[Timothy S. O'Connell, Janet E. Dyment] Theory Int(BookZZ.org)

Theory Into PracticeUnlocking the Power and the

Potential of Reflective Journals

Theory Into PracticeUnlocking the Power and the

Potential of Reflective Journals

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Timothy S. O’ConnellBrock University

Janet E. DymentUniversity of Tasmania

Copyright © 2013 Information Age Publishing Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

O’Connell, Timothy S., 1968- Theory into practice : unlocking the power and the potential of reflectivejournals / Timothy S. O’Connell, Brock University; Janet E. Dyment,University of Tasmania. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-62396-150-3 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-62396-151-0 (hardcover) --ISBN 978-1-62396-152-7 (ebook) 1. Diaries--Authorship. I. Dyment, JanetE. II. Title. III. Title: Unlocking the power and the potential ofreflective journals. PN4390.O28 2013 808.06’692--dc23 2012045815

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Contents

About the Authors .......................................................................... ix

Acknowledgements ........................................................................ xi

Preface .........................................................................................xiii

Foreword ..................................................................................... xvii

1 Background Information ................................................................ 1Journal or Diary? .............................................................................. 2History of Journal Writing ............................................................... 4Types of Journals ............................................................................... 9Other Types of Journals ................................................................. 20Conclusion ....................................................................................... 22

2 Benefits of Journaling .................................................................. 23Benefits for the Student .................................................................. 24Benefits for the Educator ............................................................... 28Conclusion ....................................................................................... 32

3 The Challenges of Journal Writing ................................................33Handed a Blank Journal: No Training/No Structure ................. 34Writing for the Teacher .................................................................. 35Journaled to Death ......................................................................... 36Annoying Busy Work ...................................................................... 37Does Not Suit All Students ............................................................. 39Gender ............................................................................................. 40Ethics: Blurring of Personal and Professional Realm .................. 42Assessment ....................................................................................... 43

vi Contents

Keeping up with the Times ............................................................ 45Conclusion ....................................................................................... 47

4 Theoretical Aspects of Journaling ................................................ 49Reflection ........................................................................................ 50Dewey’s Process of Experiential Learning .................................... 50Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory ........................................... 52A Focus on Reflection as Part of Learning ................................... 55

Scanlon and Chernomas ................................................................. 55Kember et al. ................................................................................... 56Schon ............................................................................................. 57Bloom’s Taxonomy .......................................................................... 58The “ICE” Approach ....................................................................... 60Articulated Learning ...................................................................... 60Valli’s Typology ............................................................................... 61Some Final Thoughts on Models of Reflection .................................. 62

What the Research Has to Say About Journal Writing ................ 62Perceptions of Journals .................................................................... 63Quality of Reflection ....................................................................... 65Journal Implementation .................................................................. 67

Conclusion ....................................................................................... 71Notes ................................................................................................ 72

5 Supporting Students to Journal Successfully ................................73What Inhibits Reflection and Good Journal Writing ................... 74Strategies for Encouraging Deeper Reflection

and Better Journals .................................................................. 76Journal #1: Introduction to Outdoor Education .......................... 88Journal #2: Outdoor Environments .............................................. 90Journal #3. Outdoor Journeys ....................................................... 91Conclusion ....................................................................................... 93Notes ................................................................................................ 94

6 Encouraging Creativity ................................................................. 95Being Creative—Graphic Entries .................................................. 96Style Ideas—Creative Approaches to Writing Differently ......... 101Add-Ins—Imaginative Items to Supplement Journal Entries .....110Conclusion ......................................................................................116Notes ...............................................................................................116

Contents vii

7 Responding to and Assessing Journals ........................................ 117Responding to Journals .................................................................118

Benefits of Good Responses ........................................................118Challenges of Responding ...............................................................118Who Responds? ............................................................................ 120Types of Response .......................................................................... 123Levels of Responses ....................................................................... 123

Assessing Journals ......................................................................... 128Benefits of Assessing ...................................................................... 128Challenges of Assessing ................................................................. 129High Stakes, Low Stakes, or Good Enough Writing ........................ 133Standards and Criteria for Assessment .......................................... 134

Conclusion ..................................................................................... 144

8 Technology and Journals .............................................................145Tools and Applications for Capturing Reflections ..................... 146

Tools of Digital Reflection .........................................................146Applications ................................................................................. 146How to Choose? ............................................................................ 148

Opportunities ............................................................................... 150Congruency Between Everyday Life and School Life ....................... 150Multiple Forms of Capturing the Moment ...................................... 151Immediacy .................................................................................... 151Supports Students as Learners ...................................................... 152Portfolios ...................................................................................... 154A Pedagogical Framework ............................................................. 154

Challenges ..................................................................................... 156Levels of Reflection ....................................................................... 156Retakes and Edits ......................................................................... 158Can’t Find the Reflections for All the Bells and Whistles ................. 158Allocation of Time and Resources .................................................. 159Instructor Feedback and Responses to Entries ................................. 159Public vs. Private? ........................................................................ 160Storage and Review ...................................................................... 160

Conclusion ..................................................................................... 161

References ...................................................................................163

Appendix: Sample Workshop Outline .........................................171

Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals, page ixCopyright © 2013 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ix

About the Authors

Timothy S. O’Connell, PhD, is a full professor in the De-partment of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Brock Uni-versity (Canada). He has been a professor for 12 years and involved in outdoor recreation and outdoor education for over 20 years. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

Janet E. Dyment, PhD, is a se-nior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania (Australia). She has worked in higher education for 12 years and been involved with outdoor education for over 20 years with organizations such as the Outward Bound Canada. She currently lives in Tasmania, Australia.

Tim and Janet met while working at the School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario (Cana-da). Together they’ve conducted research and written extensively on using reflective journals in higher education settings.

Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals, page xiCopyright © 2013 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved. xi

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the students and educators who encouraged us to write this book and who influenced our thinking, practice and

research around journal writing. We thank Brock University and the Uni-versity of Tasmania for their support in the preparation of this book, as well as the financial support from the Faculty of Education Research Of-fice (University of Tasmania). We recognize a few individuals who deserve special thanks: James Raffan, for his inspiration and permission to use the ideas and images from Entry Points as well as his forward; Jon Kudelka for his permission to include the Dopey Bay cartoons (www.kudelka.com.au); Heidi Smith, for her creative support in developing the structured journals described in this book; Helen Semler and Margaret Perrin, for their keen editorial eyes; Chick Perrin, Rima Truchanas and Helen Semler for their artistic flair.

We are especially thankful to our families and friends who have sup-ported us through this book writing project.

Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals, pages xiii–xviCopyright © 2013 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved. xiii

Preface

We have a long association with journals—both personally and profes-sionally. As kids, we recall keeping secret journals that were hidden

away from our siblings and friends. As teenagers, we remember writing in journals to sort out the angst and tensions of changing emotions, bodies, hearts and thoughts. As young practitioners in the field of outdoor educa-tion, working for organizations like Outward Bound and Wilderness Inqui-ry, we kept journals of our expeditions, adventures, students and learnings. We both have boxes of these old journals stored in our homes—and enjoy a quiet moment every few years to peek back into those time capsules.

In our current profession, as educators and researchers working at uni-versities, we still keep reflective journals and regularly ask our students to keep them too. When we first met each other while working at Lakehead University in Canada, we were each delighted to find another colleague with a strong interest in journal writing as a pedagogical tool. We also found some solace in each other as we quietly shared concerns about the quality of journals we were receiving from our students. While we hoped that the journal entries would be filled with reflection, critique, and engagement, more often than not, they contained mere descriptive accounts of events. We knew that much more was possible. The power and potential of journals was not being realized.

xiv Preface

We began to ask each other some hard questions, like:

◾ What does it mean, exactly, to reflect? Why are there so many models out there that try to explain the same concept?

◾ Do the benefits of journal writing outweigh the challenges and problems?

◾ Why is assessing and responding to journals so complicated and daunting?

◾ How could we better support and train students to become deep, critical, and reflective journal writers?

◾ How can we make journal writing more attractive and inviting for more students?

◾ How can we support students to find their voice and be reflective when they are used to more traditional assessment tasks, like es-says, tests, and exams?

Our interest in writing this book stems from these questions. We began reading, writing and thinking about journal writing. We started collecting and reading the academic literature on journal writing—What was known? What wasn’t known? With a view to unlocking the power and potential of journal writing for our students, we conducted an action research project. We developed and implemented workshops to train students to journal more reflectively, and we studied the impacts they had on students. We conducted focus groups with students and faculty members to learn about their perceptions and attitudes towards journal writing. The final part of our research involved performing a content analysis of 880 student journal entries to understand the impact of the journaling workshop.

This book brings together what we now know about reflective journal writing. Through reflecting on our own experiences, our discussions with students and colleagues, our review of the literature, and our research proj-ects, this book presents a comprehensive look at the power and potential of journal writing.

What is in this Book?

This book contains a mix of theoretical concepts and practical ideas. In Chapter 1, we present a historical overview of journal writing, examine the roots of the word journal, and trace the chronological use of journals from pre-historic cave paintings to contemporary blogs. We look at the journals of sea captains, explorers, pioneer women, and prisoners. We conclude with a description of different types of journals and define reflective journals.

Preface xv

In Chapter 2, we provide an overview of the educational benefits of reflective journal writing for students and educators. This is followed by a close examination in Chapter 3 of some of the problems and pitfalls of journal writing.

Those readers with a particular curiosity about the theoretical aspects of journal writing will be interested in Chapter 4. Here, we consider the theoretical premises that support the use of reflective journals. We pres-ent the many contested definitions of reflection and present some of the models and frameworks that seek to explain what reflection is and what it isn’t. We provide an overview of the research on journal writing and look at what is known and what remains to be known across a range of aspects of journal writing.

Educators who are often disappointed in the quality of their student journals will find much solace in Chapter 5. Here, we take a close look at why many students submit journals that are summaries of events with little deep or critical engagement. We also present a range of tools and strategies that can be used to support students to become better reflective journal writers.

Chapter 6 looks at ways to help students develop creative skills in their journals. This chapter extends well beyond the traditional notions of jour-naling and opens a wide range of opportunities for another form of reflec-tion. This is an inspiring chapter that will hopefully have readers believing that journaling can be a lot of fun.

Readers who are required to respond to and assess student journals will be very interested in Chapter 7. Here, we look at the delicate, complicated, ethical and complex issues of responding to and assessing journals. We pro-vide readers with a number of tools to support these important jobs.

Chapter 8 explores some of the exciting possibilities of integrating Web 2.0 technology with journaling. We also explore some of the issues sur-rounding electronic formats of journals, especially those that are available on the Internet.

Who Should Read this Book?

This book is written for a range of audiences. Educators working in a range of formal (e.g., high schools, colleges and universities) and informal (e.g., outdoor education centers, camps, community centers) contexts will find this book to be a valuable resource that can support their use of reflec-tive journals in their own practices and teaching. Academics at universities will find the theoretical and research elements of the book of interest. Stu-

xvi Preface

dents who want to learn more about journal writing to support their own learning processes will also benefit from reading this book.

The list of potential discipline areas that will benefit from this book is endless—the theories and concepts of reflective journal writing covered in this book can be applied broadly. In terms of our background, we come from personal and professional traditions of education generally, and outdoor education/experiential education specifically. However, we have written this book to be of interest across a range of disciplines—including education, pre-service teacher training, nursing, outdoor education, and experiential education. We expect other disciplines to find it of use too.

How to Use this Book

This book can be read and used in a number of ways. Some readers will ben-efit from reading it sequentially, from start to finish. Other readers will be drawn to certain chapters. Still others will be inclined to skim through the chapters and will delve deeply when they find something that particularly interests them. While the book has been written with an intended sequence and the chapters are ordered with purpose, the individual chapters stand alone, allowing the reader to make sense of the content at a chapter level. There is some overlap in the chapters to allow readers the possibility of making sense of the material at the individual chapter level.

Whether you are an educator, an academic, or a student, we trust you will find this theoretical and practical book a useful resource that will help you uncover and maximize the power and potential of reflective journal writing.

Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals, pages xvii–xviiiCopyright © 2013 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved. xvii

Foreword

A lthough it is impossible to know exactly when humans first started writ-ing to reflect on experience, it was at least as early as the markings on

the walls of Chauvet Cave in southern France, which archaeologists reckon are at least 32,000 years old. Since then, journal keeping in one form or another has been employed by artists, inventors, scientists, explorers, poets, mountain climbers, farmers—folk of every walk of life—to record, remem-ber and tease meaning from the minutiae of everyday life.

One of the totally intriguing aspects of journal keeping as a learning tool is that for as many well-intentioned, ham-fisted attempts made by teach-ers to include this as an element in formal curricula, the real growth and evolution of journal keeping has occurred outside mainstream education in the multivariate realm of self-education. As such, there have been plenty self-help books published to aid people who wish to write their way into new perceptions of self, of worlds without and of worlds within, but decent resources for educators in this area have been scarce.

Some years ago, as coordinator of an experiential learning program at Queen’s University in Canada, I looked high and low for resources that would honor journal keeping as a legitimate form of reflection in the expe-riential learning process but that would also help students get beyond any previous catastrophes with personal diaries or, worse, bad experiences with journal keeping as part of formal curricula in schools or universities. If the resources were out there, I couldn’t find them; and so what evolved was a

xviii Foreword

workshop and a little resource called Entry Points: A Compendium of Ideas for Creative Journal Keeping.

What was amazing to me about Entry Points was not so much what it con-tained, for all of the theoretical underpinnings and most of the techniques described were borrowed from other sources, but how students so resound-ingly responded, as evidenced by their splendid journals. Of course, not ev-eryone took up the journal keeping cause, but my “hit rate” as an educator increased enough to notice, and then some. No better mark of the value of this little booklet’s combination of background and technique was the fact that when students dispersed to the four corners of the earth to teach, they wrote back for class sets of Entry Points.

One of those Queen’s students who got hooked on journal keeping was Janet Dyment, who found her way to Tasmania and who, with colleague Tim O’Connell, has created this fabulous new book, Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals. This resource picks up where Entry Points left off and creates a new constellation of history and how-to, of percep-tion and process, that will surely guide and inspire educators who wish to integrate journal keeping into their classes. An honest portrait of the chal-lenges of using journal keeping as an educational tool, and with structure and organization that will accommodate individual differences in teachers and teaching styles, learners and ways of learning, Reflective Journals is well-written, thoroughly researched, and infused with a genuine passion for the process of journal keeping, making it a timely and potentially timeless edu-cational resource.

—James Raffan, PhD Author & Educator

Seeley’s Bay, Ontario, Canada

Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals, pages 1–22Copyright © 2013 by Information Age PublishingAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 1

1Background Information

Contemporary journaling has evolved from a rich history of keeping written records of observations, thoughts, and feelings. Many people

think of journal writing as the childhood practice of keeping a personal di-ary, hidden between the mattress and box spring to keep prying eyes from reading juicy tidbits about friends. The personal diary is certainly an impor-tant form of journal writing, as it allows the writer to express him or herself without the limits of form or function. However, journals have been more frequently used to open the doors and windows of society and to comment on what the observer sees and feels, placed in the context of the times. These have included scientific discoveries, navigational notes, glimpses into life as a lady of the court, and secret recipes for turning lead into gold. They have also included reflections about personal experiences that the writer has thought important enough to jot down.

Understanding where journal writing has come from is important to contextualizing the modern use of journals in educational settings. It is also important to distinguish between and among the various types of journal writing that exist, as each has specific purposes and intended outcomes.

2 Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals

The first part of this chapter includes a brief overview of the history of jour-nal writing and introduces some famous writers and their contributions to journaling from the past. In the latter part of the chapter, various types of journals that may be used in educational settings will be presented, includ-ing the reflective journal, which is the focus of this book.

Journal or Diary?

If you wander into the aisle at any bookstore, you’ll most likely find a sec-tion that is well-stocked with a variety of journals, diaries, calendars, note-books and scratch pads, all designed to provide a place for a writer to write. If you’ve taken the time to look at them to discover what makes them dif-ferent, you may well find some similarities and some things that make them special unto themselves.

The word journal can be traced back to several sources, depending on what language one wishes to choose. Obvious roots may be seen in the French word jour (or day), as well as in the term “journey,” initially thought of as the distance a person could travel in one day. Early English usage has roots going back to the 14th century Anglo-French word jurnal, or “book of church services,” which included passages for use on a specific day of the year. In Latin, origins of the word “diary” are traced to diurnalis, or diurnal, meaning occurring in the period of one day. In terms of being used as a means of recording day-to-day evidence of transactions, “journal” first appeared around the year 1565. Later (approximately 1610), it gained its contemporary meaning as a personal account of daily events from 17th century French.

The word diary, first appearing in the 1580s, comes from the Latin word diarium, for daily food or daily allowance. It later gained similar mean-ing to the word journal, emerging from diarius or “daily.” Reference to a diary as a book of a daily record of events can be traced back to 1605 when mentioned in Ben Jonson’s comedic play, Volpone.

At first glance there doesn’t appear to be much difference between a journal and a diary. Many educators are pleased if their students are doing any kind of writing outside of the classroom, whether it is a journal, diary or something else! However, we prefer to distinguish between a journal and a diary in the following way. In our experience, diaries usually contain “reported” information such as facts, records of events, observations, and so on, without an effort to interpret, analyze or synthesize any of the mean-ing from what’s written down. A journal, on the other hand, goes beyond simply recording the writer’s experience. Questions are asked, scenarios de-briefed, links to other experiences are made, thoughts are fused together to

Background Information 3

create something new, and connections to a writer’s knowledge are made. A journal is introspective. In essence, a journal goes much deeper than a diary.

While most daily journal keepers and diary writers do a bit of reflect-ing, as educators, we are more concerned with students learning to take their thoughts and ideas and making links between and among them and the things that they are learning about in class. We believe a journal helps a student think critically by extending what he or she is writing about to other experiences and to different subject areas. If you look at “off-the-shelf” journals and diaries available in bookstores, you’ll often see how they are organized along these varying purposes. Diaries usually contain nothing more than blank pages organized by date, while journals may pro-vide writing prompts, inspirational quotes, or other templates to encour-age critical thought.

We’ve discovered that many students perceive journal writing assign-ments as nothing more than a glorified diary. This perception leads to students approaching journal writing assignments from a “fact reporting” perspective. Teaching students about the difference between a diary and a journal may help better situate their approach to, and success with, journal-


ing for an academic course. Some educators may disagree with our distinc-tion between a journal and a diary, and others may wonder why we even spend time on what may seem like a petty issue. We agree with Ira Progoff’s (1975) observation that,

Diary writing usually involves the unstructured, chronological recording of the events of a person’s life. . . . We have to recognize, however, that the mere fact of continuously writing entries, as is done in the keeping of a diary, is not sufficient in itself to bring about deep changes in a person’s life. (p. 87)

We think there are profound differences in both the function and thinking that go into a journal on the part of both the educator and student. For this reason, we will stick with this distinction throughout the book.

History of Journal Writing

Keeping a written record of life events has existed almost since the begin-ning of time. Prehistoric people used homemade paints to daub pictures in caves with their fingers, or used primitive tools to chip symbols into rocks and cliff faces around the world. It is estimated that the oldest cave paint-ings known in contemporary times in southern France at Chauvet were created 30,000 to 32,000 years ago. Petroglyphs, the earliest of which is esti-mated to have been carved around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, are still vis-ible in many places around the world. Those left by the ancient Anasazi of the canyon lands of the American Southwest have intrigued and delighted many people who have tried to decipher their intricate icons and patterns. While scholars have attempted to uncover the true meaning of these “jour-nals,” it is likely that these writers’ thoughts have been lost to history.

Credited by many with giving birth to civilized society, there are many examples of both Greek and Roman journals. Early record-keeping jour-nals were made using a stylus to press symbols into clay, which was left to harden to be preserved for the future. Simple inks were used to make marks on papyrus, a thin paper made of the pith of the papyrus plant. However, it was the Chinese, in 56 A.D., who are recognized as writing the first journals as we think of them today. Later on in the 10th century, Japanese ladies of the high court made notes about their dreams, feelings, thoughts, and fantasies. In these journals, they often questioned their own attitudes and values and wondered from where their beliefs came. They frequently used drawings and poetry as a means of conveying these sentiments. Known as “pillow books” or “pillow diaries,” these journals were usually hidden by these ladies in between the drawers of the wooden pillows used at the time


(Osborn, 2006). One style of journal written by Japanese ladies at this time required entries be made only once every seven years.

During the Middle Ages, journals were used for a number of reasons, including the safeguarding of knowledge. Diaries of spells and recipes for various concoctions were kept by witches to keep track of what they knew. Alchemists used journals to record the results of successful and failed ex-periments. These journals were usually written in codes specific to each writer so that what they had learned could not be uncovered by others. Needless to say, these journals were kept out of sight, as having a spell book would be hazardous to your health. While keeping track of knowledge was one way journals were used during medieval times, they started to be used to register events in individuals’ lives as a way of understanding how the mind works. St. Augustine and Pascal were two journal writers who explored abstract thought in this way at different points in history (Janesick, 1999).

As writers from around the world increasingly began to use journals, style differences emerged. Eastern writers, such as the Chinese and Japa-nese, tended to use more images, songs, and poetry in their journals. West-ern writers followed more prescriptive methods to journaling, using a for-mulaic approach to daily entries. A certain number of pages were allotted for each day, whether the writer had little or lots to say. This style is more akin to the stock diaries available in many bookstores today, which include a specific number of dated pages for each day of the year. Early Western jour-nal keepers were often more factual in their journal writing than their East-ern counterparts, using their writing to state the specifics and particulars of the places they visited and the people they encountered. These journals appeared more as log books or lists of observations than the more creative journals written by Easterners.

Early examples of a log book style of journal writing were those of sea captains and explorers. These log books were factual in the presentation of events. They included hints for successfully navigating certain waters, distances covered, and reports on weather and sea conditions. The logs of Captain James Cook and Captain William Bligh, subsequently published, included their personal observations and recorded events among the ships and sailors under their command. In North America, the extensive log books chronicling the continental wanderings of Lewis and Clark in the United States, and Alexander McKenzie in Canada include not only hap-penings in their respective companies of explorers, but impressions of en-counters with Native Americans and First Nations people. Their log books include rich descriptions of the flora and fauna they find along the way, and are complemented by their expression of their own feelings about their individual journeys and being away from their loved ones.


While a log book style of journaling captured the attention of many writers, reflective journals tied to societal and religious upheaval are also important to note. The emergence of the Renaissance prompted people to write down their perceptions of how they grappled with new ideas about humanity on an individual level. Journals were a natural outlet for people to express their private selves. This personal expression was counter to what had been acceptable in pre-Renaissance society.

As people became increasingly disenchanted with the Roman Catho-lic Church, and various alternative religious groups formed, journal en-tries took on characteristics that paralleled people’s spiritual beliefs. For example, Puritans commented on their relationship with their God, writing entries related to sins, misgivings, hesitation, and omission of goodness (Ja-nesick, 1998). The Puritans also encouraged their children to keep diaries as a means of keeping their morality pure. In a similar manner, Quakers kept written records of their beliefs, spiritual observances, and questions regarding religion. Journals inspired by religious beliefs provide an excel-lent overview of how people interpreted their individual relationships with a higher power at a time when this was new to society.

While some journals are used to record specific facets of a writer’s ex-perience, a daily diary often takes the form of an all-inclusive, descriptive narrative of the minutiae of everyday life. One of the earliest diarists was Samuel Pepys, who wrote his observations of living in England in the 1660s. His diaries described in painstaking detail the politics, wars, disasters, and dilemmas of living in London in the late 17th century. Pepys goes on to give his in-depth opinion from his viewpoint as a highly-placed public servant on the problems of the monarchy, the Royal Navy, and the Church of Eng-land, among others. What sets his journals apart from others to this point in history is that he critically analyzes situations in which things didn’t go well and writes about how he’d go about doing things differently. First pub-lished over 100 years after they were written, his journals appeared in print in 1825 and were popular well into the late 1890s.

Along with Pepys’ work, a multitude of diaries and journals were pub-lished around the turn of the 19th century. The Victorian Era and influence of the Romantic Age encouraged many people to turn to journal writing as a way to record their reflections and feelings. During this time people also wrote long, detailed letters to friends and acquaintances, which were often kept by the person receiving the letters. When many letters were taken to-gether in serial format, an unlikely “journal” would take shape, which was often published as memoirs. Influential writers of the time such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau kept detailed journals describ-


ing experiences of the self in the journey of transcendentalism as well as in the natural world.

The voices of women journal writers are not lost in history. In North America, some of the best accounts of the everyday life of pioneers making their way westward are in the journals of women and girls. These women write about the sorrows and joys of leaving home in the East for the un-charted territory of the American West. The writers speak of more than their everyday experiences by reflecting on and questioning the very idea of westward expansion. Similarly, our understanding of what it was like to live in the Deep South as a woman of color during the 1800s in the United States is garnered from the diaries and journals of people who were slaves. One of the best known accounts, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs in 1861, provides an understanding of a crucial time in American history from an unlikely source.

In the Diary of Anais Nin (1969), published in more than 20 languages, the author describes her experiences in her quest for self-understanding of body, mind and spirit. Perhaps one of the best known journal accounts of all time was written by a girl. Anne Frank—The Diary of A Young Girl (1958) is a riveting account of a Jewish girl’s experiences while hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. She recounts her daily experiences of living in fear of being discovered, and through these entries, raises the question of the political and moral failures of the day. Contemporary writ-ers such as May Sarton and Marion Milner have contributed to the endur-ing tradition of personal journals appearing as popular press.

In more recent history, journal writing has paralleled the social move-ments of the times. For example, in the free-spirit of the 1960s and 1970s, journals were used in rhetoric and writing courses to record brainstorming sessions, free writes, and to capture the political uneasiness of the era. Ce-lebrities and sports figures have kept journals accounting their lives in the inner sanctum of the elite. It seems that writing a book or memoir based on one’s diary or journal is a prerequisite for running for political office in the United States. It also appears that once elected to office, most politicians find it prudent to keep a journal to record their insights, experiences, feel-ings, and emotions for publication as memoirs (e.g., Bill Clinton’s book, My Life) or as the basis for a movie script.

With the increasing popularity of blogging and social networking In-ternet sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it is easy for people to share what they are experiencing at a particular moment in time while having others able to read and respond to that experience in a matter of seconds. This is very different from the days of past when journals were hand written


Table 1.1 Important Figures and events in Journaling History

Name or Event Approximate Dates Contribution to Journaling

Cave paintings in Chauvet, France

28–30,000 B.C. Earliest known attempt to record events in daily life.

Chinese 56 A.D. First known use of journals as we know of them today.

Japanese women 900 A. D. Recorded events of Japanese high courts in “pillow books.” Included drawings and poetry.

St. Augustine 354 to 430 A.D. One of first journal writers to record and analyze daily events as a way to understand how the mind works.

Middle Ages 400 to 1500 A.D. Journals used to “safeguard” knowledge such as spells and results of experiments.

Samuel Pepys Late 17th century Diaries of events of daily life and thoughts on politics in Great Britain are published.

Captains James Cook and William Bligh

Mid to Late 18th century

Journals of their exploits at sea published as popular press.

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Alexander McKenzie

Late 18th to Early 19th century

Write extensive journals during their explorations of the United States and Canada, respectively.

Harriet Jacobs Mid 19th century Records life as a slave in the southern states during the time of the American Civil War.

Anais Nin Early 20th century Published her journals covering a span of more than 60 years.

Anne Frank Mid 20th century Diary account of hiding from the Nazis during World War II.

Ira Progoff Mid 20th century Develops journal writing protocol for psychology, counseling, and therapeutic applications.

Weblogs or Blogs Mid to Late 1990s Emergence of websites used to comment on political or social issues and/or as a diary or journal.

Facebook 2004 Social networking website allowing users to “journal” in an electronic format.

Twitter 2006 Social networking and micro-blogging website allowing “instant journal entries” to be shared with others.


and were read in retrospect. While the days of writing to “Dear Diary” in a journal that comes complete with little lock and key may be numbered, keeping a record of our thoughts and experiences seems firmly entrenched as a means of expressing who we are as human beings. However, the reasons why people write in journals and how they go about writing in them have varied across time and culture.

Types of Journals

Depending on the class topic and intended outcomes of a journal writing assignment, educators may wish to consider using different types of jour-nals, each of which serves a different function. In Chapter 5, we’ll present some strategies for different forms of writing and structure (i.e., different types of entries and reflection) that can be used across a variety of types of journals. The next section describes the various types of journals that edu-cators may use with their students. We’ve attempted to differentiate these types of journals by their primary function. However, there will inevitably be cross-over and some educators may find that combining types of journals will suit their and their students’ needs.

