Learning involves much more than memorizing facts. Durham University highlights how journaling is skill-building: “Reflective journals are an opportunity to demonstrate your skills of critical reflection, reflective practice, and reflexivity. In writing a reflective journal, you can contribute new ideas and thinking to the subject matter and its relation to practice ” in this comprehensive guide to self-reflection journaling and assessment here. Moreover, the University of St. Augustine’s Health and Sciences published a guide to 10 ways journaling is good for the mental health of their students, noting that it builds confidence and boosts memory.
The journals are meant to support the metacognitive process of the learners. Hence, they become much more
Because of the many benefits of journaling, we have created a series of different journal exercises that can be implemented as natural parts of an online course. The journals are meant to support the metacognitive process of the learners. Hence, they become much more engaged. Today, we will discuss the self-reflection journal as a tool to enhance learning.
What exactly is self-reflection?
According to the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, self-reflection is “a mental process you can use to grow your understanding of who you are, what your values are, and why you think, feel, and act the way you do. When you self-reflect and become more conscious of what drives you, you can easily make changes that help you develop yourself or improve your life.”
What does journaling have to do with learning?
Self-reflection is an essential tool for learners to critically reflect on their process and performance and thus find the methods and activities that will help them and the ones that may be an obstacle on their learning path. Furthermore, these tasks allow learners to reflect on their work, promote deeper learning and metacognition, and encourage them to be more autonomous and take control of their education.
Self-reflection is an essential tool for learners to critically reflect on their process and performance
One more thing to consider is that when it comes to self-reflection journals: they are not necessarily related to the content of the course, but rather, they invite the learners to reflect on their work and how they are learning.
However, course creators don’t need to worry about doing more work! We have done all the heavy lifting by creating different prompts you can choose depending on what you want course takers to reflect on and where they are on the course. Some of them include:
- What skills and competencies am I using while working on this topic?
- Which parts of your work during this course are you proudest of?
- What got in the way of my learning progress, if anything?
This is just the first of seven different types of journals we will release in 2023 as part of our strategy to ensure you can create unique and successful learning experiences. Stay tuned to this blog and our social media to find out everything we have in store for you.
