend, your parents, even your tutor. This allows you to give direction to your thinking. But this may also intimidate you and inhibit you from revealing your feelings and thoughts. The best readership to write for may be yourself! Keep probing Urge yourself to keep digging deeper and deeper so that you can understand and use your understanding. Try to work towards: - 'truths' you have discovered through your experiences; -advice to yourself about what to do in the near future; -finding questions which you need to think about next, about issues which you don't yet fully understand but need to understand. Deal with it in bits and pieces Break whatever you want to say or think about into separate topics. Deal with them one at a time, in an order that makes sense to you. Then think about how, if at all, they fit together. Or follow that sequence the other way, starting with an overview and then concentrating on each bit, one at a time. Pinpoint where it all began You will find it very difficult to think about thinking and to report that in a journal. Try to identify the incidents from which your thinking began. Write about them a little, describe them, enough to explain why they made you think. And then report (in one sentence if you possibly can) what it is that you were thinking about. Explore your opinions Have no reservations about saying what you feel or think, even if you can't explain why or don't know why. That can be a good starting point. It may be a week or two before you begin to find the answer. If you start asking "Why?" of yourself the process of enquiry will begin at the back of your mind. Don't restrict yourself to words to describe your thinking Some of us find it much easier to sum up our thinking in models or diagrams or even in sketches. If that's your way, then it is probably the best way for you. You should certainly follow it when you are 'writing' your journal. But make sure that you can explain what your pictures and diagrams mean and that you are not just using them to avoid preciseness and rigour. Generalise None of the effort you put into your journal will be of any use unless you can turn away from the specific situations in which your thinking started and find conclusions, or advice, or queries, which are of general relevance to you. Make plans The easiest way to write a journal is to philosophise: writing general statements which review a week of activity but which don't really help you to make any personal progress. Push yourself to move on to an action plan for next week (or next year!). Push yourself to spell out that action plan in simple, relevant, practical steps: steps that you can follow. Try to discipline yourself to go back, a week later, and see if the action plan worked, and if not, why not. There is no point in keeping a journal unless it helps you to develop and do better next time. Talk to other students When you find the task difficult, talk to other students in your class and it will probably reassure you to discover that they are meeting the same kinds of difficulties as you are. If you are not confident of the value of a new and strange experience, talk to students in the year above you. They'll be able to tell you how they got on and whether or not the experience has been worthwhile in the long term. They will probably also have some useful hints and suggestions. And students are much better at advising other students than lecturers are because students can remember what it was like when they were in your position. This advice was generated by four students: Paul Grant, Kathryn Evans, Keith Frazer and Ian Watt, with the help of their tutors, John Cowen and Derek Fordyce. A fuller version of this advice, together with advice from students to tutors who comment on journals, is available from Derek Fordyce, Department of Civil Engineering, Heriot-Watt University. |
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