Nature journal. A nature journal is usually comprised of an inventory of flora and fauna observed, as well as a list of wild places visited by the student. It may include carefully collected specimens (taken under super-vision of the educator) and observations about the interconnectedness of various facets of the environment. Nature journals encourage the writer to not only explore the environment around them, but to consider their place in that milieu through reflection on the cycles of nature. Many nature journals become cherished “life lists” of birds spotted, accounts of seasons changing, or different bioregions visited by the writer. Nature journals, sometimes called field journals, are often water-logged, full of squashed bugs, and assume a rugged, well-used appearance. We like Claire Walker-Leslie and Charles Roth’s (2000) book Keeping a Nature Journal for ideas on facilitating this type of journal with students.

We consider science journals to be a subset of nature journals. Science journals may focus on a specific discipline such as chemistry, biology, or physics. The intent of a science journal is to allow the student to move beyond factual knowledge of science and to reflect on the outcomes of ex-periments and integrate that specific knowledge into their greater under-standing of the natural world. Science journals are often used not only to record the history of a series of laboratory tests, but to process the student’s personal perceptions of the experience as an emerging scientist.


Reading response journal. This type of journal is used to provide a means for students to critically analyze information while they are reading it. A reading response journal enables the student to react to an article, chapter, story, or poem as ideas and concepts in the reading catch their attention. This type of journal allows the students to put the content of the reading into their own words and relate it to their experience in the course, as well as to their life in general. Reading response journals not only help students understand the content of what they are reading, but can also be used to develop the skills to critically analyze the style, form and function of the writing itself. Students may comment on writing style, how the author pres-ents arguments, outcomes of research, structure of a story, and so on. This is particularly helpful in literature and research courses, among others.

Some educators use an open-ended format in reading response jour-nals, allowing for a more organic approach to thought development. Other educators will provide some structure through the form of questions or a template for students to use. This is particularly helpful if the reading response journal is used as a springboard for discussion with the class as a whole. Reading response journals are particularly powerful, as they allow the individualized “aha!” moments to emerge in a manner that suits the immediate situation of the journal writer.

Learning journal. This type of journal encourages students to focus on how they are learning more than on what they are learning. A learning jour-nal is a structured way for a student to document and reflect on what types of learning work for him or her, as well as to comment on teaching strate-gies, pedagogical approaches, and assessment techniques to which they are exposed. Some educators will encourage their students to write about their hopes and fears as a learner before and during an experience. These are revisited after an experience occurs.

Learning journals may be used by students to reflect on how others such as instructors and fellow students affect their education, as well as on their own role in their academic success or failure. Through learning journals, students may critically analyze their study habits, attitudes towards a specific course or educator, difficulties with particular concepts and tech-niques, and their ability to connect the concrete with the abstract. Learning journals are a great place for students to dissect their conversations with others about how learning is happening. As you will see in later chapters, learning journals are a great way to provide students with additional sup-port while they are learning to report more than just basic facts in the jour-nals. You might consider asking students to write three different types of entries in a learning journal (we consider an entry to be a discrete piece of writing most often bounded by some factor such as a date, topic, or portion


of an assignment). The first type of entry is a simple observational state-ment about learning. This provides a reference point for further writing. The second type is a theoretical entry that comments on how the learning happened. The third type is a “now what” type of entry in which the student articulates how he or she will learn in the future.

If you are interested in sequencing journal assignments with students over the long term, you might consider using learning journals early on in this progression. You could also use them concurrently with other types of journals, or structure journal templates to focus some of the students’ writ-ing on how they are learning. Susan Oaks (1995) found that learning jour-nals are a great option if you are working with distance learning students who don’t have regular face-to-face meetings with others in the course. She suggests that learning journals with appropriately targeted questions may serve as a de facto collaborative writing group. The targeted ques-tions help students consider their own writing, and through self-dialogue, improve their understanding of their own learning processes. While many learning journals are rough notes, jottings, or unstructured writing, some educators have found that audio recorded learning journals are effective for some students.

As implied by the title, learning journals are excellent for students who intend to become experiential educators, outdoor educators, or teachers of any kind. We believe that learning journals, when implemented well, can assist students in not only understanding how to teach others, but un-derstand how they best learn through the parallel process of reflection through journaling.

Shared journal. We have often wondered as educators why students seem to have limited success in connecting what they have learned in one course to another course, particularly if the courses are designed to complement one another. One strategy that Mindy Blaise and her colleagues (Blaise et al., 2004) have implemented with pre-service teachers is a shared journal, which is a “pedagogical space for [students] to explore the values and be-liefs they have about teaching and learning across all courses they engage in, their professional practice sites and their past learning experiences” (emphasis added, p. 3). It is important to note that shared journals are different from group journals. In group journals, entries and contributions are made by all members of a collection of students (i.e., teaching group, members of a group project team, etc.). In shared journals, a student makes all the entries and the journal is “shared” across several courses and with several educators. As you’ll read about later in more detail, one complaint that many students have about journal writing assignments is that they are


asked to keep a different journal in several courses at the same time. Shared journals may help alleviate this problem.

Shared journals exhibit many of the same characteristics as a learning journal but attempt to integrate the totality of a student’s current learning experience. Shared journals are a great choice to help integrate a student’s understanding of course content but only if the instructors of the individual courses have worked together to develop a coherent vision for the jour-naling assignment. Educators should reach consensus on such things as types of entries that are deemed acceptable and whether the journal is a disorganized place for working through things or a place for a polished presentation. In Chapter 7, we discuss some of the related issues of multiple instructors responding to and assessing shared journals. Educators can im-plement a shared journal across courses happening at the same time (i.e., a semester) or longitudinally across a student’s learning career in a specific program of study (i.e., during grades 6, 7 and 8, or throughout a four-year university degree).

When conceptualized and facilitated well, shared journals can help students appropriately scaffold and sequence their understanding of the content of several courses instead of experiencing these courses as “one-off,” stand alone learning events. As we’ll discuss later on, it is not enough to have a well-designed journaling assignment. If students are not provided with the training and skills to critically analyze and reflect on their experi-ences, they will have limited success with journal writing. Providing criti-cal thinking and reflection skills is perhaps more important when using a shared journal, as students are required to integrate the content of more than one course into their journals at one time.

Group or team journal. A group or team journal is different from a shared journal as noted above. In a group journal, several students contribute to a single journal. This may be done in three primary ways. First, an indi-vidual student makes an entry to which other students make subsequent responses. Many educators are familiar with this style of journaling, which is like a bulletin board or message board format popular on many web-sites and in web-based learning systems like Blackboard. The second way a group journal may be used is for the group as a whole to work together to develop a single voice with which to make an entry. This style of group journal requires students to reach common ground on their understanding of a particular topic or consensus in answering a question. The final way a group journal may be used is for only one student to write each day’s entry. The next day, a different student makes the entry without commenting on previous students’ writing.


We’ve found that training students to work cooperatively helps with the success of a group journaling assignment (see Johnson & Johnson, 2009 for an excellent overview of social interdependence theory and cooperative learning). Without these skills, students engaged in a group journal assign-ment often spin their wheels and spend more time storming than actually working together to learn. Group journals expose students to the thoughts, reflections and analyses of their peers. Students involved in group journal-ing projects are required to develop and present their own perspectives to others in the group. This provides students the opportunity to defend their positions and to recognize gaps in their understanding of a topic.

As with any group project, educators must be sure that all group mem-bers are contributing to the journaling process. Introducing cooperative learning to students helps, but educators should consider varying the struc-ture of group journals so responsibility for the final product is spread out. Educators need to be aware that a group journal has potential for negative learning behaviors to occur. For example, some students may belittle an-other student’s experience, analysis or position on a certain topic. Psycho-logical bullying may occur in other ways as well.

Interactive journal. Interactive journals involve the exchange of individu-al journals among students, as well as a journal that is kept by the educator

Photo 1.1 Students enjoy writing together in group journals while on field experiences.


facilitating the journaling exercise. Through this swapping of journals, stu-dents share their perceptions with their peers, read the thoughts, musings, and reflections of others, as well as gain exposure to opinions and insights of the educator. For some students, it is an eye-opening experience to read the words of the educator. Students are often only exposed to the verbal instruction offered by an educator and don’t have the opportunity to hear from that person through a different medium. It is also a refreshing ap-proach for educators, as they rarely have the chance to communicate with students through their written word.

Interactive journals allow the students and the instructor to experience learning together (instead of the traditional format with teacher as dis-seminator), create bonds that extend beyond the journaling process, and engage in a synergistic, collaborative learning activity. Educators wishing to employ interactive journals must, however, be comfortable with sharing their own thoughts and should carefully gauge what they choose to put down in writing in their journal. It may be challenging for some students, who most likely have had an arms-length relationship with their teachers, to read an educator’s journal. This is particularly true if students perceive journals or diaries as containing personal information about their teacher. From a logistical standpoint, coordinating what is perceived as a fair ex-change of journals among students and the educator can by tricky unless carefully planned out. For example, some students might feel slighted if they didn’t get the chance to read another student’s journal when the rest of the class had that opportunity.

Sadly, many educators with good intentions start the interactive journal-ing process by making regular, thoughtful entries in their own journals. As the process continues, however, they lose steam and their entries become fewer and farther between or are missing adequate breadth and depth to contribute to the overall learning experience. Educators adopting this type of journal must be prepared to model good journaling behaviors. One way to effectively implement an interactive journal assignment is to use a mes-sage board or bulletin board format found on many websites or through web-based learning systems like Blackboard.

Autobiography/memoir/life story journal. An interesting and revealing type of journal is the autobiography. Many students don’t take time to critically assess how they’ve lived their lives. An autobiographical journal helps stu-dents think about their successes and failures as a human being. Carefully planned autobiographical journal assignments can help students contex-tualize what they are learning in class with their own lives. For example, students studying sustainable environmental practices can write about how they have directly and indirectly impacted the environment since their


births. They may realize how some of their choices and those of their par-ents on their behalf had inadvertent environmental consequences. An educator may ask students to extend their autobiography beyond the pres-ent, and make connections between class material and critical analysis of themselves in the social, political, educational or economic fabric of the future. Autobiographical journals can be fruitful learning experiences with students of all ages if properly framed within the capabilities of the writer.

When was the last time someone asked you about your story? Most people relish being in the spotlight, and students are not any different! As we rarely have the chance to share tales of our adventures in life outside of our families, many people don’t consider their experience as holding importance or having much meaning. However, memoirs—the sharing of one’s life adventures in anecdotal fashion—hold a certain appeal as a type of journaling. The writer is able to determine which stories are meaningful, decide how to portray him or herself and other actors in the story, as well as how to situate the story in the larger environment of neighborhood, school, town or other locale. Memoir journals, like autobiographical journals, can be used to connect course material to the writer’s own experience, but in a less critical way. For example, an educator may ask students to write an entry in anecdotal form that incorporates the topic of study of the day. Individual students’ friends may be asked to construct a portion of the memoir journal on behalf of the writer. This often provides a humorous, lighthearted look at how a student is perceived by others as told in story form. Appropriate guidelines must be in place and editorial oversight exerted by the educator so students’ feelings are respected in this process.

A final form of this genre of journal writing is the life story. In this type of journal, the writer conveys the story of another person and is encour-aged to make connections not only to course content, but to his or her own experience. A common life story journaling exercise involves interviewing a grandparent or other senior and recording his or her life story. The writer then reflects on and analyzes the interviewee’s story in light of what is be-ing studied in class. With autobiographical, memoir, or life story journals, students may be asked to compare and contrast their various entries. This can provide excellent material for reflection!

Research journal. This type of journal is kept by a person conducting research. A research journal not only records the researcher’s observations of the subjects or conditions in his or her study, but it also captures the re-searcher’s thoughts and ideas about the study at that moment in time. Later on, the researcher may refer back to the research journal to help clarify what a particular study participant was doing, consider how weather condi-tions may have affected a subject’s behavior, or consider if and how his or


her presence might have influenced study participant behavior. Research journals are often called field notes and can be used to supplement both qualitative and quantitative research studies. They serve as good reminders of the procedures that worked, as well as those that were less effective.

Professional journal. Many educators ask students to keep a professional journal to record thoughts, perceptions, and experiences as a practitioner. These journals can be useful for students who are involved in field place-ments, internships, or cooperative learning experiences. In a professional journal, students are asked to extend what they’ve learned in school to ac-tual work experiences and vice-versa. Writers are asked to consider their own performances as practitioners in a professional setting.

These journals can be used to track overall growth and development as professionals and allow the writers to reflect on their strengths and weak-nesses as a practitioner. This may be particularly helpful if an outside reader such as a teacher or counselor comments on the contents of the journal. Professional journal entries often compliment portfolios students develop for entrance to university or the job force.

A trip or experience log is a specific type of professional journal that is used as evidence of participation. For example, a challenge course facilita-tor may keep a log of hours worked on a ropes course, a nurse may track medical procedures done, or an outdoor educator may record the rock climbs led as proof of experience. Trip or experience logs are usually com-prised of factual information that captures the duration, environmental conditions, numbers of people encountered or served, route taken, and skills practiced. Depending on the discipline and needs of the writer, ad-ditional headings may be developed.

In our experience, we’ve found that hardcopy trip or experience logs are more readily accepted by employers or certifying bodies if they are in a bound journal. This ensures that pages can’t be added or removed from the log. They must be recorded in ink, and should be signed by a witness who provides contact information to verify the contents of the journal. To supple-ment a hardcopy trip or experience log, we’ve found that an electronic da-tabase is an easy way to capture and organize this information. Any number of computerized databases may be used to not only record experiences, but to produce professional looking reports that may be provided to prospective employers or certifying bodies to support signed hardcopies of trip logs.

After struggling to construct our own trip and experience logs after ac-cruing years of experience in the field, we strongly encourage our students to start a trip log as soon as possible. We recommend jotting down the es-sential information regarding an experience as soon as it is complete so it


is not forgotten. It is satisfying to look back at a trip or experience log and recount those events!

Theory journal. This type of journal is used to explore various theories students are studying at a particular moment. Entries in theory journals are used to strip down a supposition, hypothesis, or statement to its bare essence through an examination of terms, foundational elements, research that supports or refutes the theory, and implications for practice. Students can use these journals to help understand complex conceptual writing through making connections to other theories, questioning the validity of a theoretical framework, and considering the social, cultural, political and economic environment in which a theory “lives.”

Through journaling, students can question their understanding of the theory, as well as extend it to their broader knowledge base. We’ve had

Photo 1.2 Log books are used to record technical skill development such as number of hours instructing rock climbing.


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many students share that writing down their understanding of a theory and re-reading it later on is helpful, especially when contextualizing that theory in the larger scope of course content or in a body of knowledge. Recording it in their own voices through the journal entries makes it more meaningful to them.

Theory journals are more appropriate for older students who have the ability and training to critically analyze complicated conceptual thought. A common use for these types of journals is in advanced placement, univer-sity, or graduate level courses. If sequenced across several courses, theory journals may provide a rich resource that shows the development of a stu-dent’s understanding of key theories over time. They provide tangible evi-dence of learning.

Reflective journal. While all of the types of journals mentioned to this point can be considered reflective journals in some way, we feel it is impor-tant to describe a truly reflective journal in more detail. A reflective journal is an integrative journal—it captures the facets of the other types of journals we’ve already discussed. In a reflective journal, students critically analyze and grapple with:

◾ Theory ◾ Practice ◾ Connections between theory and practice ◾ How they learn ◾ How the educator teaches ◾ How course material fits into their professional attitudes, beliefs

and values ◾ How course material fits into their personal attitudes, beliefs and

values ◾ How practice impacts on them personally and professionally ◾ How their emotions and feelings come into play

A reflective journal extends beyond the narrower focus of other types of journals through encouraging the students to take a holistic view of their learning experience. Students are able to take a broad view of the inter-nal processes that relate to their experience. Reflective journals empower students to practice new ways of knowing, try out different ideas in a safe space, challenge their modus operandi, and turn their lived experience, both in and out of the classroom, into learning through the reflective process.

This kind of journal allows the student to reflect while in action, as well as reflect on action. This “dual reflection” is both the power and the appeal of using reflective journals with students. These journals have great


potential to complement other forms of learning because they take into account, and help situate, the writers’ previous and current experiences. They ground new knowledge and skills in students’ past experience, which has been noted by many educators as a key ingredient to successful learn-ing (Boud, 2001; Kolb, 1984). Delaura Hubbs and Charles Brand (2005) sum up very succinctly what a reflective journal might do for students. They state, “The reflective journal holds potential for serving as a mirror to re-flect the student’s heart and mind” (p. 61).

We’ve focused this book on reflective journals, as we believe they hold the most potential to facilitate student learning. The strategies we suggest for using them and the issues we present are applicable to all types of jour-nals. In our experience, the reflective journal is a wonderful item for any educator to have in his or her toolbox. However, like any successful peda-gogical technique, it requires careful planning and execution to work.

Other Types of Journals

There are three other types of journals we would like to present that may be of interest to some educators, particularly those in therapeutic adventure education or religion-based education. These include dream logs, spiritual journals, and therapeutic journals.

Dream log. Dream logs or dream journals are usually chronological ac-counts of nightly dreams, nightmares (sometime called waking dreams), and reflections or interpretations of those dream experiences. They may be kept for personal reasons or at the recommendation of a mental health professional. Recommended by Ann Faraday in her 1974 book, The Dream Game, these journals are used by some people to enable lucid dreams, or those in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming. Dream jour-nals allow the writer to capture the contents of a dream upon waking before


they slip from memory, and may be used as a reference for interpreting symbols and events that happen in dreams. For many students, dream jour-nals may be a way to help work through difficult issues they are facing in school or personal life.

Spiritual journal. These journals are helpful for educators and students engaged in personal or organized religious or spiritual explorations. A spiritual journal allows the writer to engage with and reflect on his or her relationship with a higher power, spiritual connections with the natural world, or religious beliefs. Educators using spiritual journals may ask stu-dents to keep them separate from another type of journal, or integrate spiritual notes into their existing journal, if appropriate. Spiritual journals, or entries in another type of journal related to spirituality, may complement topics of study such as history, psychology, or sociology.

Therapeutic journal. Therapeutic journals provide a positive means for the writer to consider his or her life with the intent of creating under-standing or order and developing strategies for change (Janesick, 1999). A therapeutic journal may be useful for students in programs with a healing

ReflectiveJournals

Natureand Science

JournalDream Log,Spiritual and

TherapyJournals

TheoryJournal

ProfessionalJournal

ResearchJournal

Memoirs,Life Stories

InteractiveJournal

Groupor TeamJournal

SharedJournal

LearningJournal

ReadingResponseJournal

Figure 1.1 Types of journals.


focus, as they are able to record thoughts and reflections to which they can refer when in counseling or therapy sessions. This type of journal may also be used as a reference by the writer to recall and reflect on discus-sions with mental health professionals and other counselors when they are not engaged in specific counseling sessions. Ira Progoff (1992), who de-veloped a systematic process for using therapeutic journals, suggested that they may be used as an “intensive psychological workbook” to keep track of everything impacting a person’s psychological state. We recommend that educators wishing to use therapeutic journals have adequate training in counseling or mental health service provision. Our advice is to avoid using therapeutic journals (or therapeutic entries for that matter) in traditional educational settings, unless therapy is an explicit goal of the program.

Conclusion

From the Greeks to the women of the Japanese court to modern day blog-gers, journals have been used throughout history as a means of human expression. We believe educators need to understand this history, as it con-textualizes journaling for students and starts them on the path to success as journal writers. Similarly, it is important to understand and be able to articulate to students the differences between journals and diaries in order to alleviate some of the initial misunderstandings and myths about what journaling involves.

There certainly isn’t a shortage of types of journals available for educa-tors to use. We think you’ll be able to choose a journal from our list that fits with your individual teaching style, student needs, and intended educa-tional outcomes. Our list isn’t hard and fast—most educators will find they mix and match various types of journals to suit their needs, and there are probably other types of journals out there we don’t know about.

Regardless of the type of journal used, we believe that reflection should be at the heart of all journaling assignments, and have structured this book around this premise. We believe that a holistic approach to reflection that encourages the student to consider the totality of his or her learning expe-rience, when properly facilitated, can reap wonderful educational rewards. In coming chapters, we will offer insights and strategies to turn the promise of reflective journals into reality.


2Benefits of Journaling

It is not uncommon for educators to assume that using journal writing as an academic exercise is inherently good for their students. Sometimes

educators accept this without taking the opportunity to express the benefits of journaling to students, parents, and other educators—they believe that the benefits of reflective journaling are well understood by all. When we first started using journals, we were much the same, until a student specifically asked us what the benefits were of a journal writing assignment. We fumbled to come up with a more substantial answer than “because they help you reflect better.” We knew there must be plenty more benefits—we just hadn’t taken the time to carefully consider and articulate what they were!

Some of the benefits of using journal writing with students as an ac-ademic exercise may be apparent from the types of journals discussed in Chapter 1. Each of these different types of journals brings its own bene-fits, challenges, and issues to the table. However, when taken together as a single genre, reflective journals offer some tangible benefits for both the student and educator. It is these benefits we look at closely in this chapter.


Benefits for the Student

One of the most fundamental benefits of journaling is that it provides a per-manent record of a student’s experiences as well as personal and academic growth (Spalding & Wilson, 2002). Many of our students have said that they appreciate looking back through their journals. Through revisiting their writing, students are able to reminisce about their experiences during field trips, placements, or student teaching opportunities. Some have remarked on how surprised they were by how their thinking and understanding pro-gressed from early to later entries. This tangible evidence of learning over time is something that other academic assignments lack.

Journals provide a place for students to record observations of people, places, events, and natural occurrences that happen around them. These notes can be brought back to the classroom or structured learning experi-ence and used for reflection, as prompts for supplemental learning activi-ties, and as the foundation for future learning. Many educators use journals as a means of monitoring scientific observations and outcomes of experi-ments. Journals enable students to examine their current situations as start-ing points for future understanding. In this way, journals help students scaf-fold, or build on, previous learning.

Photo 2.1 Students use journals to record information about the environment, people, and natural and cultural history.

Benefits of Journaling 25

Another elementary benefit of journaling is that it can improve stu-dent writing skills. While this is often not the primary focus of journals, students must be able to express themselves in a coherent manner so that the reader understands what is being conveyed. Some educators choose to use journals as an explicit way of helping students improve their writing. It is important to let students know if they will be graded on writing or not. Regardless, writing on a regular basis in a journal with supportive feedback from an educator will generally result in improved writing skills.

We believe that journals are a great way to help facilitate learning through experience. As students use journals to capture their impressions of the things going on around them and their places/roles in those events, they are able to make connections between what they’ve learned in class and other parts of their lives. This has been recognized as one of the pri-mary benefits of journal writing, and is touted by most educators who use them—journals help students to reflect (Hiemstra, 2001; Moon, 2006). Students not only learn to reflect on their experiences within a specific subject that they are studying, but they also have the chance to consider how their course experience fits with other aspects of their academic and personal lives. Through this process, students can follow their own pro-fessional development and use this as a springboard for further reflection (Jarvis, 2001). As previously mentioned, journals help students reflect on action as well as when in action, or what Schon (1983) referred to as re-flective practice. Students can reflect on both how they learn, as well as on what they are learning. Through this process, students not only learn from the journal writing experience, but strengthen an essential tool (reflection) that is crucial to lifelong learning. Students who are successful at using re-flection as part of the learning process can transfer this skill to professional life. Later in this chapter, we will contextualize the role of reflection in the learning process.

In a similar manner to reflection, students are able to hone their criti-cal thinking and problem-solving skills through journal writing. Journals provide a forum for students to ask questions, propose answers and solu-tions, and receive feedback about their decisions. While this may sound similar to reflection, critical thinking is more about the judgment and de-cision-making processes that accompany students’ learning. Journals allow students to engage critical thinking skills in a structured space. There is some debate as to whether or not critical thinking skills are necessary for reflection, or if the ability to reflect is needed to critically think (Thorpe, 2004). Regardless of an educator’s stance on this debate, journals promote the development of both critical thinking and reflection skills.


Another benefit of journals is that they help slow down learning (Moon, 2006). As is evident in many of today’s educational settings, increased use of technology and the stress of a fast-paced society have created a “must-have-now” attitude among students and educators. Journal writing requires students to ponder what they are going to write, how they are going to write it, and how it relates to them and what they are studying. Journaling requires students to be an input to their own learning, which is unfamiliar to many students. Journaling obliges students to sit and mull over what an experience or event means to them, thus slowing the process. We’ve discovered that students write some of their best entries when given lots of time in a natural setting to sit, observe, and think. Many outdoor educators will encourage students to write in their journals during a solo experience (e.g., an extended period of time a student spends by him or herself with limited or no contact with others). However, educators must help students to not fall into the “I’ll write all my entries the night before the journal is due” trap, or the benefit of slowed learning will be lost.

Through reflective writing, journals support students’ processes of understanding. Additionally, journals help students represent that under-standing in a meaningful way (Moon, 2006). For most students, this person-al account of their learning is more useful and significant than getting an exam or paper back, often with little more than a grade in red on the first page. When well-facilitated by the educator, journals can become treasured illustrations of students’ development as the journal allows the student to become personally connected to both the material and process of learning. We’ve already hinted that one of the benefits of journaling is that they fos-ter metacognition, or “thinking about thinking” (Cornish & Cantor, 2008). Depending on the topic or subject area, metacognition could also be in-terpreted as thinking about learning or thinking about professional pro-cess. This is what Schon (1983) refers to as reflection on action. Through the process of recording actions and experiences, journals permit students to step outside those actions/learning and take a critical look at the how, what, why, and when of that experience. In a sense, it gives students an in-stant replay of their processes, which they can then critically examine and refer to in the future.

We think that journals, if carefully implemented by the educator, pro-vide an avenue for students to become more engaged and active in their own learning. Students are able to control the depth and direction of their learning through their writing. One way that journals assist in making this happen is that they require regular effort by the student. This is contrary to other academic practices such as term papers, projects, or exams, which have a “one-off” feel for most students. Some of our students report that


they regularly spend limited time (often the night before cramming or “speed writing”) preparing for exams or writing papers. We suggest that journaling assignments assume a longitudinal approach and thus require students to be actively engaged on a more regular basis with their writing. Some students do wait until the last minute to make their journal entries. Time and time again we’ve heard students lament that it is extremely dif-ficult to make meaningful entries the night before the journals are due.

Another benefit of journal writing is that it can promote personal growth and development above and beyond an individual’s role as a stu-dent (Hiemstra, 2001). This is particularly true if journaling assignments are used as more than just a reporting of facts or outcomes of experienc-es. Through their writing, students can stretch their situational learning to other aspects of their lives such as professional, familial, or relational contexts. This is particularly so if journals are used in tandem with learn-ing situations such as placements, internships, expeditions, or cooperative learning assignments.

Journaling provides students with the opportunity for self-expression. Generally, most traditional academic assignments do not encourage stu-dents to include aspects of their personality in the assignment. With jour-nals, students can add a personal flair through artwork, decorative covers (our students love to use stickers), photos, and poems. The content of more traditional journal entries also permits students to express themselves in ways that are uniquely their own. As we’ll discuss later on, the educator must carefully balance the need for structure (as many students don’t know how to write a journal) and open format. In a similar manner, journals al-low students to express their gut reaction to an experience, article, or a class discussion. Journals provide the writer with the chance to bring emotion to the learning process, which is often absent in more traditional teaching methods. Through their writing, students can intuitively make meaning in a way the makes sense to them (Hiemstra, 2001).

Journals provide opportunities for creativity, and in Chapter 6 we ex-plore techniques that enhance that aspect of journaling. Many of our stu-dents who haven’t done much artwork or drawing find a passion for these types of creative entries. Students may choose to respond to a prompt in a unique fashion, whether it is through prose, a picture or something else—the possibilities are endless!

One of the benefits of group journals and interactive journals is that they promote group discussion, communication skills, and cooperative learning. Students work together on the process and content of these styles of journals through co-creation of entries and the exchange of journals. In


order for this to be effective, students must work together. Students may benefit in the same way from individual journals if they are used as a spring-board for class discussion, or shared among smaller groups of students. In many of our classes, we’ve abandoned our lesson plans and followed the fruitful discussion that has emerged from students communicating with each other about what they’ve written. This provides a dual benefit for stu-dents—they communicate through both a verbal and written format.

A further advantage of using journal writing with students is that jour-nals can provide some health and therapeutic benefits, as well as create positive behavior change (Hiemstra, 2001; Moon, 2006). Many writers find that journals allow them to blow off steam or vent frustrations with them-selves or others in a safe, healthy manner. It can be helpful for students to write about their frustrations with other students or educators as a way to organize their thoughts for interpersonal or group discussions about con-flict or group dynamic issues. As already mentioned, it is the intent of some types of journals to supplement counseling or therapy. Many mental health professionals have found that journals are a successful tool in creating posi-tive behavior change, as they allow the writers to reflect on the outcomes of personal choices and behaviors.

Ira Nesoff (2004) does a nice job of capturing the essence of the ben-efits of journaling for students:

Journal writing provides students the opportunity to engage in praxis by reflecting upon classroom learning, their experiences in the field, and how to make sense of new information in light of the understandings and world-view that they have brought into the learning situation. Journal writing can provide a safe and personal space for students to engage in this process of self-reflection. It can provide a space where students are more focused on the content, or the “what,” of the writing, rather than the process, or the “how,” of writing. (p. 48)

Undoubtedly there are other benefits of journaling for students that we’ve neglected to mention here. However, we feel that those benefits we’ve pre-sented in this chapter are more than enough evidence that journals bring a multitude of positive aspects to student learning. We’ll now turn to ben-efits that the educator might get out of using journal writing with his or her students.

Benefits for the Educator

When we first started using journals with our students, we never thought we’d benefit as much as we have from them. If well executed, journal writ-


ing can make for an enriching experience for an educator. Student journals can help make the day-to-day job of an educator much easier and more productive as well.

Through reading students journal entries, educators have access to an-other source of information regarding students’ levels of comprehension and understanding than that which is received from the daily routine of the classroom. Additionally, student journals often reveal misperceptions students have about a topic or course of study. Just as journals provide an avenue for the writer to reflect on and in action, they give the educator a chance to see how the student feels about this process. As most educators are faced with large class sizes and lots of material to cover, it is sometimes difficult to take a pulse of each and every student on a regular basis. Jour-nals allow educators to do so.

A benefit that often results from this process is that educators and stu-dents develop a much better relationship with each other. Journal writing allows the educator to know more about the student as an individual than as just a face in the class. In the same manner, students may realize that edu-cators are people too and not just robots that are kept in storage overnight. This is particularly true if the educator provides authentic, regular, and meaningful feedback to the student, either in the journal or through some

Photo 2.2 Journals can be used with students of any age.


other means. Educators who already have a good relationship with their students may find their rapport with them is strengthened further.

In a similar vein, journals encourage discussion between the educa-tor and student. They create an atmosphere for dialogic teaching, which enables the educator to respond more directly to individual student needs. We’ve found this refreshing, particularly when many students are used to the educator-as-knowledge-disseminator model of instruction. Journals help keep the student’s perspective firmly in the educator’s mind. Through the educator/student exchange that happens in journals, educators are constantly reminded of the status of student thinking. In striving to help students discover and understand their topic of study, the interactive, dia-logic process of journaling in one tool available to educators.

Implementing journal writing with specific types of students such as pre-service teachers, outdoor educators, and English majors allows the edu-cator to teach an alternative form of instruction. Students learn a teaching practice by directly participating in it. Many educators have remarked that they mainly use the teaching techniques in their own practice to which they’ve been exposed in their own training. Many students destined to be-

Photo 2.3 Journals allow educators to get to know students better.


come educators find the experiential approach of learning how to use jour-nals helps them better understand the technique.

There are some nuts and bolts benefits that journal writing provides for educators related to assessment (we’ll talk about the pros and cons of assessment in Chapter 7). First, journals can be a useful tool for educators by providing a means of formative assessment of students’ learning, or as-sessment that occurs over the duration of a class or course. Educators may wish to use journals to uncover not only what a student has learned, but the process by which he or she arrived at that knowledge. Student journals may be used as a summative evaluation or assessment that occurs at the end of a class or course as well (Dunlap, 2006). We’ve used student journals in this way in several courses with great success. We’d suggest providing students with plenty of feedback if you choose to use journals in a summative man-ner. In our experience, using journals to assess a student in a formative and summative manner at the same time is more effective than just at the end of the assignment. Students generally require feedback along the way for their journals to be useful learning tools.

Table 2.1 benefits of Journaling

For Students For Educators

• Serves as a permanent record of learning & experiences

• Records observations• Scaffolds learning experiences• Improves writing skills• Facilitates experiential learning• Promotes reflection• Encourages critical thinking &

problem-solving skills• Slows down learning• Makes learning personal• Fosters metacognition• Encourages student engagement in

the learning process• Promotes personal growth and

development outside of school• Allows self-expression• Permits creativity in learning• Promotes discussion & cooperative

learning• Includes health & therapeutic

benefits

• Provides information on students’ level of understanding

• Promotes positive educator/student relationships

• Provides an avenue for discussion between the educator and student

• Teaches a form of teaching/instruction

• Provides formative assessment of student learning

• Provides summative assessment of student learning

• Provides formative assessment of educator performance

• Provides summative assessment of educator performance

• Useful as a personal research or writing tool


Student journals can also provide the educator with both formative and summative feedback on his or her performance as an instructor. We’ve got-ten some kudos (in addition to well-deserved critical feedback!) in journals that students are often reluctant to share with us in person, or that they deem inappropriate for formal course evaluations (i.e., comments on how we dress, recent haircut, etc.). Through this feedback, educators can adjust their teaching style and techniques to meet the needs of the student during the course of a class as well as for the future.

A final way that journals may benefit the educator is that they can support any personal writing or research that the educator is conducting. In essence, the educator is using his or her own journal in the same way students use theirs. Ideas for stories may be jotted down, new teaching techniques can be explored, or the designs for research projects mapped out. We’ve found that students are very amenable to being involved in research projects in which we’ve looked at the impacts of participation in a journaling workshop and talked to them about their perceptions of jour-nal writing in general. Journal writing in and of itself as an area of research offers exciting possibilities.

Conclusion

Journal writing certainly has much to offer for both students and educators. We feel it is important for educators to be able to convey to parents, school administrators, and colleagues the benefits of any academic activity, with reflective journaling being no exception. This is especially important in the current “edu-political” environment present in many schools in which academic exercises must have clear and measurable outcomes to be con-sidered effective. Journal writing may appear as fluff to many people who aren’t familiar with the myriad of benefits journals offer. Additionally, some educators are reluctant to try using journal writing with their students, be-cause they are unable to see beyond the “journals are more work for me” viewpoint. Sharing the multiple benefits of journal writing that the educa-tor might get can change this perspective!

We’ve found it is important to explain these benefits to students as well. In our experience, most students who understand the rationale behind as-signments and what they can get out of it are more willing to fully engage in it. Explaining the potential benefits to students helps with this process! While understanding the benefits of journaling is important, it is just as significant to understand the challenges and problems associated with jour-nals. In the next chapter, we highlight some of these issues.


3The Challenges of Journal Writing

The benefits of journaling for students and educators that were noted in the previous chapter seem convincing and overwhelming. Jour-

nals, when used appropriately, provide exciting opportunities for students to document their learning journeys in an innovative and authentic way. Through text, drawings, images, and countless other creative approaches, students can record their thoughts, ideas, and reflections. They can en-gage critically and reflectively with ideas, issues, problems, and questions. But the benefits are not just for students. Educators working in a range of contexts and settings are welcoming the opportunity to get away from tradi-tional assessment tasks, like essays and exams, and appreciate using journals to facilitate higher order thinking in their students. Educators benefit from opportunities to get formative and summative feedback on their own teach-ing and appreciate the opportunity to get to know their students better through journal writing exchanges.

Given all these convincing educational benefits, you might expect that journals would be embraced by all students and educators. But this is far from the case. Not all students and educators are unequivocal in their sup-


port of journals. We have encountered lots of students who bemoan the thought of “yet another journal.” And for good reason—lots of students have, sadly, been required to complete journals that have been poorly thought out. More often than not, these students have been handed a blank journal and told to write about the experience with little guidance or direction. Unsurprisingly, many students feel at a loss about where to begin. Then, they have to hand in the journal to be marked—but how can thoughts and feelings be graded? And, aren’t journals too personal to be graded anyways?

These are just a few of the pitfalls and problems that we look at more closely in this chapter.

Handed a Blank Journal: No Training/No Structure

We think one of the serious pitfalls of journaling happens when students are simply handed a blank journal and provided no guidance. It is no sur-prise that these students feel at a loss as to where to begin and what to write about. And when they do begin to write and then finally submit their jour-nal, they find it frustrating when they are handed back their journal with a poor grade, evidently not writing what the educator had hoped for.

We certainly don’t leave other more traditional assessment tasks so open ended. Think about the essays given to students—most educators provide direction around a topic, offer some structure, and provide some clear criteria and standards for assessment. And similarly for exams—most educators will tell students the topics to be assessed, the nature of the ques-tions (short, medium and long), and the content of the material that will be included on the test.

But for some reason, journals seem to be seen differently by many educa-tors. As a result, many naively and/or intentionally provide little direction, in-struction or structure around the journals. Why is this the case with journals and not other assessment tasks? Do educators fear limiting their student’s creativity? Are they really open to the students writing whatever they want?

While these reasons might explain why some educators provide so little direction, we suspect a more problematic and deep rooted reason—that they do not fully understand the potential of what is possible in journals, and, equally important, they don’t understand that students need direc-tion, training and structure to support their journal writing endeavors. As Elizabeth Spalding and Angene Wilson (2002), who work in a pre-service teacher training program, aptly note, “we teacher educators must teach—

The Challenges of Journal Writing 35

not simply assign—reflection, if we want pre-service teachers to become more reflective” (p. 1415).

Indeed the research points to the importance of providing students with support in journal writing. This support can take the form of one-off workshops, ongoing training throughout a course, and formative feedback opportunities. Throughout our own research and practice with journal writing, we have developed a workshop that we think helps students learn to journal more creatively, reflect more critically, and understand that journal entries can capture and document a range of experiences. We share parts of this workshop throughout this book and provide a detailed outline in Appendix A. But it is likely that it will take more than a workshop to change built-in ways of learning. Ongoing training may be required to support stu-dent journal writing efforts, given that some have found that it takes up to three years for students to become proficient and deep reflective journal writers (Epp, 2008).

Another way educators can support students is to provide structure in the journals. As we describe in Chapter 5, we are experimenting with what happens when students are provided with scaffolding that helps them to begin writing by providing prompts, questions, and reminders about what they could write about. Some of the journals for our courses are filled with a series of questions about field experiences. These questions seek to provide the students with a starting point for beginning their writing (e.g., Describe what happened in enough detail that you could repeat this activity.) and also try to provide direction to facilitate more in depth reflec-tive and critical thinking (e.g., What did you learn about yourself, about others, about the group, about the environment, about facilitating learn-ing, about teaching styles?).

Our students have been fairly unanimous in their contention that both the workshop training and the structure of the journal are helpful. Other researchers have alluded to the benefits of providing students with training and structure to avoid the “blank journal” syndrome whereby students do not know where to begin writing (Bennion & Olsen, 2002; Dunlap, 2006; Raffan, 1990).

Writing for the Teacher

When we read and assess a student’s journals, it certainly feels wonderful to read entries suggesting that a student has finally caught on to what we’ve been teaching—obviously, we’ve done a fine job as an educator—so fine, in fact, that the student has been influenced by our teaching. The lecture, talk, activity, or field exercise has worked! “Hurray!” we think. This stu-


dent’s journal is a gentle and subtle pat on the back that confirms we’ve done a good job.

But is this always the case? Has our teaching really influenced that stu-dent? Or are they just spinning back to us what they think we want to hear? Sadly, we have become a bit suspicious of late, as have others, that students may be a bit more clever and conniving than we had originally thought. These students realize what their educators believe in, and they cleverly espouse these same beliefs in their journal. The educator, in turn, reads the journal and feels good about his or her influence. One of the students who participated in the focus group discussion for our study was quite honest about his decision to write for the teacher. Steve admits:

Well, I would figure out who was going to assess my journal, and then I’d write all my entries to please them. It is easy to figure out what gets each instructor going. Dave (educator), for example, thinks leadership is really important, so if I know Dave is going to mark it, then I’ll write lots about leadership styles. I’ll reflect on my own style. I’ll comment on the other group members’ styles. And, Sarah (educator) is a big environmental activ-ist, so if she’s going to mark it, then I’ll write about all kinds of green eco-issues. I know she’ll love it and I’ll get a good grade.

As educators, we need to be aware that students may be trying to please us through their journals. They might also be trying to seek approval or validation from us. This desire to please us stands to negatively impact the journaling process.

Journaled to Death

How many times have you passionately told students that they are going to have to keep a journal, only to have some students roll their eyes and bemoan “not another journal”? We think it’s a pretty fair response from a student who has been required to keep lots of journals in the past—often with little direction or distinction among the journals. When students are “journaled to death,” unfortunately, journals can just become another as-signment, like an essay or examination, that lacks authenticity and novelty. Journals become just another hoop that students jump through on their way to graduation. How disappointing.

Arguably, it’s an even fairer response from students that have to keep many journals at the same time. Once, we had a student that had to keep three journals at the same time—for the three outdoor education courses he was taking! Clearly the educators in this setting were all excited about the power and potential of journal writing; but sadly, they were not communi-


cating among themselves to see who was assigning what kind of assessment task at the beginning of the semester. This stands to be a real problem, par-ticularly in pre-service teacher education and outdoor education courses, where reflection through journal writing is often seen as a paramount skill in becoming a reflective practitioner.

Educators need to be aware of this phenomenon of over assigning jour-nals and seek to coordinate themselves across units to ensure that journals are not overused in any one program or semester. If several lecturers are interested in journals as a means for facilitating student learning, then per-haps they should consider the role of a “shared” journal—which is, as the name implies, one journal that is written for many classes. Mindy Blaise and her colleagues (2004) describe their experience of trialing the use of shared journals in a pre-service teacher education program in Australia. Students were required to use one journal to collate and reflect upon their learnings across four courses. The shared journals in this case were met with mixed results—given that it was just being trialed, there were a lot of kinks that needed to be ironed out. Students were not used to bring-ing together ideas and reflections across four courses, and, understandably, this required a whole new way of thinking for the students. Lots of their students actively resisted the shared journal. The educators too were on a steep learning curve—and they humbly admit that not all things went well in the first year. However, the shared journals did provide a pedagogical space for the educators to “confront [their] own values and beliefs about teaching and learning” (Blaise et al., p. 8).

Annoying Busy Work

Some students feel that journal writing is annoying busy work that has little or no place in an educational setting. They might also feel that journals are a nuisance, tedious and unnecessary.

There are a few reasons this might be the case. Perhaps the journals are indeed busy work. As we’ll see later on in this chapter and in later chapters, journals need to be properly introduced and facilitated in order to maxi-mize their potential. If educators haven’t thought through why they are us-ing journals, then they can easily (and rightly!) take on an air of busy work for students. And if students haven’t been taught how to journal, then they can easily feel that they are busy work. We’ll look more at how we can best support students to journal in Chapter 5.

Another reason that journals can be seen as a nuisance might come from the fact that some students will struggle with this new way of demon-strating learning. Sadly, students who are products of what Friere (1993)


calls the “banking model” of education can find it difficult to participate in alternative pedagogical methods that invite critical engagement and reflec-tion. The banking model of education can so easily put the expert teacher at the center of the learning process. Over time, students who have grown up in this system of schooling begin to doubt their own ways of knowing, their own natural abilities, and their own intelligence. The teacher becomes the authority in terms of transmission of knowledge, and the students are pas-sive recipients. Students who are successful in the traditional model learn (all too easily) to reject the knowledge that comes from their own experi-ence. Hence journals that honor student experience as an authentic type of knowledge can be foreign to these students.

Furthermore, journal writing tasks that encourage creativity, authentic-ity, and higher order thinking are in stark contrast to conventional assess-ment tasks, like essays and examinations. These traditional forms of assess-ment hold a lot of power within the educational system—and, although unpopular and bemoaned, are often held in esteem in their ability to evalu-ate students’ knowledge and comprehension. When compared to essays and exams that hold so much power (e.g., deciding your future eligibility for programs of study), journals might seem light and fluffy. But we know this is far from the case.

Photo 3.1 Is this student having fun or is this annoying busy work?


Of course students aren’t the only ones with pre-conceived notions of how teaching and learning should be. Educators who are products of school systems that value technical, rational and banking models of teaching and learning may struggle with how to use journals in their own practice. This kind of learning might well go against everything they have learned in schools and so they will need to learn how to best use journals as a teaching tool.

Does Not Suit All Students

Despite all good efforts to make journals a meaningful and authentic assess-ment task, the reality is that some students will never enjoy or benefit from journal writing. A number of ancient and contemporary philosophical, psy-chological, and educational theories might shed some insight into those students that will and won’t find meaning in journal writing.

During the early 1900s, Carl Jung was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and a leading proponent of Gestalt personality theory. Jung devel-oped a ground-breaking personality theory that identified distinct person-ality patterns based on extroversion and introversion. Later, he described human behavior as a combination of four psychic functions—thinking ver-sus feeling and intuition versus sensation. Thinking and feeling are said to be rational functions because they both require acts of judgment. Sensation and intuition involve immediate experiences.

Many educational theorists have since broken these patterns into cate-gories attempting to make them easier to understand in other contexts, like education. For example, the Myers Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI), Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory, the Managerial Grid, David Keirsey’s Tempera-ment Model, and a number of other instruments all use a form of extrover-sion/introversion. Let’s look at one of these more closely.

Roxanne Mills (2008) used David Keirsey’s Temperament Model to ex-plain that students with different temperaments will be more or less open to using journals. Keirsely’s model divides students into four different cat-egories of “temperament”: artisans, guardian, rational, and idealists. Ac-cording to Keirsey, artisans (approximately 40% of the population) are im-pulsive, practical, spontaneous, physical, and active. Guardians (40% of the population) tend to be black and white; they enjoy following and enforcing rules, are well organized, and follow plans closely. Rationalists (6% of the population) are excellent problem solvers and critical thinkers; they are abstract thinkers who like to invent, explore and organize. Idealists, the last temperament (12% of population), stay well clear from conflict, are empa-thetic, non-judgmental, and good listeners.


Using Keirsey’s model, Mills (2008) suggests that only approximately 20% of students will find journaling an easy and attractive form of assess-ment. More specifically, she suggests that the rationalists and idealist tem-peraments (totaling under 20% of total population) will be well suited (in terms of their temperament) to journal writing. The other two tempera-ments (which make up more than 80% of the population) will be more reluctant journal writers. Mills suggests that guardian temperaments will most likely journal to simply please the teacher, whether or not they got much out of the assignment. Artisans, on the other hand, will tend to find assignments like journals, that call for introspection and analysis, dull and useless. These sobering suggestions from Mills are an important reminder that journals won’t suit all students! In light of these findings, it is important to remember that multiple and alternate forms of assessment might well be necessary to meet the needs of a range of learning styles within a given cohort of students.

Other educational models, such as Edward De Bono’s Thinking Hats and Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences might also shed some in-sight into those students that will and won’t be interested in journal writing.

Taking a more critical stance, Mindy Blaise and her colleagues (2004) ask whether journal writing privileges and “supports anglo-australian, middle-class, female ways of knowing?” (p. 6). These types of concerns add to a mounting chorus of voices that are bringing into question if and how issues of race, class, gender, and socio-economic status play out in the education system more broadly. What kinds of individuals are favored in contemporary education systems? And what kinds of students are favored by journal writing tasks?

Gender

Have you found that your male and female students approach journals differently? Do you see differences in the attitudes and behaviors of your students, as a function of gender? If so, you are not alone! You’ve been ob-serving what researchers have been noting for some time—that there are real differences in the behaviors and perceptions of journaling between males and females.

Research has found that women generally have more positive attitudes towards journaling. Christopher Burt (1994), for example, found that wom-en kept journals more often than men. He also found that whereas men used journals to record primarily events and facts about the past and future, women used journals to express thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Our re-search with outdoor recreation students shed further insight into the gen-


der issue, with women in our study revealing that they devoted significantly more time to journaling and were prouder of their journals than men.

Where do these gender differences come from? There is some belief that these gender differences might result from socio-cultural childhood norms that support girls keeping diaries from a very young age. It has been found that women start keeping journals at a significantly younger age than men, and that the reflective, passive nature of journaling is stereotypically related with feminine behaviors. The outdoor education literature is also replete with evidence that men and women perceive outdoor experiences differently, which, in turn, may influence their perceptions of journaling in field courses.

Historically, journals have played an especially important role in the lives of women. Given that most history books have been written from a male perspective, most texts provide accounts of events where men have played a major role. Journals written by women—for example female slaves in the United States, female pioneers in Canada, and female prisoners in Australia—provide insight into the female experience of these challenging and often harsh times. Journals of women have also been at the forefront of many social movements and have been a collective source of inspiration for other women over time.

Photo 3.2 Men and women use journals differently.


Some have argued that the education system in particular and society in general still favor men’s ways of being and knowing. Women’s ways of being and knowing are still, sadly, marginalized in many educational and societal situations. Seen in this light, journals have an especially important role to play in the lives of women. They can provide a safe space for women to find their voice, to tell their stories, and to be heard. This can be par-ticularly important for women who are already marginalized on the basis of race, class, ability, and sexuality.

While it is important not to reinforce simplistic gender stereotypes (there are, of course, some males that love journaling and some females who will be more reluctant journal writers), these findings from the lit-erature highlight the importance of being aware of the gender issues that might arise when you use journals.

Ethics: Blurring of Personal and Professional Realm

There are a number of ethical issues and concerns that educators must con-sider seriously when reflective practices like journal writing are used. Per-haps the most obvious ethical issue, as many researchers have noted, is that journals can tread a fine line between the personal and professional realm. The possibility of blurring the personal-professional line is especially real in programs like outdoor education, experiential education, and pre-service teacher training programs that encourage deep reflection—and journals are often the medium used to facilitate this.

In these contexts, students might disclose things that are deeply per-sonal, private and painful. For example,

◾ A student discloses a sexual relationship with another student—both are under the legal age of consent.

◾ A student reveals that she is having a really hard time at home. Her mom’s new partner doesn’t seem to be treating Mom or the children very appropriately to her (or your!) thinking.

◾ A student indicates that another student has been cheating on tests and exams.

How do we respond to this very personal information? Do we have a duty of care and responsibility to act on some of this information? What if we have to grade this information? How do we approach and continue to work with this student, now that we are privy to this information?

These ethical issues are not easy ones to resolve, but we have found that a few strategies have proven to be effective. Some ethical issues can be


managed best by providing clear expectations as to what is required and ex-pected from students. When educators provide clear guidelines about the purpose of the journal, the type of entries they expect, assessment criteria and standards, and how the journal fits into the intent of the overall course (e.g., course objectives), then there is a good chance that many of the ethi-cal issues might never arise (see Chapter 5 for additional ways of setting clear expectations).

Some have argued that educators who encourage and facilitate reflec-tion need to analyze the culture in which they teach and work before they introduce reflective exercises, like journal writing (English, 2001). They suggest that the culture of the organization might well be a good indicator of the type of reflection that is possible. An organization that has a poor track record with respect to discrimination on the basis of gender, sexuality, or race might not be a safe place to facilitate personal reflection that is free of ethical dilemmas.

Still others have suggested that educators need training to be able to handle these ethical situations. Leona English (2001) uses Brockett’s (1990) ethical principals to help educators working with adults to make good decisions about the use of journals. She suggests five principles that can help educators become more ethical in their administration and man-agement of journals, including respect, justice, beneficence, self-awareness, and caring.

Assessment

Another ethical aspect of journal writing relates to assessment. While Hen-ry David Thoreau might have suggested that his journals remain “of myself, for myself,” the reality is that journals often have to be assessed in tradition-al education systems. The good news is that there are lots of advantages that emerge when students have the opportunity for their journals to be read by a trustworthy educator (opportunity for additional insight, feedback, ques-tions, for example). However, as many researchers have noted, evaluating journals can be a complicated, repetitive, daunting, time consuming, and ethically challenging task. A number of sticky questions emerge that we look at more closely in Chapter 7:

◾ Can journals be assessed? ◾ Should journals be assessed? ◾ Who should assess journals? ◾ How much feedback should be given? ◾ What kinds of feedback should be given?


◾ Should an educator ever write in a student’s journal? ◾ What about issues of privacy? ◾ Can students ask you not to read certain pages of a journal (by

stapling pages together, for example). ◾ (How) can something that blurs the personal-professional line be

assessed? ◾ What about the power relationship that exists between educator

and student? ◾ How do we resolve the very fact that students who know that the

journals will be read by someone else might not write what is truly on their minds?

The educators that we worked with in our research noted the chal-lenges of assessing journals in a fair and consistent manner. While objective entries (e.g., weather, sightings, dates, route) are fairly easy to grade via a list of predetermined criteria, the educators reported that it becomes more difficult to evaluate the subjective (e.g., reflections) journals. Paul, an edu-cator and one of our study participants, described (in a rather embarrassed manner) how he evaluated subjective journals:

Is there something written? Yes? They’re getting at least 6/10. Is there some connection to what is going on in the field or class? Yes? It would go up by almost a point. Is there some theme they’ve developed? Yes? Throw on another point.

Many of the educators that we know have approaches not too different from Paul’s—indeed it appears to be very difficult to evaluate, in an objec-tive manner, a subjective journal entry.

Furthermore, depending on the grading scheme, a numeric grade might not reward students appropriately (e.g., consistently high quality journals get the same mark as low quality journals based on number of entries). In the reverse instance, many students may write many entries but only summarize readings or experiences. These students feel cheated when receiving lower grades than their more reflective counterparts.

There is general agreement that providing written comments on jour-nals is critical. Yet providing thorough and thoughtful evaluations with feedback can be difficult when you have a large class size and require stu-dents to hand in journals several times during a semester.

Unfortunately, when journals are assessed, some students end up writ-ing for the teacher. As noted earlier, students sometimes focus less on be-ing creative, critical, and reflexive, instead directing their energies towards


trying to meet the evaluative criteria. Sadly, as one educator in our focus group noted, “grading journals seems to get in the way of good pedagogy.” To that end, some have suggested a pass/fail system for journals. The un-derlying hope of a pass/fail system is that students feel more free, more cre-ative, and more critical. They might also be willing to take more chances, be contrary to the lecturer and think independently.

When journals are being assessed, students must believe that the per-son reading their journal is trustworthy. A strong rapport of trust is thus critical between the journal writer and the journal reader. In discussing this idea with a colleague who has done research on journals, James Raf-fan noted:

For my money, the critical point about whether or not journals work hing-es on the relationship between the journal keeper and the journal reader. Unless the journal keeper is convinced that the journal reader appreciates the vulnerability created in the sharing of a document like this, the process never really gets off the ground.

We support James Raffan’s contention and urge educators to build a strong sense of trust with their students if journals are going to be assessed.

Keeping up with the Times

The technological advancements in the education field are exciting. So-cial networking sites like Facebook, web based learning systems like Black-board, and downloadable pod casts have all expanded the possibilities for teaching and learning. Students no longer have to be seated in a classroom in front of a teacher to learn—instead they can learn at their convenience, with the help of these new technologies. Disciplines that have typically been (and proudly) free of technology, like outdoor education, are having to (re)-consider their position on technology, as the Internet, GPS, satellite phones, Google-Earth, and blogs become effective means of teaching and learning for technologically-savvy students in the outdoors. As each new technology emerges, there are some who claim it will radically change, save, or reform the education system.

But not all educators support the close partnership between technology and education. Some advancements have been contested and problematic. And some educators decry the rampant use and reliance of technology in educational settings. Isn’t there a place for technology-free teaching, they ask? And more often than not, despite all goodwill and hope, the technolo-gies do not end up saving or reforming the education system. Instead, they


are simply a fad that is replaced by the next advancement (at the time of this writing, for example, laser discs and distance education are hot techno-logical “solutions” to educational woes—it is too early to gauge the impacts, but we’ll see what happens in the next five years!).

Journals have not escaped the tensions of these discussions around technology. The classic tattered leather journal that has for centuries had aesthetic appeal has a direct competitor that is much more alluring to many students: technology! And although some educators might resist it, there is a mounting body of evidence pointing to the potential for technology to support the journal writing task. For example, blogs (Stiler & Philleo, 2003), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs; Gleaves, Walker, & Grey, 2007, 2008), and on-line journals (Gulwadi, 2009) have been shown to support some stu-dents’ journal writing behaviors—especially those who resist the traditional pen and paper medium. Evidence suggests that this sort of technology can be used to support distance-education students who are required to write in journals (Jarvis, 2001).

In an interesting study on the use of PDAs to support journals in stu-dents, researchers from the University of Sutherland in the UK compared


the feasibility and reliability of digital and paper diaries. They found that students were writing more frequently in the digital diaries, but their entries were generally shorter than those writing in the paper diaries. Students re-ported liking the digital diaries for their portability and access to stored files; they disliked, however, that the battery life of the PDA was often short and malfunctions were too frequent. The students who used paper diaries indicated that they were often overwhelmed by the number of empty pages and found the paper diary simply too big to be portable; interestingly, they appreciated the aesthetics of the paper diary and that they were able to read over the entries time and time again. Students also liked the idea of keeping a paper diary—despite the inconveniences. Clearly there are ad-vantages and disadvantages to both mediums.

Although some educators might be reticent to use the new technolo-gies, the reality is that students might find a lot more meaning in their use. If properly facilitated, these technological tools may help students achieve the deep reflection we want them to. The stage seems set to welcome these new technologies—are you ready to explore the potential and possibilities?

Conclusion

In this chapter, we discussed some of the pitfalls and problems of journal writing. We presented the problems that arise when students are simply handed a blank journal and told to go it alone. We looked at how some students will write for the teacher, instead of writing what’s really on their mind. We explored what happens when students are “journaled to death” and why some students see journal writing as annoying busy work. We looked at important ethical responsibilities, including assessment and trust, which surround journal writing. Finally, we presented the opportunities and challenges of bridging the technology and journal divide.

In a nutshell, we hope this chapter has convinced you that journaling for the sake of journaling is problematic—careful consideration, planning, and preparation needs to be done by educators who want to use this impor-tant pedagogical tool. This examination sets the stage for the next chapters, where we look at how we might address, manage and tackle some of these challenges.


4Theoretical Aspects of Journaling

At first glance, using journal writing as an educational activity doesn’t seem too daunting a task. Many educators hear of the idea or have

had success with personal journal writing, and decide to try journaling with their own students without completely researching the process. However, they soon discover there are various facets of journaling that need to be fully considered to make the journaling experience satisfying for students and themselves. While some educators muddle through by trial and error, others turn to resources (such as this book) informed by the experiences of others for ideas, guidance, and support with journaling. We’ve found it helpful to understand some of what others who have studied journal-ing and reflection have found in their research and thinking. This chapter presents some of the theory behind journaling as an academic exercise that we’ve found helpful. It includes a brief look at reflection and how it fits with journal writing, and wraps up with a reader-friendly overview of the academic literature on journaling.


Reflection

Just what is reflection? For many educators, and in particular experiential educators, reflection is a crucial part of any learning experience. Reflec-tion is also a part of some influential learning cycles, most notably those of John Dewey and David Kolb. Most educators believe that without reflec-tion, learning can’t effectively happen, or even happen at all. Many readers may be familiar with theories and models regarding reflection, and have an idea of what reflection is all about. But does everyone actually define and interpret “reflection” in the same way? The answer is a resounding “No!” As Graham Ixer (1999) contends, this creates problems when talking about reflection, as a common understanding is hard to come by. Carol Rodgers (2002) suggests there are four problems with coming to a clear understand-ing of reflection. These include:

1. A lack of a clear distinction between reflective thinking and other types of thought,

2. Issues of assessing something (reflection) that are not adequately defined,

3. Issues of discussing something (reflection) that are not adequate-ly defined,

4. Difficulty in researching reflection, as operational definitions of reflection are not clear.

The issues that Ixer (1999) and Rodgers (2002) have identified led us to take a more careful look at what reflection is all about. Surprisingly, although there have been repeated calls for a more clear and concise definition of reflection, we couldn’t find a “definitive” answer shared across disciplines in our review of the literature. We did find one that we like, which we’ll share later in the chapter. In an attempt to contextualize journaling writing in the realm of reflection, we present an overview of some of the work that has been done on reflection. First, however, we’ll situate reflection in two influential learning models developed by John Dewey and David Kolb.

Dewey’s Process of Experiential Learning

Many people turn to the work of John Dewey and his thoughts on experi-ential learning for a definition of reflection, which is based on his notion that people need to be practical problem-solvers. Dewey (1933) defined reflection as the “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (p. 118). For Dewey, reflec-

Theoretical Aspects of Journaling 51

tion unfolds in a series of stages with which many people are familiar as his process of experiential learning.

In the first stage of Dewey’s (1933) model, the learner must be con-fronted with challenging material and experience “felt difficulty” (p. 3). Without encountering problematic situations, reflection and learning is im-possible (at least in Dewey’s eyes!). Also in this stage, the learner observes and reconfigures his or her understanding of the “felt difficulty.” This is often through the unsuccessful negotiation of experience (e.g., the learner fails to properly conduct a science experiment).

During the second stage, the learner brings in past knowledge and rea-soning to further consider his or her potential explanations or hypotheses. The learner is adding his or her own previous experience and comprehen-sion as ingredients to his or her possible new understanding.

In the third and final stage, the learner creates a possible explanation or explanations for the problematic situation through judging how his or her past knowledge and experience fit together. In essence, a hypothesis is mulled over that makes sense to the learner. The learner moves from not understanding, to developing what he or she thinks is a plausible solution. During this third stage, the learner tests his or her explanation or hypoth-esis through direct application in both a cognitive and practical sense. A learner would then observe the outcomes of this direct application and start the cycles again. For Dewey, the compilation of these stages comprises reflective learning.

Observation

Previous KnowledgeJudgement

Impulse or Action

Figure 4.1 Dewey’s process of experiential learning.


In Dewey’s model, reflection occurs when the learner is considering the experiences that he or she has observed and subsequently tested out. Carol Rodgers (2002), in her review of Dewey’s work, has consolidated his ideas into four criteria that characterize reflection, including:

1. Reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationship with and connections to other experiences and ideas. It is the thread that makes continuity of learning possible and ensures the progress of the individual and, ultimately, society. It is a means to essentially moral ends.

2. Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry.

3. Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others.

4. Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellec-tual growth of oneself and of others (p. 845).

We feel that journal writing, when carefully facilitated by an educator, is one way to best position students to successfully meet these criteria for reflection. In contrast to verbal reflection, which is susceptible to the foibles of memory, journals allow reflection to be captured for reference in the future. Journal writing allows students a structured opportunity to create meaning in their own way through interaction with the educator and other students. It allows students to reflect and develop meaning at their own pace, and in a manner that best suits how they learn most effectively. This meaning may then be extended to future learning and fosters the belief that individual growth and development (and that of others) is important. While not perfect for every situation or for every learner, journals help stu-dents engage with the reflective process.

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory

Many educators are also familiar with the work of David Kolb, who expand-ed on the work of Kurt Lewin to suggest a theory of experiential learning. For a more detailed description of Kolb’s work, we suggest reading his book (published in 1984) titled, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development and subsequent articles. We’ve found that the businessballs.com website (http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearning styles.htm) has an easy to understand overview of Kolb’s model as well.

While Kolb’s model is fairly similar to Dewey’s, it contains an additional step to comprise a four phase learning cycle. The first of Kolb’s phases is


called concrete experience. In this stage, a student has a direct and immediate experience, which leads to the second stage, reflective observation. During this stage, a learner considers observations and takes note and reflects on what happened. This becomes the basis for the third stage, during which these observations and reflections are compiled into abstract conceptualiza-tions. From these abstract ideas, new ways of doing things are created. These new propositions for action can be tested in the fourth and final stage, ac-tive experimentation.

A handy feature of Kolb’s model is that it suggests that learners gener-ally prefer one of two main ways of comprehension—through either con-crete experience or abstract conceptualization. Most of us can probably think of students we teach who prefer experiences that are more “hands-on” and that have immediate and clear feedback about the tangible world around them (concrete experience). There are also students who are the opposite, or who prefer to interpret experiences through analysis and “brain power” (abstract conceptualization). Kolb’s model also suggests that people tend to internalize and process learning experiences differently. Some people prefer to reflectively observe or mull over what happened, while others like to jump right in and actively experiment and see what occurs.

What happens is that learners are required to make choices between how they comprehend experiences (concretely or abstractly) and how they process these experiences (reflectively or actively). According to Kolb, as learners find the mix of comprehending and processing that suits them best, they develop one of four favored learning styles, including: diverging, assimilating, converging, and accommodating.

Students with a diverging style of learning favor concrete experience and reflective observation. These students like to watch and feel during experiences. They are best at analyzing an experience from a variety of perspectives. You’ve most likely had experiences with students who do best when brainstorming with a group, are interested in other people and in the arts, and become bored when actually having to put their ideas into prac-tice. These students are most likely to prefer the diverging style of learning.

Some students like to come up with a logical plan that has been care-fully thought through before implementing it. Sometimes this process seems painfully slow! These students have a learning style that is best suited for working with scientific or technological information and putting it in some type of order. They prefer an assimilating style. Learners in this style prefer abstract conceptualization and reflective observation. They like to think and watch during experiences. These students are often quiet, but


when they speak, they come up with fantastic insights and ideas about the topic at hand.

The third learning style is called converging. Learners in this style favor abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. Students who are convergers like to solve technical problems and dislike dealing with social issues—they like practical applications and are characterized as “thinkers” and “doers.” They like to jump right in and avoid long, drawn out debates about how to proceed, especially if interpersonal issues arise. If you’ve ever observed students who seem to learn best by trial and error, they most likely prefer a converging style.

The final learning style according to Kolb’s model is accommodating. Students who prefer this style learn best in situations that require concrete experience and active experimentation, or “hands-on” experiences. These students like to feel and do while engaged in learning experiences. If you’ve wondered how some people can dive into a situation with little more to go on than instinct and gut-reaction, they most likely prefer an accommodating style of learning. They are particularly effective when working with others to solve problems or accomplish tasks in a short period of time or when under pressure.

While Kolb’s model suggests that students will learn most effectively in situations that suit their preferred learning styles, reflection is still inherent in any learning process. We believe that regardless of a student’s preferred

ConcreteExperience

ReflectiveObservation

AbstractConceptualization

ActiveExperimentation

Figure 4.2 Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.


learning style, reflective journals can be an effective learning tool. Educators must be aware of how to assist students with a variety of learning styles in how to use their journals effectively. We’ll touch on this later on in this book.

Kolb’s model serves as a useful tool when working with students, par-ticularly in experiential learning environments. Although our overview of Kolb’s model was brief, it supports the need for reflection in any learning experience and by any type of learner. While reflection may look and feel different for individual students, journals may be successfully used by stu-dents with a variety of learning styles.

A Focus on Reflection as Part of Learning

While Dewey and Kolb’s work serve as a foundation for understanding reflection, they do not focus directly on the reflective component of the learning cycle. However, there are several contemporary perspectives that focus on the specific role of reflection in learning. These models include a series of stages of reflection or types of reflection in which students engage while learning. While there are plenty of models available, we’ve chosen to present seven as we think they represent the breadth and depth of how reflection has been conceptualized. Additionally, as reflection varies among students, you might find that while one model works well for a particular student, it might not work well for another. The models we’ve chose to in-clude are Scanlon and Chernomas’ three stage model, Kember et al.’s four level model, Schon’s two component model, Bloom’s six level model, Young and Wilson’s three level “ICE” approach, Ash and Clayton’s eight step Ar-ticulated Learning progression, and finally Valli’s typology of reflection. As you will read about in more detail in Chapter 7, many of these models and theories of reflection have been used to develop assessment tools for evalu-ating journals. We have discussed them in both chapters in an effort to ap-propriately frame how they have influenced the use of reflective journals.

Scanlon and Chernomas

With ideas similar to Dewey’s, Scanlon and Chernomas (1997) pro-posed a three-stage model of reflection. In the first stage, a student must become aware that he or she lacks the knowledge or information related to a specific topic or experience. Similar to Dewey’s idea, without this aware-ness, reflection can’t happen. We’ve found that we sometimes need to help our students become “aware” that they don’t quite know everything there is to know about a specific topic! Students may be spurred to awareness by their own excitement or interest as well.


The second stage of this model proposes that students need to critically assess their lack of knowledge or understanding while considering their past experience and what they already know. This is also similar to Dewey’s thoughts. For this stage of reflection to occur, students need to have the skills to be able to recognize what they already know, make connections to how what they don’t know potentially fits with what they do know, and criti-cally analyze the learning environment.

The third and final stage involves students taking a new perspective as a result of the previous stage. Again, this is akin to Dewey’s notions of reflection. During this final stage, learners change in some way. This might be behaviorally, cognitively, or affectively. While Scanlon and Chernomas’ model is somewhat similar to Dewey’s, it does begin to consider the role of the learner and the skills he or she must possess to adequately reflect, and thus learn.

Kember et al.

Other models of reflection, such as Kember, McKay, Sinclair, and Wong’s (2008) model, recognize that reflection may occur on a variety of levels, thus recognizing individual students’ abilities for critical thought, abilities to recognize and recall earlier learning, and abilities to consider potential solutions to a new problem. Kember and his colleagues, after re-fining an earlier model that included six levels, suggest that students might reflect on four levels.

The first level they refer to as habitual action or non-reflection. As you might suspect from its name, habitual action is rote learning that is easy, automatic, and routine. Students engaged in habitual action are not des-tined to learn anything new and are not usually reflecting at all. Habitual action refers to learning within a student’s existing framework of knowl-edge. There is no attempt to extend reflection outside of what is already known. Students are at least recognizing something, but they are not mak-ing an attempt to connect it to anything in a way that will create new learn-ing through reflection. In this sense, and in our experience with journal writing, students who only report facts and record observations in their journals are not really learning anything new. We are more interested in students making connections to what they already know, and in doing so, creating new knowledge through this process. They can start to do this in the next level of Kember et al.’s model.

The second level in Kember et al.’s model is understanding. This builds on the previous level, as the student is searching for more than the superfi-


cial meaning of a topic, reading, or experience. Understanding is not true reflection, as the student does not make an attempt to go beyond recogniz-ing something as theory. There is no attempt to relate the experience to personal life or to other topics or learning experiences. This is often the case when there is no corresponding experience to go along with “book learning” that is the common way many students supposedly “learn.”

Kember et al.’s third level, reflective action, is comprised of three main components, including content, process, as well as content and process reflection and learning. Many educators will be familiar with these more simply stated as “what” and “how” reflection. In reflecting on content, a student examines what thoughts, feelings, actions, or perceptions come into play in a specific experience. When considering process reflection, a student examines not only the procedures and practices that are used, but also the level of student success in implementing those procedures and practices. Finally, content and process reflection bundles these two togeth-er for a more holistic reflection on an experience.

The final level of this model is referred to as critical reflection and is con-sidered to be the highest level of reflection. Also termed premise reflection, it is concerned with the “why” of processes and encourages the integra-tion of new learning into a student’s knowledge bank. Premise reflection is more often difficult, for it requires the learner to recognize and accept new knowledge and either change an existing framework to accommodate it or scrap the framework altogether and replace it with a new one. This process in and of itself requires advanced cognitive and affective abilities, which we’ve found need to be actively fostered with students of all ages. While there are certainly merits to less comprehensive, lower levels of reflection, students probably aren’t integrating much new knowledge into what they already know if they aren’t critically reflecting in some way. Journal writing, if facilitated well, can certainly assist with this process.

Schon

In 1983, Donald Schon published The Reflective Practitioner, which has shaped how many people think about reflection, particularly from a pro-fessional practice standpoint. He suggests that reflection is comprised of two distinct components—reflecting on-action and reflecting in-action. In order for professionals to learn new things and develop their skills and knowledge related to their work, they must engage in reflection on both of these levels. Schon suggests that competent professionals are capable of taking “privileged knowledge” and applying it to problems and issues they face in practice. This privileged knowledge is comprised of informa-


tion students have learned in a traditional manner as well as from previous life experience. However, professionals (and students) must be able to do this (reflect in-action) at the time they are engaged in a particular activity so they can make a difference at that time. This is contrary to reflecting on-action, which is reviewing and analyzing what was done after an activity or experience is over. Schon suggests that for learning to occur in practical situations, a student must shift back and forth between these two types of re-flection. Schon’s work varies from Dewey’s by coupling the immediate need for reflecting in-action with the long term need for reflecting on-action. In this respect, Schon’s notion of reflection moves away from the foundation of the scientific method on which Dewey’s ideas are built.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Another classic model of thought that is linked to reflection is Bloom’s (1956) Taxonomy of Cognitive Thinking. In our own teaching and research, we have used this model as a way to help students differentiate among dif-ferent “levels” of thinking and reflecting. This model is hierarchical and is comprised of six different levels. The first level, knowledge, is characterized by words such as “identify,” “name,” “list,” and “memorize.” It is a level of reflection in which students state simple facts and commit things to memory.

Photo 4.1 It is important to take time to reflect.


Comprehension, the second level, builds on the first level. To reflect or think at this level, students must be able to not only recognize something for what it is, but be able to categorize it and explain how it works. When comparing this level of Bloom’s taxonomy to the models of reflection previ-ously mentioned, students reflecting or thinking at the first two levels are generally operating out of a pre-existing knowledge base. Comprehension shows that a student understands the concepts under study.

The third level of Bloom’s taxonomy is application. Students reflect-ing at this level will be able to solve problems, apply concepts, predict out-comes, and demonstrate proficiencies in a particular skill or knowledge area. For some educators, this level is the first opportunity for students to learn something by trying out hypotheses or testing their assumptions. Ap-plication is associated with usage of concepts and ideas. While we like to see our students including the first three of Bloom’s levels in their journal entries, we much prefer to have them writing at the upper three levels.

The next level is analysis, in which reflection and thinking is comprised of comparing, contrasting, discovering, or examining cause and effect. At this level, students start to integrate their current experiences into their existing knowledge and examine processes as well as content. Students re-flect at this level through examining the relationships between and among concepts, ideas, and skills. We have found that journals provide a great op-portunity for students to try out ideas or compare skill sets (such as differ-ent techniques for belaying a rock climber). As educators, we are able to provide feedback and guidance with the development of these ideas.

The fifth level of Bloom’s taxonomy is synthesis, which is considered higher order thinking. At this level of reflection, students are able to inte-grate new concepts into their existing knowledge frameworks. Words used to describe thinking at this level include constructing, composing, predict-ing, and designing. Journal entries at this level of reflection show students’ understanding of putting separate pieces of knowledge together to create something new. This relates to Kember’s highest level of critical, or prem-ise reflection.

The final and highest order of thinking according to Bloom is evalua-tion. Students who are able to reflect at this level can argue a point, criti-cally assess a thought, action, behavior, or belief, and critically appraise situations. At this level, students are giving opinions that are not based on gut-reaction, but on carefully reasoned and thought out rationale. In our experience, it is rare that students are able to express themselves at the evaluation level through journal writing. As with synthesis, reflecting at this


level allows students to learn through challenging and modifying their ex-isting knowledge base.

The “ICE” Approach

Some educators and students may find Bloom’s taxonomy to be cum-bersome and difficult to use with its many levels. Our students have also said they find it hard to differentiate between the various levels. We’ve found a simpler version of this called the “ICE” approach. ICE is an acronym for ideas, connections, and extensions (Young & Wilson, 2000). In essence, ideas capture the first two levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, connections the third and fourth levels, and extensions the final two levels. For many students and edu-cators, the three levels of ICE are easier to understand and translate into journal entries. This is particularly true for junior high or high school stu-dents who might not have developed their writing skills or thinking skills enough to differentiate at the six levels as suggested by Bloom.

Articulated Learning

Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton (2004) propose another model to help guide reflection called articulated learning. They suggest that an eight step progression highlighted by structured reflection leads to articulated learn-ing. The eight steps include: describing an experience, analyzing the expe-rience, identifying important lessons, articulating learning, critically analyz-ing the articulated learning, checking to see that all learning objectives are addressed, engaging in new experiences, and finally, returning to the first step to begin the reflective process again.

The first of their highlighted phases is the objective description of an experience. This is followed by an analysis of that experience shaped by the

Table 4.1 Comparison of bloom’s Taxonomy and the “ICe” approach

Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy Level of the ICE Approach

Hig

her

Lev

els Evaluation Extensions

Synthesis

Analysis Connections

Low

er

Lev

els

Application

Comprehension Ideas

Knowledge


intended learning outcomes to identify and reflect on important lessons taken from that opportunity. The third phase is articulation, during which students explain the how, what, and why of what they learned as well as how they learned it.

Progressing through these phases results in articulated learning. Ash and Clayton (2004) have developed four questions to guide students through this process. These include:

1. What did I learn? 2. How, specifically, did I learn it? 3. Why does this matter, or why is it significant? 4. In what ways will I use this learning; or what goals shall I set in ac-

cordance with what I have learned in order to improve myself, the quality of my learning, or the quality of my future experiences or service? (p. 142)

Once students have developed answers to these probes, they move on to critically think about and assess their responses. This may occur through self-assessment or assessment from the educator. Journals provide a space to ask and answer these questions, as well as allow the student to devel-op ideas and potential answers in a systematic fashion. Once the student and educator are satisfied that all learning objectives have been addressed through this reflective process, new experiences may be added to the mix and a new articulated learning cycle started.

Valli’s Typology

The final model of reflection that has been applied to journal writing was developed by Linda Valli (1997). Her model is a typology of reflection and is based on the work of several others including Schon, Dewey, and Habermas. It includes five types of reflection:

1. Technical reflection focusing on comparing performance to estab-lished criteria.

2. Reflection in-action and on-action focusing on a student’s individual learning experience (note the clear connection to Schon’s work).

3. Deliberative reflection, which focuses on comparing different view-points.

4. Personalistic reflection focusing on a student’s personal thoughts, feelings, and relationships with others.


5. Critical reflection, which focuses on evaluating a learning experi-ence with any number of criteria.

We find that Valli’s typology of reflection is helpful in getting students to think about what they choose to reflect on. It gives them some choices and direction if they find they are writing too much in one type of reflection.

Some Final Thoughts on Models of Reflection

As we mentioned at the start of this section, we thought it important to include a number of models and explanations examining the process of reflection. From our experience, reflection is not a one-size-fits-all proposi-tion. Educators who are aware of the breadth and depth of potential ways that students go about reflecting will be better positioned to support stu-dents in their journal writing activities. Educators can use a mix and match approach to suggest a model or models that work best for a particular stu-dent or group of students. You might find you develop your own model over time—if you do, please let us know about it.

You may have noticed that not many of these models really “define” what reflection is all about. They rely on the model, or the types of reflec-tion, to serve as a definition. As previously mentioned, many people draw from Dewey’s definition that we shared at the beginning of this chapter. However, we like Russell Rogers’ (2001) definition, which he developed from his review of models of reflection. He defined reflection as a process that enables a learner to “integrate the understanding gained into one’s experience in order to enable better choices or actions in the future as well as enhance one’s overall effectiveness” (Rogers, 2001, p. 41).

The questions you might be asking yourself at this point are “So what? Do journals really make a difference? Do they promote reflection?” Obvi-ously we think so or we wouldn’t be writing this book. There are other edu-cators who agree with us as well! The next section presents a brief overview of the research on journaling from a variety of academic viewpoints.

What the Research Has to Say About Journal Writing

As you might imagine, we’ve accumulated lots of articles, books, and other resources related to using journal writing as an educational tool with stu-dents. These resources provide a great descriptive overview of how educa-tors have used journals in a variety of settings, with students of all types of demographic backgrounds, and with different goals, objectives and intended outcomes. However, there is surprisingly little research that ex-


amines journaling in a systematic way. We’ve attempted to weave much of what others think about journaling and reflection throughout this book. However, we think it is important to provide a brief overview of what re-searchers have discovered in terms of the effectiveness of journaling in order to help you understand why we’ve included some of the chapters and information in this book that might not seem so important at first glance. The main areas of research that we’ll address include educator and student perceptions of journals, quality of reflection, and educators’ implementation of journals with students.

Perceptions of Journals

Educators. Most of the academic literature we’ve found related to journal writing assumes that educators have a positive viewpoint towards journaling, or supports the use of journals through anecdotal evidence. However, we were surprised that a study we conducted (O’Connell & Dy-ment, 2006) was the only one we could find that examined educators’ per-spectives in a systematic fashion. We found that, in general, educators did indeed have a positive view towards journals. However, they also provided some clear examples of journal writing experiences with students that simply did not meet their expectations. For example, they reported that students would often only report basic facts and not attempt to critically reflect on their experiences.

When asked to elaborate on these experiences, the educators in our research were clear in their assertions that journaling is not something to be taken lightly. They indicated that as journals often confront conven-tional assumptions about education (e.g., assessment needs to be “num-ber driven” and quantitative, student experiences aren’t very valuable, students aren’t able to construct new knowledge on their own), they must be carefully thought through before being implemented. To combat this, these educators suggested that ongoing training (for both themselves and students) in journal writing was important, as well as proper framing of the assignment. They also mentioned that a positive attitude and demeanor towards journaling could go far in promoting the acceptance of journaling by others. Finally, they noted that as traditional journaling may not be for every student, alternative formats should be explored, and that providing exemplars (e.g., sample journals on reserve in the library or model en-tries) could lead to more fruitful outcomes. We expand on some of these ideas in Chapter 5.

Students. In terms of student perceptions of journaling, there has been considerably more research done. Most of this research has found


that students have a positive view towards journaling (Baker, 2007; Cole, 1994; Dyment & O’Connell, 2003, 2008; Nesoff, 2004). However, students in these studies did report varied feelings towards the different aspects of the journaling process. For example, Cole (1994) found that while students appreciated journaling as part of a class/course, they did not write optional journals. We also found this in our 2003 and 2008 stud-ies—most students indicated that they only wrote journals as required for their classes. Some indicated they did keep a journal outside of class, but overwhelmingly they did not. Interestingly, these students reported that they liked to go back and read their journals. Intuitively, it would make sense that as they viewed looking at their journals as gratifying, students would be encouraged to write in them on a more regular basis. This ap-pears to not be the case!

In our research, we also found that students did not favor mandatory journaling or pre-formatted journals. They preferred to be able to journal how and when they liked. Other researchers have found similar results. When students were queried by Irwin Nesoff in 2004 as to whether or not they would prefer to have another journal assignment in future classes, only 24% (47 of 197) of students agreed or strongly agreed. Nesoff went on to say that although students might not like journaling, they were able to see the value of it as a learning exercise. This might be especially true if jour-nals are used as a type of formative assessment, as William Baker (2007) found that students appreciated feedback during the course of their journ-aling experience, and not solely at the end.

In terms of academic benefits, most studies have found that students appreciate how journal writing stimulates their thinking, allows them to investigate more deeply into a specific subject area, integrates other ma-terials such as readings into their knowledge base, forces them to read for content instead of skimming for pleasure, as well as makes them consider viewpoints other than their own (Baker, 2007; Cole, 1994). Others such as Nesoff (2004) found that students valued the opportunity to critically think and develop their own ideas about course content. However, we discovered through a series of studies that students actually perceive themselves to be much better at critical thinking (and thus reflective journaling) than they actually are (Dyment & O’Connell, 2003). Students also perceive that jour-nals allow them to make connections to the “real world” and to reflect on their learning experiences, which is the focus of the next area of research we address on journaling.


Quality of Reflection

As many journaling assignments are implemented to encourage stu-dents to reflect, there is a correspondingly large body of research related to reflection, of which we provide a snapshot of studies that represent the general tone of the research. Most of these studies use the various frame-works for reflection we presented earlier in this chapter.

Researchers from a range of disciplines, including pre-service teacher training programs, nursing programs, sustainable design programs and outdoor recreation programs, have examined the quality of journal entries written by students. The findings, irrespective of discipline, are somewhat concerning—much of the research suggests that many students are writing simply descriptive accounts of events, with few engaging critically and reflec-tively. These researchers have used a variety of frameworks or typologies that we have presented in this chapter for assessing the journals —we go over many of these again in Chapter 7, when we present how they can be used to assess journals. If you want more information now on each of the typologies, jump ahead to Chapter 7 and then come back to this section of Chapter 4.

The researchers conducting these studies, by and large, hoped that stu-dents would be writing at the higher levels of critical thought or reflecting in a more meaningful way than just listing facts and repeating information. However, overwhelmingly these studies found that it is rare for students to be critical reflectors, or writing at the highest levels of thought. For ex-ample, Frances Wong and her colleagues (Wong, Kember, Chung, & Yan, 1995) found that only 11.1% of the nursing students in their study were considered critical reflectors. They surmised that perhaps students were reflecting without recording their thoughts in their journals, or that many students were getting something out of their experiences but were unable to connect it to other learning opportunities.

Similarly, Margaret Plack and her colleagues (Plack, Driscoll, Blissett, McKenna, & Plack, 2005) discovered that, on average, only 18 of 43 jour-nals (42%) of their physical therapy students showed evidence of “premise reflection” or the highest level proposed by Mezirow and associates (1990). On a more promising note, they reported that 95.3% of the journals had at least one element of some type of reflection. Likewise, Karran Thorpe (2004) found that a majority of nursing students could be classified as re-flectors, or the middle level of Kember et al.’s (1999) three level concep-tualization of reflection. This shows that journals do promote some type of reflection. However, Thorpe found that only 6 of 52 students (11.5%) could be labeled at the highest level as critical reflectors. In her review of nine studies related to the use of reflective journals in nursing education, Sheila


Epp (2008) reported much the same—most journal entries were made at the lowest levels of reflection. She did point out that while a majority of the entries were at lower levels, large percentages of students did make at least one entry at the highest levels of reflection.

On the bright side, Sharon Jensen and Christina Joy (2005) found that 63% of the journals they reviewed for their study showed higher levels of reflective thought. Interestingly, they found that early in the semester, 80% of the journal entries of the nursing students were at the higher end of the spectrum of reflective thought. This decreased to 60% at the middle of the term, and to 50% by the end of the term. Additionally, they found that only 18% of all journal entries (573 total) reached the highest of seven levels of reflection. They surmised that the higher levels of reflection require more feedback and guidance from the educator instead of just practice. Jensen and Joy also point out that they only discussed reflection and reflective skills at the beginning of the course. They did not revisit how to reflect during the latter portions of their course. Finally, they recognize that many stu-dents don’t have the ability to recognize important moments or experienc-es on which they should reflect. Jennifer Sumsion and Alma Fleet (1996) found similarly positive results as well, with 78% of the pre-service teacher journal entries being highly reflective or more-than-moderately reflective.

Our own research with our outdoor recreation students adds some insight into the quality of reflection in student journals—and the results are quite troubling (O’Connell & Dyment, 2006). We performed a content analysis of 880 journal entries of 59 outdoor recreation students who had participated in a field experience (e.g., canoe expedition, rock climbing). We used Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking to analyze the jour-nal entries. Each entry was assigned a level of the taxonomy.

We found that the majority of student journal entries were fairly de-scriptive and that critical reflection, by and large, was absent. While the ma-jority of student journal entries contained descriptions of day-to-day events, personal reflections, and observations of group dynamics, surprisingly few entries made any connections between the field and in-class experi-ences. When the entries were evaluated in light of Bloom’s taxonomy, 74% of the entries were written at the lowest three levels (Knowledge = 23.3%; Comprehension = 37.2%; and, Application = 13%). The remaining en-tries were distributed evenly over the higher three levels of the taxonomy (Analysis = 6.4%; Synthesis = 7.7%; Evaluation = 8.2%). In terms of types of entries,1 our content analysis revealed that the majority of journal entries (92.7%) contained factual information (e.g., weather, dates, distance trav-eled) and 63.6% contained personal reflections. The student journals con-tained a moderate number of entries related to group dynamics (38.8%)


and sense of place (24.8%) and a small number of entries related to flora and fauna (15.7%) as well as professional development (11.7%). Surpris-ingly, fewer than 1% of the journal entries made connections between aca-demic theory and field courses.

After we did the content analysis and realized that so many entries were descriptive and at the low levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, we were both sur-prised and disappointed in the quality of journal writing. What had gone wrong? Why were the entries so descriptive? Then we wondered if the stu-dents were even aware of the quality of the writing in their journals?

To explore this last question, we conducted a focus group with nine of our students to understand the issue of students’ perceptions of their abili-ties (O’Connell & Dyment, 2006). We asked them direct questions about their abilities in journaling. First, we explained Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) to the outdoor recreation students and asked them to identify the level at which they were typically writing. The students were unequivocal in their contention that they were writing at the highest levels (i.e., synthesis and evaluation). Then, we provided students with a list of specific types of entries (e.g., personal reflections, relating academic and field experiences, and professional development) and asked students what kinds of entries they made. Again, all participants reported that they made a wide variety of types of entries and that they were able to make connections between their field expeditions and other academic experiences. The nine students unanimously contended that they were advanced journal writers and that their journals were a venue for critically evaluating their experiences, edu-cators, and themselves. Yet, in our content analysis of the student journals, we found very different results.

At this point, given all the research that we’ve just presented, you might think that journals actually aren’t that effective in facilitating deep reflec-tion. However, in this book we provide you with several strategies to assist students in overcoming these barriers to writing and reflecting at the high-est levels of critical thought. We touch on them briefly here in the context of research that has been done on how educators go about successfully implementing journaling with their students.

Journal Implementation

We’ve mentioned earlier in this book that journals are a popular means of encouraging reflection with students from any number of academic dis-ciplines. We found it interesting that the research that relates to the logis-tics of journaling (i.e., how journaling is taught and/or framed for specific


learning experiences) is very compartmentalized. There is relatively little cross-over among disciplines, which is surprising, as there could be a fertile exchange of ideas and methods if this occurred. This is particularly salient as many of the researchers suggest implementing journals in the same way to overcome similar problems. In this section, we tackle the compartmen-talization for you—we distil the commonalities of the research from dif-ferent disciplines into one section to provide an overview of what’s been examined in a systematic fashion.

In terms of teacher education, Elizabeth Spalding and Angene Wilson’s (2002) work gives a great description and assessment of a well-planned jour-naling assignment. Spalding and Wilson developed this after their realiza-tion that they must “demystify” reflection and journaling for their students, which is a common sentiment across the research articles we have read. They planned a series of lessons and exercises designed to help students with reflection and journal writing that they both used with their respec-tive students. Components of their assignment/implementation process in-cluded a weekly submission of student journals, an exploration of reflection through analysis of a Barbara Kingsolver essay, a lesson on Valli’s typology of reflection, peer sharing of journals, student choice of entry topic, and a midpoint reflection on learning.

Some students were asked to keep a traditional hard copy journal, while others submitted their weekly entries via email. Those students who submit-ted hard copy journals received handwritten feedback in their journal. The educator also indicated the level of reflection present in specific entries us-ing a key, and the students occasionally did this as well (using the same key). Those students who submitted email journals received electronic comments on the holistic nature of their entries for the week. The educator also mod-eled and supported student use of creative entries such as poetry.

Through their study, Spalding and Wilson concluded that reflection must be taught, and that educators must not assume that students know how to reflect, particularly in a critical manner. They noted that teaching and using a consistent model of reflection (i.e., Valli’s typology) allowed the educators and students to have a specific reference on what constitutes a certain level of reflection. This smoothed the way for feedback to be giv-en. In terms of sharing their journals with peers, students in this study were generally undecided about their views. Finally, the researchers remarked that the students didn’t value electronic journals as much as hard copy jour-nals. The educators actually stopped using electronic submissions, as the entries would arrive at all times of the day, required too much personal time for responses, and were generally unreliable. One of their greatest findings


was that students valued feedback the most. It didn’t matter what type of feedback, as long as they received it.

Patricia Connor-Greene (2000) implemented and studied an innova-tive journaling assignment with psychology students. Connor-Greene asked students to keep a journal in which they applied concepts related to person-ality theories to characters from books, television shows, friends, and family, among others. Students commented on how the example related to a par-ticular theorist, a concept from the related theory, and how the character exemplified that concept. In one semester, students were asked to make an entry each week for 15 weeks. In a subsequent semester, students only made an entry every three weeks for a total of five entries. To determine the effectiveness of this method of implementing journals, Connor-Greene compared exam scores of the two groups of students who kept journals with those from a previous class who hadn’t kept journals. She found that both groups of students who kept journals did significantly better on exams (which were comparable in terms of content and types of question) than students who hadn’t kept journals. There was no difference between stu-dents who made 15 entries and those who made five entries.

From much the same impetus as Spalding and Wilson, we decided to test the effects of a workshop we designed to train students to become bet-ter journal writers (O’Connell & Dyment, 2003). Our workshop, which serves as the foundation for much of the information in this book, was designed to teach students about different levels of critical thinking using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Thinking (1956), as well as to make jour-naling more fun by introducing creative writing techniques and materials such as colored pens and stickers (see the outline in the Appendix). We found that in general, regardless of participation in the workshop, women preferred journaling more than men, which is consistent with Christopher Burt’s (1994) research on gender differences in diary keeping. We also found that participation in the workshop did influence several key areas of student perceptions towards journaling. Generally, students who were in the workshop had a more positive view towards journaling.

A more recent area of research that has emerged is related to elec-tronic journaling. Alan Gleaves, Caroline Walker, and John Grey (2007, 2008) reported on their study between digitally-based and paper-based journals. Both groups were given the same instructions regarding entries. They found that students using digital journals were significantly more compliant (i.e., they returned journals when required) than students us-ing paper journals. In terms of the accuracy of entries (i.e., the students included all components of an entry as specified by the educators), there were no differences between groups. However, these researchers indicated


that the students using paper journals wrote more words on average per entry than students using digital journals (285.5 words versus 119.2 words respectively). Gleaves and his colleagues go on to discuss the pros and cons of digital and paper journals.

In the second part of their study, Gleaves, Walker, and Grey analyzed the entries of student journals and compared those that were digital to those that were paper-based. They found that digital diaries were used for “less reflective and more immediate judgmental purposes, short statements being predominantly rapid assessment of the students’ thoughts as they oc-cur” (Gleaves, Walker, & Grey, 2008, p. 228). While this at first may appear to be a negative consequence of digital journals, the researchers argue that the ability to quickly capture raw emotions, thoughts, and evaluations is im-portant. They also found that students using paper journals exhibited more eloquent writing and developed a voice in the journals. The researchers note that paper journals allow students to read and re-read previous entries, which helps inform their subsequent writing, which is often not possible in digital format. Further, they note that the technological, temporal, and physical difficulties of making entries on a personal digital assistant (PDA)


using a stylus may influence the way students choose to express themselves. These researchers conclude that while digital journals offer some promise, they are relatively limited as a tool for creating meaningful reflection.

These studies we’ve presented above are a small selection from the aca-demic literature on the use and effects of journaling with students. We’ve chosen to highlight these studies as they provide a synopsis of the current state of research related to journaling and mirror the major themes in this book. We return to Spalding and Wilson (2002), who summarize the com-mon themes that have emerged from the existing literature:

1. Educators must not assume students know how to reflect—it must be taught and fostered in students.

2. Providing and using models of reflection helps both students and educators better understand “good” reflection.

3. Educators should provide some minimum structure to help guide students’ writing.

4. Educators should devote an appropriate amount of time to fostering reflection and providing feedback to students on their journals.

5. Grading journals should be carefully considered in terms of the goals and objectives of the assignment and the intended purpose of the journal.

We agree strongly with Spalding and Wilson’s themes and hope we’ve addressed many of them throughout this book.

Conclusion

Journal writing has the potential to assist students in critically reflecting on their experiences and integrating what they’ve learned with what they already know. As such, we think that educators who choose to use journals should have a firm understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of re-flection and its role in learning. As we’ve discussed in the first part of this chapter, there are many learning models to assist educators in further un-derstanding not only the place of reflection in learning, but how individual students might uniquely experience reflection as part of the learning pro-cess. There are plenty of models to choose from—we encourage you to pick one that makes sense to you and try it out with your students!

In terms of systematic research that’s been done on journaling, the results support the use of journals as a way of getting students to critically reflect on their experiences and their topic of study. However, there are sev-


eral caveats to this, which require educators to carefully plan, execute, and monitor journal writing assignments. While we briefly touched on these factors for success in this chapter, we integrate strategies and approaches to create conditions for successful outcomes throughout the rest of this book.

Notes 1. A single journal passage might contain several types of entries, such as per-

sonal reflection, observation of flora and fauna, as well as factual information. For Bloom’s taxonomy, however, each journal passage was assigned only one level—the highest level of entry.


5Supporting Students

to Journal Successfully

Do you get excited when students hand in their journals for feedback and assessment? Do you feel honored to be privy to their insights,

thoughts, and reflections? We do!

Yet more often than not, after the initial excitement subsides and the realities of responding and assessing sink in, we find ourselves feeling quite disappointed with the quality of the journals. The journals are often just descriptive accounts of events, with little engagement, higher order think-ing, or critical reflection. And we know we’re not alone—we have heard countless other educators echo our disappointments, noting “they’re just repeating what we did,” or “they are simply regurgitating the facts.” How disenchanting!

Yet, perhaps these largely descriptive journal entries should come as little surprise. Upon closer examination, there appear to be a few good rea-sons why the journals of students might be this way: students may simply not know how to journal deeply, educators might not be giving clear enough


directions, students might fear having their true thoughts revealed, deep reflection takes hard work and persistence, and students might not trust their reader.

Given all these reasons, it is critical that educators do not assume that students have the expertise, knowledge, or interest to write journal entries at a high level. Students with so little experience can not be simply handed a blank journal and told to write about x, y, or z. They need help, support, training, and scaffolding to help them become better journal writers. This is what we look at more closely in this chapter.

What Inhibits Reflection and Good Journal Writing

The findings noted in the previous chapter are troubling—many research-ers have found that the large majority of students are writing descriptive journal entries! Why is this so? How has this come to be? In this section of the chapter, we examine some of the key factors that can inhibit good jour-nal writing and deep reflection.

Lack of clarity and poor expectations of the journals. If students do not have a clear understanding of the purpose and expectations of their journal, then they might not know exactly what is expected from them. This points to the critical importance of framing the journal writing experience. Stu-dents need to know why they are keeping a journal, how it fits into the over-all program of study, if and how it will be assessed, who will be reading their journal, and specific requirements, like due dates and page limits.

Lack of training. An overarching reason for the poor quality of journals is that many educators fail to provide adequate training to their students to help them become the kind of journal writer they hope for. They simply hand students a blank journal and tell them to get writing, with few direc-tions, templates, scaffolding, or guidance. It is of little surprise these stu-dents might struggle a fair bit with the new way of learning.

Indeed, journals represent a way of learning for students that stands in stark contrast to traditional ways. As we noted in Chapter 3, students are products of teacher-centered education systems, where the teacher is often seen as expert and where students are passive recipients. Given this context, it is easy to understand that students won’t be familiar with this new way of thinking and writing. If students have been told to acquire and transmit facts throughout their schooling experience in exams, tests, and essays, then it makes sense that students will reproduce this way of knowing in their journals.

Supporting Students to Journal Successfully 75

Perhaps most importantly, to reflect deeply and critically is a difficult skill that few students (or educators) have developed. To journal well, stu-dents need to have personal insights and be open to changing their per-spectives or fundamental beliefs. It is a lot easier to write about what hap-pened than to write about applications, connections, and critiques. Some students will simply be drawn to the easy road of journal writing and will need help to be able to journal deeply.

Furthermore, the students will come to journal writing with varying degrees of experience. Some students might have kept journals for other classes, others might have kept journals in their personal lives, still others might have kept a childhood diary, and finally others might never have kept a journal ever. All of these reasons point to the critical importance of providing students with adequate training in how to reflect more deeply.

Negative responses and unfair assessment. The skills required to generate higher levels of reflection require more than simply practice—they also re-quire guidance, critique, mentoring, and reinforcement that comes from good feedback. Students can get this feedback in a number of ways, includ-ing the responses and assessment they receive from educators. As we’ll look at more closely in Chapter 7, these issues of responding to and assessing journals is a complicated and delicate one. If an educator responds and assesses in a fair, transparent, and deep way, then this opens up the possibili-ties for students to improve and enhance subsequent journal entries. How-ever, if an educator responds in an unfair, inconsistent, and inappropriate way, there is a real chance that students will get frustrated and lose their interest in journaling generally and more specifically, journaling deeply.

Perceptions of the trustworthiness of the reader. Understandably, some stu-dents will be reluctant to reflect honestly and deeply if they are concerned about the trustworthiness of the reader. They might choose to keep the writing on the surface if they have reason to believe that there is not a safe space for their deep thoughts, ideas, and reflections. In an interesting study that involved 600 nurses, it was found that the facilitator was the pivotal factor in supporting deep reflection—more important than the nurses’ ex-perience or academic training (Paget, 2001). This points to the real impor-tance of educators developing trustworthy relationships with their students.

Individual styles of learning. The reality is that the students with whom we work have different learning styles. As we noted in Chapter 3, some will rel-ish in the opportunity to journal reflectively—they will see it as a chance to (finally) demonstrate their competencies and abilities that are often side-lined in traditional education systems. Other students, however, who thrive in a traditional model of education whereby the teacher is expert and the


student is a passive recipient who is responsible for transmitting facts on exams and tests, might struggle with reflective journaling. We need to be aware of these different learning styles and be open to the fact that not all students will “shine” through a journal writing task. Educators should be open to considering alternative assessment tasks for those latter students.

Strategies for Encouraging Deeper Reflection and Better Journals

Although the list of factors that stand to inhibit reflection is big and poten-tially daunting, we think that there are some strategies that can be easily implemented to address some of these factors. And the good news from the research supports the contention that learning to write reflectively can be developed over time (Epp, 2008)! In fact, Landeen and her colleagues (Landeen, Byrne, & Brown, 1994) found that the students demonstrated improved journal writing skills in just 13 weeks. There is hope!

In this section, we look at strategies that can be used to support deeper reflection.

Framing the journal experience: Clarity and expectations. One of the first things that can set the stage for successful journal writing is clear expecta-tions. Students need to have a very clear understanding about all aspects of the journal writing process before they are expected to begin writing. To that end, we have generated a number of questions that educators should be able to answer before they assign journals to their students. By having the answers to these questions clear before journals are assigned, educators are well along the way to supporting a successful journaling experience.

A. What is the purpose of the journal? It is often the case that students are simply asked to write in journals, with no purpose being formally specified. Making the purpose as clear as possible is crucial for setting the stage for successful journal writing. Delin-eate whether the journals are being used to record experience, facilitate learning from an experience, support understanding, develop critical thinking, encourage meta-cognition, encourage ownership of learning, or enhance problem solving skills (Moon, 2006). A journal might have one or more of these tasks—but it is critical students have a good understanding of the purpose for their journal.

B. How does the journal fit into the overall program of study? It is impor-tant that students have a good understanding of how the journal task fits into a bigger picture—for example, (How) does the


journal align with an overall degree at a university? (How) does it align with other courses that are being offered simultaneously? (How) does it fit with previous assessment tasks? (How) does it fit with the pedagogical approach to teaching and learning at the institution?

C. Who will read the journal? Students deserve to have a clear under-standing of who will read the journal. Will it be read by other stu-dents? If so, which one(s)? Will it be read by an educator? Again, if so, which one(s)?

D. What are the assessment criteria and standards? Students must know if and how they are going to be assessed on their journal before they begin to write. To that end, if journals are going to be assessed, then educators must provide the criteria and standards that will be used for grading. We look more closely at some assessment op-tions in Chapter 7.

E. How much does the journal count? Students have a right to know how much a piece of writing matters or counts. Peter Elbow (1997) makes a simple distinction between “high stakes” and “low stakes” writing. Low stakes writing is graded informally—it allows students to think, learn, and understand without the pressure of being graded. Conversely, high stakes writing is more loaded because students will be assessed for content and clarity of presentation.

F. What are the specific requirements? Finally, when setting the stage for successful journal writing, it is critical to give the students all the specific details about the specific mechanics of journal writing. It is important to consider the following points:

– What type of journal is required? (e.g., leather book, black book, homemade paper, or does it matter?)

– What are the size requirements? (e.g., legal size paper, letter size paper, or does it matter?)

– What are the technological boundaries? (e.g., can the journal be word processed or must it be handwritten? Can the journal be online as a blog?)

– How many entries are required? (e.g., one entry per day or per week or per month, or does it matter?)

– What length of entry is required? (e.g., one paragraph per entry or 250 words per entry, or does it matter?)

– Are there specific items that must appear in each entry? (e.g., date, location, time, weather, location?)

– When is the journal due for assessment? (e.g., specific date or random collection?) When will it be returned?


Training: Defining, discussing, and practicing models of reflection. Dewey reminds us that reflective habits of the mind must be taught. As has been noted in the literature, “We . . . must teach—not simply assign—reflection if we want . . . teachers to become more reflective” (Spalding & Wilson, 2002, p. 1415). To that end, we have developed a one hour training workshop that we have used with great success with our students. We’ve provided an outline of the workshop in the Appendix at the end of this book. Feel free to borrow and modify this workshop as appropriate. We cover many of the elements of the workshop in the remaining sections of this chapter.

A basic foundation for supporting good journal writing that includes deep reflection is to make sure that our students have a good understanding of what reflection is and what it isn’t. Now, you might recall from Chapter 4 that there is little agreement among educators and researchers as to a shared definition and understanding of “reflection”—in fact, it is quite a contested term. The literature abounds with numerous models and theories of reflection.

And it is these models, definitions, and theories of reflection that be-come an important starting point for teaching our students how to reflect. Don’t be put off by the fact that there isn’t agreement in the literatures around one exact definition—let your students know that there are lots of

Photo 5.1 Training students to journal can happen anywhere.


different ideas and thoughts about reflection. We find this acknowledge-ment of multiple perspectives lifts some of the pressure from our students to feel there is a “right way” to reflect.

Introduce your students to some of the various models and theories we covered in this book (see Chapter 4 and Chapter 7), such as:

◾ Dewey’s Process of Experiential Learning (Dewey, 1938) ◾ Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984) ◾ Scanlon and Chernomas three-stage model of reflection (1997) ◾ Kember’s four stage model of reflection (Kember, McKay, Sin-

clair, & Wong, 2008) ◾ Valli’s Typology (Valli, 1997) ◾ Schon’s Reflective Practicioner Work (Schon, 1983) ◾ Hatton and Smith’s Framework (Hatton & Smith, 1995) ◾ Merizow’s Typology (Merizow & Associates, 1990) ◾ Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking (Bloom, 1956) ◾ Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton’s Articulated Learning model (2004)

For the models you choose to teach, provide students with examples of what it means to write at each level. In our own research with our stu-dents, we have relied heavily on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking to help students understand qualities and levels of reflection, and we provide students with exemplars of journal entries from each of the six levels (see Figure 5.1 for an example of writing at either end of the Bloom spectrum).

After you’ve introduced some models and provided exemplars, give students samples of writing and have them determine what kind of re-flection is being presented using a given model of reflection. A range of types of writing (other than simply journal entries) can be used to help students understand levels of reflection. For example, Elizabeth Spalding and Angene Wilson (2002) teach their pre-service teachers Valli’s Typol-ogy (1997) and then use some narrative work by Barbara Kingsolver to help their students learn about what is and is not reflection. Specifically, they use Kingsolver’s (1995) piece entitled “In Case You Ever Want To Go Home Again” in which the author reflects on her experiences at high school in a small U.S. town.

In our own work teaching students about levels of reflection, we’ve of-ten photocopied passages of our own personal journals and invited students to comment on if and how we are writing reflectively (we provide them with a framework for assessment). By offering students this opportunity to see our own writing, and opening ourselves up to receiving feedback publicly,


we begin the important process of developing a transparent and trusting relationship with students—something that goes a long way towards invit-ing students to journal more critically.

Responses and feedback. Opportunities to help students become deeper and more critical journal writers come through the nature of responses that we offer on student journals. As we will see in Chapter 7, Peter Elbow de-scribes a continuum of responses that are possible (Elbow, 1997), ranging from low stakes to high stakes.

1. Zero response (lowest stakes) 2. Minimal, nonverbal, non-critical response

(a)

Figure 5.1 Examples of journal writing entries at the “knowledge” (lowest) and “evalua-tion” (highest) levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. (a) This first entry, by Simon, is coded at the lowest level of Bloom’s taxonomy (Knowledge) and contains only factual information and limited personal reflection. (continued)


3. Supportive response—no criticism 4. Descriptive and observational response 5. Minimal, nonverbal critical response 6. Critical response, diagnosis, advice (highest stakes)

Through our use of both low and high levels of responding, we can help students understand the nature and level of their reflections and in doing so, encourage them to become deeper and more critical journal writ-ers (see Table 5.1).

Grades as a motivator for deeper reflection. Although time intensive written responses will be a wonderful support for some students in their journey to become deeper journal writers, the reality is that some students will be far more motivated by grades. So, when educators design their assessment cri-teria and standards for the journal writing assignment, they might choose to reward students who write more deeply and critically with higher grades.

(b)

Figure 5.1 (continued) Examples of journal writing entries at the “knowledge” (lowest) and “evaluation” (highest) levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. (b) In contrast, the following entry, by Clara, reflects a much higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy (Evaluation) and illustrates an effort to connect her classroom theoretical experiences with the practical field course.


As will be discussed in Chapter 7, there are a number of models that can be used as frameworks for assessing levels of reflection. For example, if an educator chose to use David Kember and his colleagues’ four level frame-work for assessing reflection (Kember et al., 2008), then they might choose to assign grades as illustrated in Table 5.2.

The obvious risk in using an approach like this lies in the fact that some students will inevitably write to the criteria and standards, instead of writing for exploration or learning. While this can be problematic, there is room to use grades as a motivator if it helps/forces students to gain an understand-ing of differing qualities of reflection.

Table 5.1 elbow’s levels of Responses to Support More Critical and Reflective Journal Writing

Peter Elbow’s (1997) Levels of Response to Writing

Examples of How Each Level Can Encourage More Critical Reflections

1. Zero response (lowest stakes)

Not relevant.

2. Minimal, nonverbal, non-critical response

Use a checkmark or straight line to note passages of text that are particularly critical or higher order.

3. Supportive response—no criticism

Use words to praise or provide positive reinforcement as to the passage of text that are at higher levels of reflection. For example “This section of the entry is a great example of writing at the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Please do more of this in other entries.”

4. Descriptive and observational response

Help students see their own text and to understand the approach they have used. “You begin with a description of the morning’s activities and then move into a strong analysis of the group dynamics and leadership styles that were used, bringing reference to the theory covered in class.”

5. Minimal, nonverbal critical response

Use squiggly lines, crosses, or unhappy faces alongside passages of text that are problematic (e.g., limited reflection, pure description).

6. Critical response, diagnosis, advice (highest stakes)

Provide lengthy and detailed responses on journal entries that show students how their writing aligns with expectations you have about the level of reflection. For example, “What I see you doing here is simply recounting the activities of the day. Remember, I was there too. Tell me how you feel and think about the activities; narrate only those parts of the activity that enable you to come to your conclusion.”


Relationships with the reader. Another important factor that stands to limit or enable deep reflection lies in the relationship between the journal writer and the journal reader. How do educators create these trustworthy relationships? It is easier said than done, but here are a few ideas. Educators need to create a safe space in their teaching, through modeling an ethic of care (Noddings, 1984) and through practicing gratitude (Howells, 2007). If educators want their students to trust them, the educators must also trust their students—they must be willing to take risks as well. They must be will-ing to share—deeply and authentically with their students.

Where possible and appropriate, we invite opportunities to share per-sonal information with our students—we share information about our re-lationships, our families, our histories, our hopes, our fears, our concerns,

Table 5.2 assigning Grades to a Journal entry Using David Kember and his Colleagues Four level Framework

Kember et al.’s (2008) Four Level Framework for Assessing Journals Description

Potential Grading Options

Critical reflection • Involves a critical review of ingrained assumptions

• Profound level of reflection• Might involve change from

normal ways of doing things• Challenge of firmly held

beliefs and ideas

A HD 80–100

Reflection • Active, considered and careful consideration of any belief or knowledge

• Critique of assumptions• Exploration of experiences to

lead to new understanding or appreciations

B DN 70–79

Understanding • Make use of existing knowledge without attempting to evaluate that knowledge

• Learning remains safely within existing perspectives

• Demonstrates understanding without relating to other situations

C CR 60–69

Habitual action • Non-reflective activities D/F PP/NN 50–59<50


our joys, our sadnesses, and our dreams. This sharing can open up the doorway and allow a trusting relationship to develop. This trusting relation-ship often manifests in the students’ journals. It is as if the students are say-ing “hey, they are willing to share with me, so I guess I can share with them too!” Where these opportunities to develop trusting relationship occur, we have found that student journals are often much deeper and authentic. Of course, we rely on our judgment of the students’ maturity levels to ascertain whether or not this practice of sharing our journals is appropriate. We need to have a fairly mature and responsible group of students whom we feel certain can handle us sharing our journals.

Teaching occasions of reflection. It is a commonly held assumption that reflection and journal writing should take place after something has hap-pened. However, it has been argued that such a view puts learners in a posi-tion of being a passive respondent to events (Boud, 2001). To counteract this notion, David Boud has proposed three “occasions of reflection”: in an-ticipation of events, during them, and afterward. He contends that journal writing can be done at each of these times. We’ve encouraged our students to consider these three occasions of reflection and have found this opens up possibilities for deeper reflection across a range of contexts.

1. Reflection in anticipation of events. Journaling in advance of an event can help students prepare for what is to come. They can focus on their role as a learner (What are my expectations of the event? How strongly do I hold these expectations, and will they blind me to oth-er outcomes?). Students can also reflect on the context of the event by clarifying questions they might have about the event (What do I need to know to make the event productive for me? What is the philosophy of the organization that might influence the event?). Finally, before the activity, students might reflect on learning skills and strategies that would be helpful to maximize the opportunities that are going to be available through participation (e.g., What strengths do I bring to this event? What are my areas of concern about my skill base? What if my assumptions about the event are wrong? What will I fall back on in order to cope effectively?).

2. Reflection in the midst of action. Journal writing can also happen dur-ing an activity. David Schon (1983) refers to this as “reflection-in-action.” Although it can be difficult to write in the thick of things when events can be rapidly changing, Boud (2001) suggests that enough information needs to be recorded to allow for fuller exploration when there is time after the event. During an activity, students can notice and record external world events and internal


thoughts and feelings. They can also note intervening actions that are undertaken to change a situation (e.g., conscious decision not to speak, choice of team mates for group activity).

3. Reflection after events. This is probably the most commonly used occasion of reflection. Often referred to as “reflection-on-action” (Schon, 1983), reflections following events allow students to view the events in a wider and retrospective context. Writing after the experience allows students to return to the experience and write an account of what happened. Students should be encouraged to mentally revisit the event and record not just the activity, but also the feelings and emotions associated with it. Once named, there are opportunities to attend to the feelings: negative feelings can be reviewed, assessed, and perhaps let go; positive feelings can be cel-ebrated and cherished. Finally, there is opportunity to re-evaluate the experience in preparation for future experiences. The process of re-evaluation provides opportunities for bringing in new informa-tion from the event, merging this information with previous expe-riences, transforming perspectives, and challenging old patterns of being and learning in preparation for future events.

Developing the habit. While it has been argued that there are many fac-tors that contribute to a student’s success as a journal writer (e.g., training, timely and appropriate feedback, etc.), there is also a degree of truth in the old adage “practice makes perfect.” Regular journaling helps students develop the habit and skill of reflection. If students aren’t encouraged to journal regularly, then it is understandable that they may continue to disap-point us with the quality of their writing.

In order to help students develop the habit of journal writing, it is im-portant to provide dedicated time for students to write in their journals. This is especially important for beginning journal writers. When working in tradi-tional classroom settings, we often set aside class time for writing in journals. On field experiences, we have found it to be important to devote time to al-low students to write in their journals. It is all too easy for this time to be mar-ginalized on busy expeditions, where travel distances can be long, day light hours can be short, and there is an endless list of chores that need to be done (for example: after a long day on a canoe trip, the group arrives at camp, sets up tents, collects firewood, makes dinner, hangs food, has a debrief, collapses into bed—with another day passed with no time set aside for journal writing).

To that end, we regularly set aside structured journal time for students on expeditions. Students are invited to use this time to write in their jour-nals if they wish (they certainly aren’t forced). We have found that allocat-


ing this time amid a busy schedule sends a clear and strong message that journaling is important and valued.

Another critical aspect of successful journal writing is to model the be-haviors we expect. We are well aware that students watch us closely and that one of our biggest teaching tools is our own behaviors. To that end, we have found that if we model regular journaling behaviors and use the time set aside to write in our own journals, students are quick to mimic us. So, we always carry our journals on expeditions and, when given the opportunity, write in them. We also sit close enough to the group so that they can see that we are writing in our journals. And we try to model it being a fun experience by bringing out creative supplies like crayons, glue sticks, and scissors.

Encourage diverse types of entries. Another technique that we have found to be useful in encouraging more successful journal writing is to show students the range of types of entries. By way of example, in the workshop we devel-oped on journal writing (see Appendix), we introduce seven potential types of journal entries that students could consider while making journal entries and provide exemplars of journal entries from other students’ journals.

The types of entries included: factual information, personal reflection, group dynamics, sense of place, observation of flora/fauna, professional development, transfer of academic theory to the field course, and transfer of the field course to academic theory (see Table 5.3). Factual information included items such as distance traveled, weather conditions, maps used, and so on. Personal reflection included introspective passages of meaning to the individual and his/her perceptions at that moment in time. Group dynamics entries contain information on inter- and intra-personal rela-tionships in the group in which they are traveling. Entries related to sense of place contain connections to the land, environment, and ecosystem. Observations of flora and fauna entries included animal and plant sight-ings and could possibly contain specimens or samples (e.g., flower press-ing in journal). Professional development entries contained evidence of trip completion or skills learned for use in future job applications or as a means of proof of participation. These entries are often witnessed by other group members. The final two types of entries reflect the interplay of what is learned in the traditional classroom and what is learned on a field course.

Providing structure. Instead of simply handing a blank journal to students and asking them to write reflectively, we are becoming increasingly fond of providing structure to the students’ journals. Through this practice, we are finding out that well structured journals help considerably in supporting students’ deeper reflections. And we have been a lot less disappointed with the quality of journal entries we read. By providing students with scaffolding


Table 5.3 Types and examples of Journal entries

Type of Entry Sample entry

Personal reflection and self discovery

“Why am I so excited about the solo? I think I’m looking forward to being totally independent. This search for independence seems strange. I don’t understand it but feel a need to escape the support I need from others. I am very social and always try to support others. Why? I need to prove to myself that I can do it on my own. Who knows . . . maybe I’ll just sit under a tree, get really cold, and feel lonely.”

Group dynamics “I know that each of us in the group will have preconceived ideas about each other based on things we’ve heard from others. I think that it will be very important for each of us to forget these ideas and get to know each other in the group for ourselves. This is our chance to drop expectations from the classroom and just be ourselves with each other.”

Professional development

“Today I learned the retraced figure 8, the Munter’s hitch, and the clove hitch. I know I’ll need those for my job at camp this summer.”

Sense of place/Connection to place

“I had a truly incredible day today. We walked to the beach and were getting wood together for a fire when we saw a whale close to shore. We watched it for a while and figured out that they were grey whales—a mom and baby whale. Learned that they travel between Baja and Alaska (calving in Alaska). Saw all kinds of behaviors such as spyhopping, sounding, and spouting.”

Transfer of academic theory to field course

“I think that our group is in the ‘storming’ stage of Tuckman’s model. We argued over which campsite to choose and it took way too long.”

Transfer of field course to academic theory

“We had a talk from an ecotourist whale watching outfitter today and a tour on the ocean. Now I could go on, but after seeing ‘ecotourism’ in practice today and doing all those readings for class, I’ve made up my mind. I believe that ecotourists are those tourists who have the intent of learning about a scarce resource by visiting and/or recreating in it. It seems to me that ecotourism does have tremendous impact that can almost be more devastating than traditional tourism because it can be so sneaky.”

Factual information Date, location, weather, group members, length of travel, flora/fauna seen, events, etc.


and prompts (i.e., specific questions, writing assignments, and activities), we can give students handrails that avoid the “blank journal syndrome” and can help them become deeper and more reflective journal writers.

By way of illustrations, over the last few years, we’ve designed a sequence of three journals that we have used with success with our students in a multi-year outdoor education program. The first journal is very structured—we provide specific questions that students are expected to answer. The sub-sequent journal is also structured, but less so than the first, and the struc-ture encourages students to engage more reflectively than was expected in the first one. The final journal has no structure—it is an empty journal of their choice, and the students are simply asked to reflect on their experi-ence with no input/guidance/structure from us. In the next sections of this chapter, we take a close look at this progression that we’ve developed.1

Journal #1: Introduction to Outdoor Education

Background to the course. This course is taken by all second year pre-service teachers enrolled in the Bachelor of Human Movement degree at the Uni-versity of Tasmania. The course is intended, as the name implies, to pro-vide students with an overview of the key concepts and theories of outdoor education. The students are required to attend a series of weekly lectures, as well as a three day weekend field experience that involves a number of classic outdoor education activities, including orienteering, environmental education, problem solving, indigenous studies, and large group games. There are approximately 60 students in this class.

Purpose and structure of the journal. All students enrolled in this course are required to purchase a journal from the university book store. We prepare and print this journal in advance of the course, and accordingly the journal mirrors the content of the lectures and the field experience closely. The journal also contains lots of practical information for students (e.g., equipment required, schedule, menu planning, directions and map to camp, as well as rules and safety policies for the field experience). In essence, the journal becomes a “go-to” document for the weekend. Each lecture and each activity from the field experience has a section in the jour-nal, whereby students are required to answer the following three questions:

◾ Describe the activity (in enough detail that you could repeat this activity).

◾ What did you learn about yourself, about others, about the group, about the environment, about facilitating learning, about teaching styles or so on?


◾ How can you or would you use this learning activity? When? Why? How could you modify the activity to achieve different outcomes?

Students are encouraged to use creative approaches to their entries by adding drawings, color, and photos. They are also required to keep each activity’s entry to 500 words. For the first few years of running this course, students were required to complete the entire journal. However, over time,

Sample Journal Page 5.1 This sample entry shows a portion of a student’s response to the questions outlined earlier in this section. Additional directions were also given (i.e., 500 word limit, a reminder that the entry for this activity (storytelling) would be marked out of 5 on a rubric provided to students).


we’ve required the students to complete entries on a requisite number of activities (say, for example, 6 out of 10 of the weekend activities). Students have told us they appreciate the flexibility in choosing which activities they journal about—and we’ve found the marking to be far more manageable.

Overall thoughts. This highly structured journal has been well received by the large numbers of students who are enrolled in this introductory course. Its prescriptive nature has worked well to support students who are very new to journal writing, and we’ve been pleased with the level of reflec-tion we see from relatively novice journal writing students.

Journal #2: Outdoor Environments

Background to the course. This course is the first field course that students who have elected to enter into the Outdoor Education teaching specialization at the University of Tasmania take. There are approximately 15 students in this course, with varying degrees of experience in outdoor education. Stu-dents participate in a series of lectures and a six day hiking expedition in a remote trackless area. As instructors of this course, we are heavily involved in all aspects of the planning (e.g., route, menu, travel, logistics, lesson plans) and the students are active participants. All students who enroll in this course have already completed the first structured journal in Introduc-tion to Outdoor Education.

Purpose and structure of the journal. As this is the first journal for the stu-dents who have elected to enter the Outdoor Education teaching specializa-tion, we structure the journal quite heavily. As before, the students are re-quired to purchase a journal from the university bookstore. The journal is set out to align with the preparatory lectures and the six days of the expedition hike. This means we have to be very organized with our teaching—as it nec-essarily needs to mirror what the students find in their structured journals.

In the section of the journal related to the preparatory lectures, students are required to record learnings and observations about menu planning, equipment, weather, travel logistics, minimum impact, and group dynamics.

Students are required to carry their journals into the field, and each day they are required to document some common objective factual mate-rial, including:

◾ Date ◾ Weather ◾ Start time/finish time ◾ Sunrise/sunset


◾ Map(s) used ◾ Grid references from key locations ◾ Magnetic variation (o): ◾ Distance traveled (km) ◾ Height gain (+) or loss (–) (m): ◾ Description of route and travel ◾ Description of ecology, culture, flora, fauna, geology ◾ Description of group dynamics and leadership ◾ Description of any incidents

While on the hike, each of the days also has a theme with associated sub ques-tions that reflect the major focus for that day. The themes are nature, learn-ing, leadership, solo, group dynamics, going home, and you. In Table 5.4, you can see the questions that guide students for each of the day’s themes.

Overall thoughts. We’ve found this second highly structured journal to be very appropriate for these novice outdoor education students. Given that they come to this course with varying degrees of experience and likely only one previous experience with journal writing, this journal format allows us to ensure that the students are learning important technical and interpersonal skills. While the objective section of the journal requires little engagement and reflection (it is quite rote in nature), the thematic sections and associ-ated sub-questions provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their critical engagement with key issues that we believe are relevant for develop-ing outdoor educators. The structure of the themes and sub-questions allows us to provide handrails to the students to ensure they are thinking about and reflecting upon relevant issues. We believe strongly that if these novice students were simply handed a blank journal, we would be disappointed with the nature of the reflection. We expect we’d get a lot of “we ate porridge for breakfast” and “we walked eight kilometers.” By structuring the journal in the way we have, we allow students the opportunity to record this easy factual information, but we also expect students to reflect deeply on issues that are relevant and timely for their development. This journal requires deeper re-flection than was expected in the Introduction to Outdoor Education course, as evidenced by the nature of the questions.

Journal #3. Outdoor Journeys

Background to the course. This is the final course that students participate in before graduation. The students are required to plan, execute, and evalu-ate an eight day hike in a remote trackless area. As educators, we take a “back seat” role in this course as it is expected that students have all the


Table 5.4 Themes and Questions that Guide Students’ Journal Writing on expedition

Reflecting on Nature• Did you make any connections with the environment today? If so, how and what? If

not, why not?• Is nature really separate from people?• How can you be sure to pay close attention to the natural world when traveling in

such a large group?Reflecting on Learning• What do you know now that you didn’t know before?• What do you think you will remember or retain in knowledge, skills, attitudes, or

feelings as a result of this experience?• (How) is learning different in the field than the classroom?• Do you think that you are retaining more information out here than you would if we

did this in an urban environment?Reflecting on Leadership• Who assumed leadership today?• How was this leadership shown?• Who assumed the followship?• How was this followship shown?• Are you a leader? Reflecting on the Solo Experience• Did you mainly focus on the environment around you, or the environment within

yourself? Is that typical of you?• What were some important things that happened to you during your time alone?Reflecting on Yourself and Your Group• How have you contributed to the group?• Would you make any personal changes in how you will contribute to groups in the

future?• What are some things you appreciate about the members of this group?• Where does this group go from here?• What was it like to meet up with the other group? Reflecting on Going “Home”• How do you feel about the expedition coming to an end? Do you want to go home?

Do you want to stay longer?• How do feel about going back to your car?• Are you still engaged with the group?• Comment on the expression the “barn door is open” • Why does the “barn door” open for some, and not others? Reflecting on You• Describe your behavior on the Expedition. Did you act differently than you

expected? Did any behaviors surface that you hadn’t noticed before?• Did you do or think anything that surprised you?• What was a consistent characteristic of your learning during the Expedition?• Think back to people who helped you reveal something new about yourself. What

did they reveal? Were they staff or fellow participants? What was it about these people that allowed them to do this?

• (How) did your interactions with people change throughout the expedition? What did these uncover about you? About the group?


skills necessary to complete the tasks. Our role is to provide feedback, ask questions, review safety and logistical plans, and ensure that the course ob-jectives are being met.

Purpose and structure of the journal. This journal is completely unstruc-tured. Students are required to buy or make their journal (there have been some beautiful journals that students have made for this course). With the expectation that the students should now (so close to graduation) possess the insight and skills to reflect deeply on all relevant aspects of their experi-ence, they are provided no prompts or scaffolding to guide their reflection. Put simply, we believe that they should now know how to reflect and what to reflect upon. They know that a professional outdoor educator must keep notes on the objective aspects of the expedition (e.g., menu, route, travel, etc.). They also know that it is critical for them to be deeply reflective about all subjective aspects of the expedition, such as group dynamics, leadership styles, and conflict resolution.

Overall thoughts. This unstructured journal that is completed imme-diately before graduation has, by and large, been very well received and completed by the students. The large majority rise to the challenge of the open-ended journaling tasks and relish the opportunity to create their own piece of reflective work. They take great pride in completing their journals as an “almost” professional (about to graduate) and go to great lengths to document the objective and subjective aspects of the planning, execution, and evaluation of the hike. There are, however, some students that see the freedom of graduation as being too close and tempting and can’t be both-ered to do “one more assignment” before they graduate. These students hand in disappointing work (and their grades reflect that!). Thankfully, these students are not the norm.

Conclusion

The previous Chapter 4 concluded with an uncomfortable examination of some research that suggests that many students are writing poor journals that lack much depth or reflection—they are often purely descriptive accounts of the activities. While these research findings might provide you with some solace (hey, at least you’re not alone!), we know that this doesn’t have to be the case. Students can and should be capable of writing the kinds of journals that we envision: deeply reflective, highly critical, and very insightful.

But in order to get there, they will need the kind of training and sup-port that has been described in this chapter. From the beginning, your students need to have clear expectations about the purpose and intent of the journal. We provided you with a number of questions that must be an-


swered before students can start writing. Students need to understand what reflection is—you now have a variety of models and frameworks that can be used to help your students grasp this complex topic. They also need to know the kinds of entries that are possible—we provided a list of pos-sible types of entries, but we know there are lots more out there. Training and support can come through the nature and extent of your responses, feedback, and even your grades. Students need to be encouraged to learn occasions of reflection and to develop the habit of writing—your modeling of journal writing at appropriate times can help this along. Finally, a well structured journal can go a long way towards supporting students as they become more proficient journal writers.

We encourage you to use the ideas that we’ve presented in this chapter. From our own experience, since we’ve let go of the idea that students sim-ply know how to journal and acknowledged the importance of training and support, we have had much more success with our students’ journals. We find that when we provide training and support over the long term, we are getting the kinds of reflective journals that we always knew were possible.

Notes 1. We thank Heidi Smith for her help and support in developing these journals.


6Encouraging Creativity

When we first introduce reflective journals to students who are new to journaling, we often hear moans and groans and comments such as

“boorrring!!!!” (You know the whine that accompanies this!). Many stu-dents assume that journals are tedious, dull, and dreary because of precon-ceived notions that they are nothing more than pages and pages of hand-written text, in which the writing must stay between the lines on the paper. This is particularly true for students who are used to designing their own Facebook pages and blogs where they can add or delete “skins” on their computer at the click of a mouse button! However, journaling can be fun and creative and get away from the stereotypical idea of a journal while still promoting critical, reflective thought. While part of creativity is having fun, communicating in a creative, visual manner can often lead to mean-ingful reflection. Through visual representations of understanding, many students express what they cannot say in written format.

In this chapter1 we include lots of techniques, ideas, and add-ins that educators might consider using with students to give their journals multi-dimensional individuality. First we introduce you to some graphic entries


we’ve found students like to include in their journals. We then move to imaginative writing styles or ideas to prompt students to write differently than their normal style. Finally, we discuss add-ins, or things that students can bring into their journals to supplement an entry, idea, or theme they are developing. We’ve enjoyed seeing and reading the creative entries our students have produced using these ideas. This collection of ideas should be plenty to encourage creative ways of journaling.

This chapter builds directly on Chapter 5, where we describe a vari-ety of strategies for training and supporting students to become more en-gaged, critical, and reflective journal writers. Training will also be required to help students understand the creative possibilities that are described in this chapter—don’t assume they will simply know how to be creative. Students might initially be reluctant to use creative approaches because this way of representing learning is not usually acceptable in traditional assessment tasks, like essays and examinations. However, with proper en-couragement and thorough training, we’ve found our students have been able to unlock and embrace their creative potential and alternative ways of communicating. As part of the training workshop that we have developed and implemented with good success, we include a large section on creative journaling (see Appendix).

One note of caution—we’ve found it important to reiterate to students that the license to be creative is not an excuse for a lack of substance or re-flection in their entries. After some trial and error, we have discovered it is helpful when training students about creative writing styles to require they produce a creative entry that shows higher order thought or critical level of reflection. It is also important to revisit creativity and reflection along the way during a journaling assignment, so that the students (and educators) don’t lose sight of balancing these two things. Educators may ask students to provide a few interpretive words or phrases alongside their creative en-try to help the reader better understand the nature of what the student is trying to convey. In this chapter we explore different ways we’ve found to encourage students to both write creatively and in a creative style and to discover how to communicate in both written and visual format.

Being Creative—Graphic Entries

In order to communicate in our culture, one must be verbally adept—knowing how to say ideas in words is central to our experience. However, there are other means of communicating that do not involve words. Our students often get “writer’s block” and report that the simple act of starting a journal entry can be the most difficult step. Sometimes, by encouraging

Encouraging Creativity 97

students to use visual entries, the “block” can disappear. The imagination is called upon to not only write, but also to draw, wonder, explore, record, and analyze. In this chapter we present a number of visual means that can help students begin to represent their ideas.

Concept Maps. A concept map is a diagram that shows relations among ideas, images, and words. Concepts, usually represented as boxes or circles, are connected to other concepts with arrows and words like “gives rise to,” “between” or “begins with.” Concept maps are a wonderful way to help stu-dents develop reflective thinking skills by revealing connections and show-ing how individual ideas form a larger whole. They are also a helpful way of taking notes and summarizing key ideas. In addition, concept maps can help students:

◾ Take notes and summarize key ideas ◾ Create new knowledge ◾ Preserve existing knowledge (institutional memory) ◾ Facilitate the creation of a shared vision (when done in pairs or

groups) ◾ Communicate complex ideas and arguments ◾ Enhance metacognition (learning to learn; thinking about

learning) ◾ Evaluate ideas

Drawings. Students should be encouraged to draw in their journals. When asked to draw, some students might encounter fears of incompetence, inadequacy, or inability. Educators might hear students decry that they “don’t have an artistic bone in their body” and that they “can’t draw.” But put out an invitation for them to try to draw. Remind them that they will not be judged. There are some beautiful books that can teach students how to draw. Provide


pencils, crayons, coloring pencils, and erasers to encourage the students to draw. In our own teaching, we have relied heavily on and been inspired by the work of Clare Walker-Leslie and Charles Roth who in their book, Keeping a Nature Journal, show readers how to begin drawing (Walker-Leslie & Roth, 2000). They provide a number of beginning drawing exercises and teach how to draw birds, amphibians, clouds, water, and rocks.

Imprinting. It is helpful to start each journal entry with the same kinds of information. This does two things: 1) it helps get the actual writing start-ed without having to think too hard and get stalled, and 2) it can help set the tone of the entry and prepare the reader to understand what follows.

Examples of information that can be used in imprinting include:

◾ Day, date, year (this establishes the season and month in relation to the year)

◾ Time (doesn’t have to be accurate time clock; it can simply be “early afternoon” or “late morning”)

◾ Place (where are you? Country, province/state, town, lake, river, mountain range)

◾ Weather (temperature, barometric pressure, moon phase, daily sunrise, sunset)

◾ First impressions (what do you see? what do you hear?) ◾ Wind direction (look at flags, (how) is your hair blowing?) ◾ State of mind (how are you feeling today?) ◾ Local price of petrol/gas, value of the dollar, world events

Polar Passages. Journal writers can pick two ends of a spectrum and ex-amine one problem or phenomenon.


Acronyms. Acronyms are a fun, creative approach to representing ideas about a certain word. Take that word and expand it’s meaning with a back-wards ACRONYM, or M.Y.N.O.R.C.A!

Billboards. Billboards allow journal writers to add value and emotion to ideas simply by giving words size, space, color, and texture.


Different font. Journal entries can be started with a flourish by adding an oversized first letter, or initial. It is an easy way to give an overall feel to an entry—formal, classical, laissez-fair, crazy, messy, fun!


Supplies. We believe strongly in providing students with a range of tools that can support their creative journal writing. To that end, we often pro-vide students with the following supplies:

◾ Colored pencils ◾ Water colors ◾ Pencils ◾ Markers ◾ Charcoal ◾ Ink ◾ Crayons ◾ Glue ◾ Sticky tape ◾ Stickers ◾ Rubber stamps

Style Ideas—Creative Approaches to Writing Differently

It is certainly easy to get into a rut when writing—most people find it easy to stick with the tried and true that has worked for them in the past, or with that which they are most comfortable. Unless someone really likes that particular style or manner of writing, it will most likely get old and stale and lose much of its potential to be meaningful. A quick search on the web can lead to any number of sites on creative writing. Many of these provide ideas or prompts to assist writers with putting pen-to-paper, which we’ve found helpful. We’ll often visit these sites for ideas and modify the sugges-tions offered there to suit the particular needs of our students, topic, and assignment.

However, in our opinion, there is more to creative writing than just different ways of expressing oneself. There is also the manner, or style, in which that expression happens. We’ve discovered that providing students with training in both creative writing (i.e., writing with the goal of conveying feelings, thoughts, and emotions instead of giving information) and creative styles of writing (i.e., writing in a manner different from normal practice) early in a journal writing experience accomplishes at least two things. First, it provides them with new ideas to try. From there, students can develop their own ideas or expand on those provided by the educator. Second, it gives students the clear message to be imaginative in their work. It is surpris-ing how many students struggle with creativity in academic assignments, as they are likely used to following more traditional expectations on assign-ments a majority of the time.


Dialogues and conversations. Recording discussions (which normally hap-pen as a cognitive, abstract activity) in a journal allows them to be captured in a concrete fashion. It gives permanence to the exchange of words, which can be referred to in the future, and allows for a deeper exploration of the meaning and context of a conversation.

Student: “I didn’t like how the group went about conducting the water-shed experiment at the creek today.”

Educator: “Why not? What were some of the specific things that hap-pened?”

Student: “Well, Natasha was supposed to be recording the results but wasn’t really paying attention, so I think she made up some of the numbers. And I dropped the test tube into the mud, and I think some got in and made the water different than the water I took from the creek.”

Educator: “Sounds like your group needs to stay focused during the activity. How can you be sure this happens in the future?”

Student: “Well, maybe if we decide that someone will be the boss to make sure we’re doing what we should be!?!?”

Educator: “That sounds like a fine idea! Give it a try next week!”

These dialogues and conversations can be real, like the example above, or imagined by the student who is writing the entry. Perhaps the student is having a conversation with a historical figure or relative from his or her fam-ily from the past. Maybe they want to have a real conversation with someone but want it to play-out on paper before having it in real life. Regardless, writing down these chats often gives them a more “real” feel and provides an opportunity for further reflection.


Letters. Writing a letter to someone real or imagined can serve as a cre-ative way to encourage deep reflection. Letter writing can be cathartic, par-ticularly in letters that are intended for a specific person to read that will never be sent. Letter writing requires the student to have to think about not only the words they choose to express him or herself, but also the grammar and structure of the letter as a whole. This helps with higher levels of criti-cal thought and reflection. Educators may determine who the recipient of the letter may be to help guide the students’ thoughts and to establish links to the subject of study. While these letters may never be sent, they can be a great way to help students express themselves and their understanding. An effective extension of letter writing is for students to have to write a reply to their letter after a set period of time has elapsed.

Freewriting. Freewriting, or stream of consciousness writing, is a popular method of encouraging students to think without restraint. We’ve found that freewrites are a great activity to use as a warm-up, as it gets the mind turning. In freewriting, the writer jots down anything and everything that comes to mind. If we are facilitating a freewrite as part of a class, we’ve found it is helpful to give a time limit (5 minutes for younger students, 10 minutes


for older students) to help focus the activity. Educators can also encourage students to freewrite in their journals as an unstructured activity, and then review, critique, and question the nature of their entries (e.g., look at where the entry started and how it progressed through to the end . . . What themes emerge that impacted what the student wrote? Are these important? Do they relate to class?). For some students, freewriting takes a bit of getting used to, as the lack of structure is sometimes perplexing!

Lists and organizers. We’ve all made to-do lists! Putting lists in jour-nals can be an effective way for students to organize and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and emotions.

◾ Things to study ◾ People I’d like to meet ◾ 100 things I’d like to change ◾ 100 reasons why they need to be changed ◾ Top three reasons why (insert name of theory here) is applicable

to (insert name of profession here) ◾ Things getting in the way of making regular journal entries ◾ Mountains to climb ◾ Lifetime bird sightings

How things work. Journals are a great place for students to describe in their own words and through visual entries how things work. These entries require students to understand the function of a particular process and how its parts relate, conceptualize it in an abstract way, and record their interpretation of it. For example, a science educator may ask students to


make an entry describing and depicting the life of a Monarch Butterfly from egg to adult.

The Monarch starts off as an egg, which is really small. It is so tiny that you could put it on the head of a pin. The eggs are only laid on milkweed plants, which is their favorite food. Once the egg hatches, a caterpillar (or larva) comes out and after eating its own shell, starts to munch on the milkweed leaves. Mmmm, mmmm! The caterpillar keeps eating and getting bigger, and gets white, yellow and black stripes on its body. It can grow 2000 times bigger than when it hatched (imagine if we grew that big!!!). After awhile, it goes into a chrysalis, and stays there for a couple of weeks. When it comes out, it is a butterfly with orange and black wings. It spends some time stretch-ing its wings before it can fly; then it mates and the females lay eggs. The whole thing starts again. I don’t like it, but the butterflies only live for a few weeks—I guess that’s how nature works though . . . Good news for the lucky ones. Some of them fly to Mexico, where they might live for eight months.

Plans and actions. In these entries, students come up with a step-by-step process for going about doing something. This can be through words or graphics. It is different from a “how things work” entry as it is about listing what needs to happen instead of how things happen. Students could plan a


special event, a trip, a lecture, a book or chapter, a party, an essay, or a piece of artwork/photo.

Road map of life. Students can be encouraged to draw a “road map” of life, whereby the passage of life is depicted as a road over a map, like a travel route. Like life, the road may be flat, smooth, and even a bit boring (perhaps going through the prairies) or it may be bumpy, rough, and quite dangerous (perhaps driving through steep mountains). The road may be a single lane, double lane, or an eight lane highway. There may or may not be service stations to provide help and support along the way. The map can capture various phases of life (e.g., young childhood, teenage, twenties, etc.) and can even extend into the future.

Guest entries. As the name implies, these entries are made by someone other than the owner of the journal. Guest writers can be anybody—par-ents, friends, politicians, teachers, siblings, neighbors . . . the list goes on and on! The journal owner may ask the guest writer to comment on some-thing specific, draw a picture, or make an entry of any of the types we men-tion here. We’ve found it important to encourage students to invite more than just their closest friends as guest writers. This opens them to other perspectives and decreases the chance that inappropriate entries are made related to the social environment of school or class.

Dream logs. As mentioned in Chapter 1, dream logs are usually chrono-logical accounts of nightly dreams, nightmares (sometime called waking dreams), and reflections or interpretations of those dream experiences. Entries may be written both before and after sleeping. Some people believe


that those written before drifting off can help focus dreams, or prime the brain to work on solving a problem. Entries written after dreams usually serve two purposes. First, they capture the detail of a dream before it is forgotten. Second, they attempt to interpret the dream and place it in the context of the writer’s being. Dream logs may also be used as a creative writ-ing tool. For example, an educator may ask students to describe a dream they might have related to solving algebra problems. The dream could be a good dream or a nightmare. These entries might provide the educator with insight into what students perceive as positive about math, or things that are troubling.

Theory testing. Through these entries, educators can ask students to as-sess and evaluate a theory or model in written or graphic form. Students should be encouraged to push the theory to its limits by questioning, cri-tiquing and otherwise ripping it apart from as many angles as possible. If done in graphic form, this can lead to some wonderfully interesting entries, which usually help students comprehend the theory more completely. For example, an educator may ask students to examine the components of Csik-szentmihalyi’s (1990) Flow Model.

A second way in which theory testing can be used as a creative entry is for students to propose and defend their own theories related to the class they’re in. Educators might encourage students to develop a seemingly radical or far-out theory and subsequently defend it. This is a great exercise to get students not only to think creatively, but to synthesize and evaluate their own ideas.

Metaphors or themes. Asking students to write using a metaphor or theme, suggested by the educator or decided on their own, will certainly yield some creative and reflective entries. Almost anything can be used as a metaphor—it is up to the imagination of the educator or student to choose one! For example, a river provides lots of potential for students, particularly those engaged in outdoor education, or adventure education. The features of a river such as rapids, waterfalls, canyons, slow sections, deep refreshing


pools, critters in the water, smells, and sounds can make for interesting en-tries. There are lots of resources out there to help educators assist students in making connections between their entries and what they are studying, their lives, and so on. We suggest Developing Metaphors for Group Activities by Jude Hirsch and Lee Gillis (2004) as a good place to start.

Answering questions. This is one of the most common types of journal entries made by students, and the creativity comes about in the process of answering the question. For example, students may be asked to answer the question as inaccurately as possible and then explain why their entry is incorrect. Alternately, students may generate questions that the entire class answers individually in their own journals in a manner they agree on. In a similar way, students may pose questions to other students on an individual level, or respond as guest writers. Entries in which students reply to ques-tions developed by the educator are the most typical use of this type of entry we’ve encountered. In Chapter 5, when we talk about “structured journals” that we’ve used in our outdoor education classes, we provide a number of specific questions that students are required to answer (see Table 5.4).

Asking questions. Most of us can recall the three year old child who inces-santly asks, “Why?” This type of entry can ask students to follow a similar pattern in their journals. A student would come up with a question, receive a response (from the educator, other students, a guest writer, or him or herself), analyze the response, and ask another question until the student feels he or she can no longer ask a relevant question. Another version of asking questions is for students to generate their own creative question re-lated to the subject at hand that they answer themselves or to which other students reply. This may require some previewing by the educator to ensure the questions are clear and relate to the topic! We’ve found that students


can ask some deeply meaningful questions in very creative ways through this type of entry.

Quotations. This is another common technique used by many educators to get their students creatively thinking and reflecting that can easily be used in journals. There are at least two ways to go about this. First, the edu-cator supplies a quote, verse, line from a song, or passage from a reading that students must comment on in their journals. Second, educators may invite students to pick out a sentence or paragraph from an article or book that was used in class, and comment on why it struck them as meaningful. If you need a quote to fit a certain topic area, there are plenty of websites that have searchable databases of quotes. We like the Quotations Page (www.quotationspage.com) as a useful starting place.

Dress rehearsal. As the name implies, educators may ask students to make an entry explaining exactly how they would go about an activity or learning experience before they’ve actually engaged in it. This enables the writer to think proactively about potential issues that may arise and how he or she would proceed. Educators can ask students to go into as much detail as possible, or to put emphasis on explaining a particular aspect of an activ-ity including everything from the “set” to “costumes” and “special effects.”

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT). This analytical framework may be applied to journals as a way to get students to creatively think about what they are studying. For instance, the SWOT analysis may be applied to a short story students read in a literature course. Students could make an entry related to how the story was constructed from a technical viewpoint, or comment on the story as a whole. Once the initial examina-tion is complete, students can then look at the whole picture and reflect on that as well!

This date in history. This is one of our favorite techniques for getting students to write creatively. Using one of the many websites to search for events, births, and deaths that occurred on any date in history, educators may design questions to prompt students to make a creative entry. For ex-ample, we’ve used the following prompt with students in our courses:

On September 27, Marvin Lee Aday was born. Better known as the singer Meatloaf, he’s rocked out with countless fans around the world. Outdoor leaders are often called on to be both entertainers and cooks (thus Meatloaf and meatloaf!?!). What skills do you think are important for outdoor leaders to have and why?

With some creativity and forethought on the educator’s part, interesting prompts can be constructed for any day of the year.


Add-Ins—Imaginative Items to Supplement Journal Entries

Now that we’ve looked at a number of types of graphic entries and style ideas for encouraging creative reflective journal writing, in the final section of this chapter, we present a list of add-ins that can be used to enhance the journal writing experience. As the name implies, these are items that are added to the journal. Maps, newspaper clippings, poems, songs, pictures, labels, and postcards can be glued, taped or stapled into a journal to en-hance the visual and creative flair of the journal. These additions can be a helpful starting point for getting students to write reflectively by answering questions such as: Why did you include this item? What does this item mean to you? or, What are the stories that accompany this item?

Maps. Students can be encouraged to draw, photocopy, or insert maps into their journals. These are helpful visual reminders of an activity or expe-dition. The map can be standalone or have additional written information added to it. For example, on the map, students can note:

◾ the campsites (and give a ranking, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 star) ◾ good fishing spots (shhh! Don’t tell anyone!) ◾ access roads ◾ jurisdiction (who owns this land—government? First Nations?

City Council?) ◾ bus stops


◾ museums, art galleries ◾ favorite coffee shop ◾ walking route

Clipped editorials or newspaper/magazine clippings. Students can be en-couraged to cut and paste information from newspapers or magazines into their journals. These can provide insight into news events that were deemed newsworthy at a global (e.g., September 11, 2001), national (e.g., results of a federal election), or local (e.g., art exhibit on at local school) level. These clippings can set the stage for an entry or can just position the entry in light of broader events beyond the individual.

Favorite quotations. In the previous section of this chapter, we suggested that educators could provide timely and relevant quotations for students to respond to. We’ve also had good success with inviting students to include their favorite quotations in their journals. This can be a great starting point for a journal entry, as students can explain why they have chosen to include this quotation. Quotations can come from a range of places—books, graffiti, newspapers, Internet, letters, meeting minutes, church hymns—so try not to limit the students’ imaginations as to where their quote might come from.

Poems. Students can be encouraged to include poems in their journals. These poems can be their own or someone else’s. While on field expedi-tions in outdoor settings, we often do daily readings from the American poet Mary Oliver (e.g., Why I Wake Early: New Poems, 2004). Many of our students have enjoyed copying these into their journals and reflecting on the content, or doing drawings to interpret the poem.

Students can be provided with the structure for certain types of poems, such as a haiku or a limerick, and be encouraged to use this format to write


about a certain idea or theme. A haiku, for example, is a three-line poetic form with 17 syllables (five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, five in the last line). A limerick is a five-line poem. Lines 1, 2, and 5 have eight or nine syllables and rhyme with each other. Lines 3 and 4 have five or six syllables and rhyme as well (but separately from lines 1, 2 and 5).

Songs. The expression “music makes memories” is certainly true, and we encourage students to write songs in their journals. They can include songs they’ve heard, songs they’ve written, songs they love, and songs that won’t leave their head! Songs that appear in student journals can capture a state of mind (e.g., engaged, bored), an emotion or feeling (e.g., passion, love, loss), or an idea (e.g., political songs, environmental songs). Students can explain why they have included the song and what it means to them.


Labels. We encourage our students to copy or cut out and paste labels from a range of sources, including brochures, articles of clothing, beer bottles, restaurants, movie tickets, church services, government brochures, and propaganda. Labels can capture the essence of a place, time, politi-cal movement, or community. They also set the stage for students to write about the events that accompany the label—for example:

◾ Where did the label come from? ◾ How did I get it? Who gave it to me? ◾ What does this label/symbol represent? ◾ What assumptions underpin the image in the label? ◾ Whose voices are represented through the label? Whose voices

are missing?

Postcards. Postcards can be a fun, creative addition to a journal. Stu-dents can photocopy a postcard they actually did mail; they can paste in a postcard they wrote but chose not to mail; they can write a postcard to themselves; or they can put in a blank postcard that simply does a great job of expressing the elements of a place and time.

Pictures. Pictures can be a wonderful addition to a journal as they do such a fine job of capturing a moment in time. These are often added after


the journal entry is written and provide a visual illustration of aspects of an experience that have been illustrated through text. With the advent of digital cameras, it is easy for students to manage and print their own im-ages at home. It is good to remind students that they don’t need to print glossy images for their journal—simple black and white images often do the job. Students can cut up pictures and paste them throughout their journal. We’ve seen some very creative uses of photos by students. One student, for example, included a mug shot of each member of a canoe expedition in his journal alongside a written account of the role that each member played. Another student took a picture at exactly 11:05 am every day of a field experience (she set her alarm and simply took a picture of what she was seeing—be it a lecture, a tour guide, a concert, a coffee). This collation of images did a terrific job of bringing back the memories from each day.

Name tags. Name tags can be a fun addition to any journal, as they can quickly bring back memories and the context of an event. In addition to your name, they often contain additional information that is interesting to reflect upon:

◾ Name of a conference or meeting ◾ Your full name (Harold David Ezekiel Thomas Smith, the Third) ◾ Your affiliation (Mr., Ms., Mrs.) ◾ Your position (student, teacher, Dr.) ◾ Your rank (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor,

Grand Poobah)

Glossary/words. We encourage our students to keep a separate section of their journal as a space to write down new words and their meanings. This is a great way for students to keep track of ideas that they are learning. New words or concepts such as hegemony, post-structuralism, Emissions Trading Scheme, bushtucker, and Tuckman’s Model of Group Development are all powerful reminders of specific learning opportunities.


Cartoons. Given that cartoons are so concise and to the point, they can be an effective way for students to succinctly capture a feeling, response, or idea. Students often find it easy to express their feelings and emotions through a character, such as Charlie Brown, Garfield, or Calvin (from Cal-vin and Hobbes). If students are studying social and political issues, includ-ing a cartoon such as Doonesbury can be a helpful springboard for writing about these complex issues. If students are learning about science and evo-lution, then Far Side cartoons can really help explain concepts and ideas in a humorous manner.

Stickers. Stickers are a wonderful addition to journals. They can come from a variety of sources—bumper stickers, political stickers, educational stickers (stars), music stickers, fridge stickers, and artsy stickers. They can liven up a journal and provide a springboard for writing:

◾ What message does the sticker convey? ◾ Where did the sticker come from? ◾ What does it mean to you? ◾ What does it mean to others? ◾ How old is the sticker? Have things changed since it was pro-

duced? ◾ Is the sticker radical? Why? ◾ Does your sticker challenge the dominant social paradigm?

How so?


Conclusion

We’ve found that exposing students to these ideas for creative writing, creating writing styles, and add-ins to journals has resulted in many stu-dents having more interest and fun in making journal entries as well as enhanced the reflective nature of their entries. We’ve also discovered that some students prefer to not use any creative techniques in the journals and favor a traditional, text-based approach to making entries—we encourage educators to not force creativity on everyone! We recommend that educa-tors help students find a balance between creativity and critical thought by doing some training (see Appendix), setting guidelines, and providing ex-emplars early on in the journal writing assignment. With a little planning and ingenuity on the educator’s part, there are an unlimited number of ways that students can be encouraged to be more creative in their journals. By offering students the opportunity to explore a variety of ways to make creative entries, reflective and critical thinking skills can be developed to a higher level as well.

Notes 1. Special thanks to James Raffan for his permission to recreate his ideas and art-

work in Entry Points: A Compendium of Ideas for Creative Journal Keeping (1993), which appear in this chapter.


7Responding to and Assessing Journals

Can you remember when you were a student and you got your journal back from an educator? Did you get any responses or feedback? If so,

what kind? Were you assessed on your journal? How did you feel getting the responses and assessment?

We have been reminiscing about the joy and frustration we have felt getting our journals back in the past. When the responses offered from a trustworthy reader were insightful, rich, engaging, and respectful, we recall feeling wonderful about our journal and ourselves. This feedback would inspire us to keep writing and open us up to making changes in our writing, our thoughts, our behaviors, our interactions, and ourselves.

Sadly, however, this was not always our experience. We also recall receiv-ing journals back with little or no response. We would eagerly flip through the pages of our journal, keen to find some written feedback from our educa-tor, only to find a numeric grade at the end of the last entry. How deflating and disappointing after all our work to only get a numeric grade. We would both feel uninspired to continue with our journals. Next time the journals were due, we confess to writing the bare minimum. It just wasn’t worth it.


In this chapter, we explore the issues of responding to and assessing journals. For the purposes herein, we delineate between these terms. “Re-sponses” is the term we use when referring to the written feedback given to a student (e.g., “Great point” or “Have you thought about . . . ?” or “I disagree; I found the session to be quite topical”). “Assessment” is the term we use when referring to a grade on a student journal (e.g., “B+” or “75%” or “Distinction”).

Responding to Journals

Benefits of Good Responses

Tara Fenwick (2001) notes that good responses can turn “what for some journal writers is an uncomfortable solitude” into “a meaningful ex-change of ideas” (p. 39). We agree wholeheartedly and believe strongly that there are many benefits of responding well to journals.

To start, educators who respond in a meaningful way can affirm the actual journal writing activity. This in turn can help motivate students to stay engaged with the process of journaling. As researchers have noted, many students see the pedagogical potential of journals, but simply lack the motivation to write in one. Good responses from educators can help keep students motivated and inspired to write.

Second, we think students benefit from responses that help to identify what they have overlooked in their journal entries. It is so easy for students to become entrenched in a certain way of being, learning, and knowing. Thoughtful and sensitive responses from educators might be a way of undo-ing or examining some of these patterns.

Finally, we believe that educators who critically respond to journals with questions, probes, and reflections create an avenue for a meaningful ex-change of ideas with their students. A responder that actively contributes to the dialogue can help students to solve problems, create connections, extend ideas, and discover and validate aspects of themselves.

Challenges of Responding

Although there are lots of benefits to responding well to journals, there are, unsurprisingly, lots of challenges associated with this important task. To begin, while it might be fairly straightforward to simply respond to journals, it actually is quite difficult to respond well to journals. It seems many educa-tors simply don’t know how to respond well to journals; in fact, research has revealed that many educators’ responses to journals are often not very clear,

Responding to and Assessing Journals 119

thorough, or helpful (Elbow, 1997; Hodges, 1997). Elizabeth Hodges (1997) notes: “What I see most often in the margins are conversations that misfire. I see teachers fail, in a myriad of ways, to articulate what they observe in their students’ work so that students can understand and respond” (p. 81).

We’re not making excuses for these poor responses, but perhaps they should not be seen as overly surprising, given the conditions that many edu-cators face when responding to journals (imagine a pile of journals on your desk, it’s late at night, report cards are due tomorrow). Many educators are rushed, and while they’d love to spend more time responding well to each student’s journal, the reality is that they just might not have the time. Ad-ditionally, many educators might not know exactly how to respond well to journals—hopefully this chapter will provide some guidance in this regard.

An additional challenge is that responses can be so easily misunder-stood by students (Hodges, 1997). When we intend to throw a “ball,” un-fortunately, many of our students catch a “knife.” Even when educators write articulate, precise, justifiable, and useful comments, some students will read them through a lens of defensiveness, disappointment, or de-nial. It seems that almost anything educators write can easily be seen as a criticism by students. And this is certainly not what educators want to do through their responses!

Strangely, there is evidence to suggest that many responses that edu-cators offer simply can’t be trusted. Peter Elbow (1997) found that when educators wrote responses that they thought were correct (such as “You should omit this section” or “You need a comma here” or “This hypoth-esis has been discredited”), many or most authorities disagreed. It seems that educators might have a bit of homework to do before they write their responses.

And finally, there isn’t much evidence to support the fact that educa-tors’ responses actually help students learn more. Research suggests that many students ignore important messages in feedback responses or do not know how to make sense of feedback. Elizabeth Hodges (1997) suggests strongly that we need to teach our students how to make sense of our re-sponses and the follow-up that is suggested or required. Educators need to demonstrate to students how their work is read and responded to. This might involve reading aloud a journal entry and commenting along the way—pausing to answer questions from students or explaining responses and comments that students don’t understand. Educators should also take time to hear students’ responses to the feedback offered. When journals are handed back with responses, allocate a good amount of time for stu-dents to digest and ask questions about the responses.


Who Responds?

It is easy to get stuck in traditional educational paradigms that suggest that the educator is the only person that should be responding to jour-nals. Given that they have assigned the journal and typically hold the power balance between student and teacher, it is often thought that they should be the only ones assessing. How limiting! The good news is that there are people other than the educator who can effectively respond to the journals: for example other students, groups of students, groups of educators, and even the student that wrote the journal.

A peer. Although many students might initially be uncomfortable with the thought of reading another student’s journal, we’ve seen tremendous benefit to inviting peers to become involved in the review of journals. We’ve found that students might be initially reluctant to offer challenging feed-back, ask probing questions, or dig deeper with their peers. But, over time, we’ve found that the peers rise to the challenge of being trusted and asked to do this important job. The benefits are mutual—the journal writers ben-efit from feedback from their peers, and their journal often improves; simi-


larly, the peer assessor’s journal also improves as a result of having read and commented on another student’s journal.

The “interactive” whole group. Researchers from Texas Tech University suggest an interesting model for responding to journals whereby journals are exchanged in all directions—students to students, students to educa-tors, and educator to students (Parr, Haberstroh, & Kottler, 2000). This “interactive” exchange of journals by every student certainly departs from the traditional model whereby the educator is the only one to see the stu-dents’ journals.

These researchers found that the interactive journals had many bene-fits. Students were able to affirm and support each other more after reading the journals. There was more cohesiveness among the group of students. As common themes emerged across journals, there was greater understanding and support among group members. There were renewed power structures as the educators became willing to share their journals with their students—and became open to student feedback.

We believe this interactive approach to reviewing journals has some real benefits; but we also have some concerns. We think educators must have a mature and responsible group to make this approach work. It is easy to imagine that if a group wasn’t up to the challenge of this approach and there wasn’t a truly safe space for responding, that confidentiality and trust could easily be broken. When the researchers from the Texas Tech University were using this approach, they were working with students who were enrolled in a counselor training program. As such, it was believed that they possessed the maturity and the skills that were necessary to provide ap-propriate feedback, to maintain confidentiality, and to engage in self and peer exploration. It was also believed that they had the capability and desire to deepen their relationships with others in the group through honest and genuine self-expression.

Clearly, ground rules would be important if this interactive journal writ-ing procedure is going to be used. It would be critical to have clear guide-lines as to the purposes of the journal and the purposes of the interactive feedback cycle—and what kinds of information should and should not be written for each.

One educator. Perhaps the most typical model of responding to jour-nals occurs when students give their journals to an educator that has asked them to keep a journal. As has been noted time and time again throughout the literature, in order for this model of responding to be effective, there must be a deep level of trust between the student and the educator. Indeed the privilege of being invited to read and comment on a student’s journal


should not be underestimated. Truly enriched learning can emerge when a student learns to trust the educator that will be reading his or her journal.

Similar to the interactive journaling model described above, some have argued that it is best if the educator can share his or her journal with the students whose journals are being viewed. This helps to create a feeling of trust between the educator and the student.

Many educators. Recently, we’ve been experimenting with having a num-ber of educators comment on student journals. We’ve found it to be a really helpful approach when classes are team taught by many educators. Given that each educator has expertise in a certain area, the students benefit from this diverse knowledge base of feedback. This is similar to when a Masters or PhD thesis is reviewed by a number of assessors. Each reviewer sees things the other hasn’t seen and is able to provide feedback from a new perspec-tive. Furthermore, given that each educator will have a unique relationship with each student, this approach allows for feedback to be more personal-ized and intimate. If students feel a closer connection to one educator over another, then at least they can be sure that both will have the opportunity to read and comment on their journal. Given the importance of a trustworthy relationship between the student and educator, this approach might help foster an enhanced sense of trust.

We also think that educators benefit from having read the same jour-nals. This shared experience can provide a platform for discussing a stu-dent’s progress, possibilities, and potential. It also is an opportunity to dis-cuss how the team of educators can best support the student.

Although there are lots of advantages to having many educators review one student’s journal, we are well aware of the workload implications of this suggestion. We know how much time is spent on reviewing and comment-ing on each journal—and the workload stands to be doubled or tripled depending on the number of educators involved (in a class of 30 students and three educators, instead of each educator reviewing 10 journals, each one now has to review 30!).

Self. We’ve also been experimenting with having students respond to their own journals—and this has been met with some success. We’ve found that when we provide students with scaffolding for reviewing entries, some are able to be insightful about their own work. This can be particularly ef-fective when students are asked to read and comment on older entries, from past experiences. For example, when we ask students to read journal entries from a previous learning experience and respond to some aspect of their par-ticipation (e.g., leadership style, decision making approach, group dynam-ics), they are easily able to respond with engagement. Perhaps lapsed time


provides the distance necessary for students to be less attached to their writ-ing and behaviors; they can look upon their work with fresh eyes, and they can look for changes in their thoughts, actions, and behaviors. This self as-sessment provides an excellent platform for preparing for a new experiential activity (What would you like to change? How will you do this?). We’ve also been trialling having students respond to and assess their own journals prior to submitting them to us for review and assessment. We provide them with the same assessment standards and criteria that we’ll be using and ask them to assess their own work. Unfortunately, this has been met with limited suc-cess as students often lack the insight to know whether or not they have met the criteria at the appropriate standard. We’ve found students tend to inflate their own assessment—believing, perhaps, that they are writing at a higher order of thinking than they really are at. We are hopeful that with continued training and ongoing feedback with our students, we’ll be able to have them complete more accurate self reviews, with a view to ultimately improving their own journals before they hand them in to us.

Types of Response

When educators are responding to a student’s journal, there are many types of responses they can offer. In Table 7.1, we’ve summarize some of the different kinds of responses that are available to educators. How you choose which type to use will depend on a number of factors, including:

◾ The purpose of the journal (Why are you having the students keep a journal? How does the journal writing task align with the curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment of the larger educational experience? Do you have to give a grade?)

◾ The type of journal (Is it a theory journal? A shared journal? A reading response journal? A reflective journal? A nature jour-nal?)

◾ Your relationship with the student (How long have you known the students? Will you be working with them again?)

◾ The student’s needs (How old is the student? What would best benefit the student in terms of feedback?)

Levels of Responses

What kind of feedback is appropriate to give students? How much feed-back is appropriate? This is a tricky question to answer because there are so many factors that will influence your decision:


Tab

le 7

.1

Typ

es

of

Resp

on

ses

that

ed

uca

tors

Can

Use

in

Jo

urn

als

Typ

e of

Res

pons

eP

urpo

seE

xam

ple

Rea

ssur

ing

• Su

ppor

t an

d st

ren

gth

en s

tron

g po

ints

• C

oun

ter

put d

own

s“Y

ou p

rovi

ded

som

e re

ally

goo

d le

ader

ship

for

the

grou

p th

at

day.

I d

on’t

thin

k th

at y

our

deci

sion

mak

ing

proc

ess

was

too

draw

n o

ut—

that

was

nec

essa

ry fo

r go

od r

esol

utio

n.”

Cri

tica

l•

Off

er c

hal

len

gin

g an

d cr

itic

al q

uest

ion

s•

Poin

t out

gap

s or

con

trad

icti

ons

in

thin

kin

g•

Com

men

t on

ass

umpt

ion

s

“You

see

m to

be

poin

tin

g a

lot o

f fin

gers

her

e at

eve

ryon

e el

se.

Wh

at r

ole

do y

ou th

ink

you

play

ed in

con

trib

utin

g to

how

th

ings

un

fold

ed th

at d

ay?”

Refl

ecti

ve•

Mir

ror

them

es b

ack

to th

e st

uden

t•

Poin

t out

rec

urri

ng

issu

es, q

uest

ion

s an

d im

ages

“I’m

see

ing

a pa

tter

n h

ere

acro

ss a

ll th

ese

entr

ies.

You

see

m

to b

e w

onde

rin

g ti

me

and

tim

e ag

ain

if y

ou’r

e ta

kin

g up

too

muc

h s

pace

in th

is g

roup

.”

Frie

ndl

y•

Ext

end

con

vers

atio

nal

res

pon

se•

Com

men

t on

par

ts th

ey fi

nd

puzz

ling

• O

ffer

adv

ice

• N

ote

poin

ts th

ey a

gree

wit

h/d

isag

ree

wit

h

“Gre

at p

oin

t. I

agre

e to

tally

.”

Prob

ing

• E

nco

urag

e m

ore

dept

h a

nd

crit

ical

ity

“Tel

l me

mor

e. C

an y

ou e

xpla

in y

ours

elf m

ore?

You

’ve

only

sc

ratc

hed

the

surf

ace

her

e, it

see

ms

to m

e.”

Polic

e•

Ale

rt s

tude

nts

abo

ut in

form

atio

n th

at is

not

ap

prop

riat

e or

rel

evan

t to

the

jour

nal

ing

task

“Th

is in

form

atio

n a

bout

the

part

y la

st S

atur

day

nig

ht i

sn’t

appr

opri

ate,

rel

evan

t or

nec

essa

ry in

this

jour

nal

. In

futu

re

jour

nal

s, p

leas

e do

n’t i

ncl

ude

such

info

rmat

ion

.”(c

ontin

ued)


Tab

le 7

.1

Typ

es

of

Resp

on

ses

that

ed

uca

tors

Can

Use

in

Jo

urn

als

(co

nti

nu

ed

)

Typ

e of

Res

pons

eP

urpo

seE

xam

ple

Inte

grat

ing

• Id

enti

fy li

nka

ges

that

cou

ld b

e m

ade

wit

h

oth

er m

ater

ial,

theo

ry a

nd

idea

s“H

ow d

oes

this

fit i

nto

you

r ot

her

stu

dies

, an

d w

hat

you

’re

doin

g ou

tsid

e th

e cl

assr

oom

in y

our

pers

onal

life

? M

aybe

you

sh

ould

thin

k ab

out m

akin

g lin

ks to

gro

up d

ynam

ics

theo

ry!”

Cou

nte

r A

rgui

ng

• Pr

ovid

e al

tern

ativ

e vi

ew p

oin

ts•

Iden

tify

wea

knes

s in

logi

c“I

don

’t th

ink

your

arg

umen

t hol

ds w

ater

her

e. H

ere’

s w

her

e I

see

flaw

s in

you

r lo

gic

in th

e de

velo

pmen

t of y

our

thou

ght.”

Mis

sin

g In

form

atio

n•

Poin

t out

mis

sin

g in

form

atio

n“Y

ou’v

e m

isse

d so

me

basi

c in

form

atio

n h

ere.

Wh

at m

ater

ials

di

d yo

u us

e in

that

sci

ence

exp

erim

ent?

Wh

at s

afet

y eq

uipm

ent d

id y

ou u

se?”

Ch

eerl

eadi

ng

• Pr

ovid

e su

ppor

t an

d en

cour

agem

ent

thro

ugh

pra

ise

“You

are

tota

lly o

n th

e ri

ght t

rack

an

d it

is w

onde

rful

hav

ing

you

in th

is c

lass

. I th

ink

you

are

goin

g to

be

a te

rrifi

c ed

ucat

or!”

Prob

lem

Sol

vin

g•

Hel

p so

lve

prob

lem

s by

pro

vidi

ng

new

way

s of

thin

kin

g ab

out i

deas

• Pr

ovid

e su

ppor

t wit

h a

com

plic

ated

pr

oble

m

“You

see

m to

be

a bi

t stu

ck h

ere.

Hav

e yo

u th

ough

t abo

ut

con

cept

map

pin

g to

hel

p yo

u cl

arif

y yo

ur th

ough

ts?

You

mig

ht a

lso

read

this

boo

k th

at I

’ve

foun

d re

ally

hel

pful

.”

Eth

ical

• R

aise

ala

rm a

roun

d se

riou

snes

s of

eth

ical

is

sue

rais

ed in

en

try

• R

each

out

to p

rovi

de s

uppo

rt•

Take

act

ion

if a

ppro

pria

te a

nd

nec

essa

ry

“Th

e co

nte

nt o

f th

is e

ntr

y co

nce

rns

me

and

I’m

wor

ried

abo

ut

your

saf

ety

and

wel

l bei

ng.

I th

ink

I w

ill n

eed

to fo

llow

this

up

. Ple

ase

com

e an

d se

e m

e.”


◾ The pedagogical intent of the journal (is the journal a trip log, a response to readings, or reflections on an experiential activity?)

◾ The number of journals (do you have 5 or 55 students?) ◾ The length of the overall journal and individual entries (do the

journals contain 4 or 20 entries? Is each entry half a page or four pages?)

◾ The frequency of submission (are the journals a formative or summative task? Are the journals handed in only once, weekly, or monthly? Is this a re-submission, and have you already seen the writing?)

◾ Your other work commitments (do you teach other classes that have other assignments coming in? Do you have other work/fam-ily/relationship commitments?)

Peter Elbow (1997) removes some of the pressure that some of us might feel about having to offer lengthy, engaging, and critical responses all of the time! He offers a helpful continuum of six levels of responses to journals and encourages educators to consider using minimal responses much of the time.

1. Zero response. This is the lowest level of responding and, as the name implies, involves the educator reading the journal but not responding in any way. To help students overcome feelings of re-sentment or deprivation (“Why am I doing this if you’re not going to respond?”), Elbow (1997) suggests that his students have come to value the opportunity to simply be heard through their journal, while being fully aware that they won’t be getting a response.

2. Minimal, nonverbal, non-critical response. In this type of response, educators can make note of journal entries they find enjoyable or particularly strong with simple notations, such as a checkmark in the column, a happy face in the text, or an underlining of the text they find resonance with. Elbow (1997) stresses that this kind of positive, non-critical response can be particularly important to help students improve their writing.

3. Supportive response, no criticism. This kind of written response is used when we want to praise or provide positive encouragement to students. It goes beyond a simple notation (checkmark, happy face, underline) and involves more specific feedback, through written words (e.g., “You’ve captured the essence of the discus-sion really well” or “I really like your writing in this section: it’s alive and engaging!”). This type of response highlights to students


what they are doing well and hopefully encourages them to keep doing it.

4. Descriptive or observational response. This type of response is neutral and non-critical and involves reflecting back to students what you are reading in the text. An example might be “You provided a really good overview of all aspects of that day. You begin with a description of the lecture in the morning before moving into a detailed account of what unfolded in your break out group in the afternoon. You wrap up by commenting on what parts of the day were particularly useful for you and how you will carry your new knowledge into your professional experience.” Students tend to accept these kinds of responses because they are neutral and non-critical.

5. Minimal non-verbal critical response. When using this type of re-sponse, educators can note journal entries they find to be prob-lematic, vague, or incorrect by using obvious non-verbal signs, such as wriggly lines, exclamation marks, or crosses. When used in conjunction with the more positive signs (e.g., checkmark, happy faces), the students can readily get a sense of areas that require improvement or clarification.

6. Critical response, diagnosis, and advice. This is the highest level of responding and, as Peter Elbow (1997) notes, is “our meat and potatoes: what we tend to assume is our main job” (p. 10). This involves active commentary on and critical engagement with the text. It requires written commentary to the students to help them improve their learning.

As noted above, there are pragmatic, philosophical, and pedagogical reasons for choosing which of Elbow’s types of responses might be most appropriate. Pragmatically, you might be limited by workload and time constraints. It’s no fun to have your desk at work be piled up with journals that have to be graded by a certain time! So, you might be forced to offer feedback at the lower levels of Elbow’s schema. However, if you have a small number of journals and endless amounts of time, perhaps you’ll be able to respond at the higher end of the schema by offering critical response, diagnosis, and advice.

Philosophically and pedagogically, depending on the educational pur-pose of the journal, you might be able to decide what level of response is the most appropriate. For example, if the journal is a log book that requires students to enter factual information about objective events of an activity, then perhaps a low level response is appropriate. Conversely, if the journal is


a summative assessment task that asks students to bring together ideas from a number of formative tasks that have been completed over a year long pro-gram of study, then perhaps a higher order response might be in order.

Of course, the pragmatic, philosophical, and pedagogical reasons for choosing a certain level of response might not be congruent. In this last example of the summative journal that brings together ideas across a year long program, it might be that while philosophically and pedagogically you want to respond at a higher level of the schema, the pragmatics might be that your desk is piled high with 80 journals! Perhaps in order to survive and meet the deadline for finishing off grades, you might need to respond lower down the schema.

Assessing Journals

Now that we’ve had a close look at the issue of responding to journals, for the remainder of this chapter, we focus on the delicate issue of assessing journals. Deciding whether to assess and give a grade depends on a number of factors, including: the intended learning outcomes (Is the journal in-tended to facilitate reflection? Enhance critical thinking? Develop writing skills? Support creative thinking?), the practicalities of the course (Num-ber of students? Length and number of journal entries? Number of educa-tors?), and the context in which the learning takes place (Formal or infor-mal educational setting—is a grade even required?). As we’ll see, there are a number of convincing reasons for giving a grade and just as many reasons to consider not giving a grade.

Benefits of Assessing

There are many arguments in the literature that espouse the impor-tance of assessing journals.

Legitimizes journals as an authentic task. Perhaps one of the most impor-tant reasons for giving a grade is the fact that a graded journal provides an unambiguous signal that this form of learning is recognized, honored and valued—as much as other more traditional tasks, like essays and examina-tions. Too often, we wonder if journals that aren’t assessed are dismissed by students as being not important—because they don’t count for a grade. As Crème (2005) aptly notes:

Formal assessment could show that different ways of approaching knowl-edge were appropriately valued and recognized. From this point of view, if the records [journals] (sic) were a valuable part of the course, they should


be a recognized part of the assessment process; otherwise students would not take them seriously and eventually, nor would tutors. They would be an “extra” and given pressures on time and resources, would dwindle in importance. (p. 290)

Influences student learning. It has been argued that what is assessed has a powerful influence on student learning. Reflective journals call upon stu-dents to demonstrate different ways of knowing. Compared with traditional assessment tasks, like essays and examinations, reflective journals require students to engage in critical reflection and higher order thinking; they force students to be more open-ended and less prescriptive; and they per-mit students to be creative and questioning. When a journal is assessed, it requires students to open up to these different ways of representing knowl-edge. For many students, knowing the journal will be assessed is reason enough to persevere with a task in a way they might not if the journal were not assessed. Indeed, grades can be a great motivator for students who might be reluctant to explore this way of learning. Although it might be a chore for some students, if educators believe strongly enough in the peda-gogical importance of journaling, then perhaps assigning a grade will ulti-mately achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of students (even though it might not be easy). We find it ironic that many students who don’t want their journals graded or read by anyone else readily acknowledge that they wouldn’t have written as long/as well/as hard/as deeply if they knew that they didn’t have to hand it in for a grade. There must be some benefit to assessing journals.

Challenges of Assessing

While there are many good reasons for assessing journals, there are just as many reasons to not assess journals. These reasons present as tensions, conflicts, and ironies.

Writing to the criteria. The first tension with respect to assessment relates to the fact that when journals are assessed, some of the freedom and risk taking that we educators want so badly to emerge through journal writing too often disappears. When students are provided with standards and crite-ria for assessment, such as “openness,” “creativity,” “connectivity,” and “risk taking,” unfortunately, many students will become highly instrumental in the process of writing their journals. Whether deliberately or not, many stu-dents really want to get things right and will look to the assessment criteria to guide their own writing. How often have you been asked something like “How will you judge my openness?” only to realize that your assessment cri-


teria are taking away from the freedom and creativity you hoped to achieve through the journal task? Ava Chandler (1997) notes:

Because to truly rebel carries with it a very high price—the ever present grade. So I, as every other student, crank out material whether anyone reads it or not. Rather than reading the material simply to learn and to make mean-ing for myself, I read with a mind for what the instructor wants—looking for clues, buzz words, special emphasis so that when I write, what I write, I will write right. Besides the ever-elusive format, I know I should write enough, ad-dress the right issues, from the right viewpoint, with the right attitude, and above all, maintain the quiet pretence. Why? For the grade. (p. 47)

Writing for the teacher. We are well aware that students will be strategic and clever when it comes to having their journals assessed. Motivated by getting a good grade, these students end up writing what they think we, as individual educators, want to hear, instead of what they actually believe and think. They take note of what their educator suggests is important, they glean what is presented as critical, and they write about all the things they think we want to hear in their journal. On one hand this can make us feel good about ourselves and our teaching (Oh, they actually understood what I was going on about! And they believe it too!). On the other hand, it can be very frustrating (after all, we want them to write what they are think-ing in their journals!). Jennifer Moon (2006) provides some solace in this regard, suggesting that all is not lost if the students actually are writing for the teacher. She suggests:

It is almost inevitable that learners will tend to produce in journals what they think any assessor wants to see. They are, thank goodness, usually not stupid. Does this matter? It may not. In order to write what the tutor wants, they will have needed to go through a process that says “I cannot write this—it would not be acceptable—or it would not get me good marks. I will modify it a bit and make it seem like what I think is required.” That learner may, on the page, have concocted a version for the tutor—but in order to get there, she has gone through the appropriate reflection process, even if that does not get on the page. (p. 120)

Too personal to assess. Reflective journals, when done well, are highly reflective pieces of personal work. It has been argued that the kind of think-ing that is encouraged through reflective journals is simply too personal to be graded. If we are inviting students to share of themselves in an intimate and personal manner, then we need to be cautious about giving a grade. We are well aware that students can invest a lot of themselves in their journal and can feel very deflated and discouraged when they receive a low grade


for their efforts. The typical approach to assessment in education involves assessing the product (e.g., exam, essay, presentation) not the person; this unbiased, rational stance can be difficult to maintain when assessing jour-nals. Understandably, students find it hard to detach themselves from their journals, and often will feel hurt, wounded, or discouraged by receiving a low grade for something so personal.

Challenges of consistency. It can be difficult for assessors to be consistent in their grading of journals among students and each other. What if an as-sessor’s own conceptions of reflection don’t match another assessor’s? And what if either/both assessors’ conceptions are poorly formed, or do not match those of their students? This problem of inter-assessor reliability was raised in a study by Jennifer Sumsion and Alma Fleet (1996), and their results are troubling. They report on a study undertaken by two university-based educators who were responsible for assessing 124 journals of pre-service teachers enrolled in an early childhood education program. Even

Photo 7.1 Journals are sometimes too personal to assess.


though the assessors were using a very basic three level scheme for assessing reflection (i.e., “highly reflective,” “moderately reflective,” and “not reflec-tive”), only 50% reliability was achieved with the coding. Given this low reliability, they question whether reflection can be assessed using a quanti-tative instrument. And if it has to be used, they argue that only one assessor should be involved, to avoid the problems of discrepancy between differ-ent assessors. Yet, in fairness to the students, it can be quite inequitable to have only one assessor involved (What if they have a poor understanding of reflection? What if they don’t like particular students? What if they haven’t been overly involved in the course delivery?).

Those who write well versus those who are reflective. Doubts have been ex-pressed about if and how information or “text” from written sources is a fair way of discerning if reflection has occurred (Sumsion & Fleet, 1996). The doubts stem from the potential difficulty in discerning between actu-al “reflection” and “mastery of a reflective writing genre.” Some students might be extremely reflective, as evidenced by their engagement in classes, tutorials, or experiential activities, but may not be able to convey their ideas effectively through written journal entries. Other students, conversely, may lack any real ability to engage in critical reflection, but are able to write re-flectively. This latter student will unsurprisingly and unfairly (perhaps) get a higher grader than their previous counterpart for reflection, due to their ability to wordsmith. Clearly, the relationship between a student’s ability and willingness to be reflective, and his or her ability and willingness to write reflectively, is not straightforward. Just as traditional assessment tasks like es-says and examinations favor certain ways of learning, unconventional assess-ment tasks, like reflective journals, will favor other students. It is important to remember this and, if journals are assessed, to consider providing options for those students who are less comfortable with this type of learning.

Assessing the hard stuff. When educators read students’ journals, they need to be prepared to learn information that might be somewhat chal-lenging. What if the students suggest that their teaching was boring? What if they reveal that they found the activity that was laboriously prepared over the weekend was a “dud?” What if particular values or views that educators disagree strongly with are expressed by students? This can be hard informa-tion to read; it becomes even harder when educators have to assess the jour-nal. While it might be tempting to give a student a low grade for the entry, educators must maintain their integrity and maturity in these situations. Perhaps some good feedback is being offered here (maybe our teaching was boring!)—if educators can be open to it! And remember, wouldn’t we rather the students be honest, rather than write what they think we want to hear? Such a situation will require that educators be reliable and honest


assessors. This means they endeavor to assess the journal on the standards and criteria that have been developed. It might be, however, that the mate-rial is just too hard to read, and educators might feel unable to fairly assess a student’s journal. In this case, get someone else to assess that journal.

High Stakes, Low Stakes, or Good Enough Writing

In deciding whether or not to assess, we find the work of Peter Elbow (1997) to be quite helpful. He delineates between high and low stakes writ-ing—they differ primarily in terms of how much a piece of writing matters or counts. Whereas high stakes writing is assessed and given a grade, con-versely in low-stakes or “good enough writing,” the entries themselves are informal, grading is informal, and it does not really have any/much impact on the final grade. Low stakes writing assignments are frequent, informal and happen regularly in class time or as a quick piece of homework. You might do your own version of low stakes writing and call it some other term, such as freewrite, response, inkshedding, or feedback.

According to Elbow (1997), using a combination of low and high stakes writing can really help students become more proficient reflective writers. He identifies a number of ways that low stakes writing benefits the learning process.

1. Low stakes writing helps students become more engaged with ideas that are presented. When students aren’t worried about getting a grade, they can find great freedom in trying to use their own language to summarize and engage with ideas. Too often, Elbow contends, when students are writing for a grade, they get caught up in using the “right” discourse, often just repeating ideas and big words instead of applying, decoding, or unpacking ideas presented.

2. Students often write much more freely when the stakes are lower; students don’t feel the pressure to wordsmith their writing—they use their time productively to discuss ideas. As a result, their writ-ing is often much more alive, free, simple, and flowing.

3. Low stakes writing exercises ultimately help produce a better high stakes product. The students can take the feedback they’ve been given over a number of low stakes assignments and apply it to their high stakes (graded) assignment.

4. Frequent low stakes assignments let educators keep track of how their teaching is going (are the students understanding this?) and how the students are doing in the class. Regular submissions


allow educators to see if students are understanding what they are teaching them, and quick intervention can be implemented if the low stakes assignments reveal that the majority of students are not understanding the material.

5. Low stakes assignments force students to stay on top of the mate-rial—they can’t fall behind if frequent writing assignments have to be turned in.

A Pass/Fail system of grading might also be an alternative to assessing journals. In our own research on journal writing, the students and educa-tors with whom we worked also were supportive of journals not being as-sessed at times.

Standards and Criteria for Assessment

If you have made the decision to assess a journal and give it a grade, then it is imperative to identify standards and criteria against which you will assess. The criteria (e.g., description of what will be assessed in the journal) need to be clearly determined in advance of assigning the journal—this will help you clarify why you are using journals and what you hope to get from the students. Additionally, students have a right to know the standards (e.g., description of what the student will need to do to get an A, B, C, . . . F) for each criteria, so they will know exactly what they need to do to achieve the highest possible standard (if they so choose!).

Ideally, you want to give the students these standards and criteria when you assign the journal—we think that is the fairest way for students to have a clear understanding of what they are going to be marked against. In the next section of this chapter, we have a close look at some standards and criteria that have been proposed for assessing journals.

Perhaps the most difficult and controversial aspect of assessing journals revolves around evaluating the level of reflection. How do educators decide if someone is being reflective, moderately reflective, or critically reflective? And isn’t it a very personal endeavor to assess level of reflection? It perhaps should come as little surprise that two people rarely agree when it comes to deciding how reflective someone is (Sumsion & Fleet, 1996).

Thankfully, in our review of the literature, we found countless “mod-els” and “frameworks” and “instruments” and “tools” that have been pro-posed by various researchers to help us with this difficult task. Each model has a range of diverse standards and criteria that have been designed to help us determine what constitutes various levels of reflection. They vary


in terms of their level of detail and the number of standards and criteria. Some instruments are clear and straightforward, yet it could be argued that they are overly simplistic. Other instruments are more involved and com-plicated, and while they capture more of the richness of the possibilities around reflection, they are at times daunting to use given their complexity. Some are designed to assess reflective writing, while others are designed to assess reflective thinking.

While the models help to some degree in determining the level of re-flection, there are problems with them as well—research has revealed that many of the models are either too simple or too complex, and many people find them difficult to interpret and apply. More troublingly, research has also revealed that when many people are given the task of assessing the same journal using the same criteria, they often differ dramatically in their interpretation of the level of reflection (Sumsion & Fleet, 1996).

For the purposes of this book, we’ve decided to present six of the more common tools that we think might resonate and be most useful for educa-tors reading this book. Many of these are based on the theories and models of reflection presented in Chapter 4. We then present a model and list of criteria by Jennifer Moon (2006) that brings a lot of these ideas together.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking. This tool was developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. He developed a classification of levels of intel-lectual behavior in learning. His taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels of thinking that are illustrated in Table 7.2: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evalua-tion. These domains and levels are still widely used in educational circles as a framework for teaching and evaluating higher order thinking.

In our own research on journal writing, when we did a content analysis of 880 journal entries (see, O’Connell & Dyment, 2004), we used Bloom’s taxonomy as our evaluative tool for assessing higher order thinking and critical reflection in journal entries. We found it to be a helpful tool to use in our journaling workshop and our assessment of journals. However, we found it difficult, at times, to align an entry into a specific level of thinking, given there were so many levels. Further, at times it was difficult to differen-tiate among them. Nevertheless, we achieved inter-rater reliability of 0.86 (meaning that we agreed 86% of the time about which level of Bloom’s an entry was written).

Hatton and Smith’s Framework. Hatton and Smith (1995) developed a four level framework for assessing levels of reflection (see Table 7.3). It is important to note that Hatton and Smith purposefully designed the frame-


work to be non-hierarchical. Rather they convey a progression towards criti-cal thinking. The first level is purely descriptive, whereas the second, third, and fourth levels increase in complexity and depth, ultimately leading to a demonstration of critical thinking and critical reflection. This framework has been used with some success recently to assess 226 on-line reflective journal entries of 30 students in a department of design course at the Uni-versity of Iowa (Gulwadi, 2009).

Valli’s Typology of Reflection. After careful analysis of a large body of work centered primarily around reflection and teacher education programs,

Table 7.2 bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking

Level Description

1. Knowledge Remembering or recalling appropriate, previously learned information to draw out factual (usually right or wrong) answers. Use words and phrases such as: how many, when, where, list, define, tell, describe, identify, etc., to draw out factual answers, testing students’ recall and recognition.

2. Comprehension Grasping or understanding the meaning of informational materials. Use words such as: describe, explain, estimate, predict, identify, differentiate, etc., to encourage students to translate, interpret, and extrapolate.

3. Application Applying previously learned information (or knowledge) to new and unfamiliar situations. Use words such as: demonstrate, apply, illustrate, show, solve, examine, classify, experiment, etc., to encourage students to apply knowledge to situations that are new and unfamiliar.

4. Analysis Breaking down information into parts, or examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) information. Use words and phrases such as: what are the differences, analyze, explain, compare, separate, classify, arrange, etc., to encourage students to break information down into parts.

5. Synthesis Applying prior knowledge and skills to combine elements into a pattern not clearly there before. Use words and phrases such as: combine, rearrange, substitute, create, design, invent, what if, etc., to encourage students to combine elements into a pattern that’s new.

6. Evaluation Judging or deciding according to some set of criteria, without real right or wrong answers. Use words such as: assess, decide, measure, select, explain, conclude, compare, summarize, etc., to encourage students to make judgments according to a set of criteria.


Linda Valli (1997) developed a typology that includes five types of reflec-tion: technical reflection, reflection in action and reflection on action, deliberative reflection, personalistic reflection, and critical reflection (see Table 7.4) This typology has been heralded by some for its successful incor-poration of the work of Donald Schon (1987).

Table 7.3 Hatton and Smith’s Four Operational aspects of Reflection

Level of Reflection Description

Descriptive (non-reflective)

• Descriptive account of events• No engagement or reflection

Descriptive Reflection

• Minimal reflection from primarily a personal perspective• Some contemplation of other perspectives • Acknowledgement of numerous influences

Dialogic Reflection • Discourse with one’s self; an exploration for possible reasons

• Ability to separate oneself from the event or activity• Engagement with self, events, and actions • Presentation of multiple options for justification• Logical and integrative commentary

Critical Reflection • Consideration of the broader social, historical, political, and cultural contexts that influence an event/activity

• Integration of theory and practice to inform observations

Table 7.4 Valli’s Typology of Reflection

Type of reflection Description

Technical reflection • Thinking and reporting general instructions, techniques, or skills

Reflection in action and Reflection on action

• Reporting on one’s own personal performance• Uses values, beliefs, contexts, and other individuals as

sources of knowledge for action• Justified decisions are made based on unique situation

and experienceDeliberative reflection • Competing view points (from others or from

literature) are evaluated and assessed to inform future actions and decisions

• Decisions incorporate personal beliefs, values, research, experience, and advice of others

Personalistic reflection • Reflecting on one’s own personal growth, relationships with others, and overall improvement to a given situation

Critical reflection • Apply ethical criteria, such as social justice and equality, to reflect upon their own experience


Mark Minottt (2008), from the University College of the Cayman Islands, used Valli’s typology to assess journal entries of 20 pre-service teachers. While Minott (2008) found the typology easy to use, it has been criticized by some for being too hierarchical (Hatton & Smith, 1995). Still others have come to its defense as being not hierarchical (Spalding & Wilson, 2002).

Boud et al.’s Framework. David Boud and his colleagues (Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 1985) have depicted a model of the reflective process that has been used by researchers to assess journals. The premise of the model is that as an individual encounters an experience, he or she responds (this is not being reflective, according to the framework). When the individual revisits the experience, recollects the events, and replays the experience, then the reflective process has begun (attention to feelings). More advanced reflec-tion takes place when data is related to that which is already known (associa-tion), relationships are sought among the data (integration), authenticity of the ideas and feelings is determined (validation), and an effort is made to make knowledge one’s own (appropriation). Finally, there might be a change in thinking, attitudes, or behavior (outcome of reflection). These five levels are described in more detail in Table 7.5.

Table 7.5 boud et al.’s 1985 Model

Element of Reflective Process Criteria

Attention to Feelings

• Utilizing positive feelings• Removing obstructing feelings

Association • Linking of prior and new knowledge, feelings, or attitudes • Identifying discrepancies between old and new knowledge,

feelings, and attitudes• Re-assessing prior and incorporating new knowledge,

feelings, and attitudesIntegration • Seeking the nature of relationships of prior knowledge, feelings,

and attitudes with new knowledge, feelings, and attitudesValidation • Testing for internal consistency between new appreciations

and prior knowledge or beliefsAppropriation • Making knowledge one’s own

• New knowledge, feelings, or attitudes entering into own sense of identity

• New knowledge, feelings, or attitudes becoming a significant force in own life

Outcome of Reflection

• Transformation in perspectives• Change in behavior• Readiness for application• Commitment to action


This model has been used by Wong and her colleagues (Wong, Kember, Chung, & Yan, 1995) to assess journals of nursing students. They found the model to be challenging to use because there are so many levels to choose from—and as we all know, reflection is not linear or simple, so assigning a journal entry to one of six levels can be understandably quite difficult!

Merizow. Jack Merizow has offered a number of typologies for assessing reflection, but his simplest one involves only three categories of reflection: non-reflective, reflective, and critically reflective (Merizow & Associates, 1990). This simple model has been quite popular because it is relatively straightforward and hopefully increases inter-rater reliability (see Table 7.6).

This model was used by Wong and her colleagues (Wong et al., 1995) to re-assess the journals of nursing students that had already been assessed us-ing Boud et al.’s framework (1985) as described above. Compared to Boud’s six level model, Wong and her colleagues reported that Merizow’s three category model was much easier and simpler to use. Unsurprisingly, the assessors were generally in agreement more of the time as to the level of reflection represented in the journal entries.

Kember et al.’s Instrument. Over the last decade, David Kember and his colleagues (Kember et al., 1999; Kember & Leung, 2000; Kember, McKay, Sinclair, & Wong, 2008) have drawn heavily on the work of Jack Merizow (primarily 1990, but also other works) to develop a number of schemes for assessing levels of reflective writing. In their initial work (Kember et al., 1999), they used Merizow’s six level system for categorizing reflection:

1. Habitual Action (Non-reflection): That which has been learned before and through frequent use becomes an activity that is performed automatically or with little conscious thought (not relevant for assessing level of reflection in journals).

Table 7.6 Merizow and associates Model

Categories Description

Non-Reflective • Descriptive account of events• Factual recordings with no engagement or critique• Impersonal reporting

Reflective • Relate experiences• Identify relationships between prior and new knowledge

and feelings• Ability to modify what is known to new situations

Critically Reflective • Identifies and validates assumptions• Attempts to make knowledge personal• Transformation in perspectives


2. Thoughtful Action (Non-reflection): Makes use of existing knowl-edge, without attempting to appraise that knowledge, so learning remains within pre-existing schemes and perspectives.

3. Introspection (Non-reflection): Recognition or awareness of feel-ings with no examination of how or why these feelings developed.

4. Content Reflection (Reflection): Reflection on what one per-ceives, thinks, feels, or acts upon.

5. Process Reflection (Reflection): Examination of how one per-forms the functions of perceiving, thinking, feeling, or acting and an assessment of efficacy in performing them.

6. Premise Reflection (Reflection): Becoming aware of why one perceives, thinks, feels, or acts as one does.

However, the categories proved to be too fine-grained, and Kember et al. (2008) suggested that “a simpler scheme with fewer categories would be easier to follow for those without detailed knowledge of the literature on which the categories were based” (p. 372). To that end, Kember and his colleagues proceeded to develop a four-category scheme that they thought to be a “comprehensive, logical and, most importantly, workable framework for developing a method to assess reflective thinking” (Kember & Leung, 2000, p. 383). They developed four categories of reflection: habitual action, understanding, reflection, and critical reflection (see Table 7.7).

Table 7.7 Kember et al.’s Four Category Scheme for Coding and assessing Reflection

Construct Description

Habitual Action/Non-Reflection

• Non-reflective activities

Understanding • Make use of existing knowledge, without attempting to evaluate that knowledge

• Learning remains safely within existing perspectives• Demonstrates understanding without relating to other

situationsReflection • Active, considered, and careful consideration of any belief

or knowledge• Critique of assumptions• Exploration of experiences to lead to new understanding

or appreciationsCritical Reflection • Involves a critical review of ingrained assumptions

• Profound level of reflection• Might involve change from normal ways of doing things• Challenge of firmly held beliefs and ideas


Initially, they used this framework to develop a questionnaire that could be completed to assess levels of reflective thinking. They wanted the questionnaire to be short, easy to administer, easy to analyze, and readily possible to interpret—and so their categories of reflection had to be rela-tively straightforward. Although this instrument was originally designed to explicitly assess reflective thinking (Kember & Leung, 2000), the authors have since gone on to use this scheme to assess the level of reflection in writ-ten work with success (Kember, McKay, Sinclair, & Wong, 2008).

Bringing it all together: Suggested standards and criteria for assessment. Now that we have reviewed these six tools for assessing reflection, we conclude this section of the chapter with a discussion of Jennifer Moon’s (2006) work, which brings together a number of tools for assessing reflection and develops what we find to be a fairly comprehensive set of factors to consider when assessing journals. First we’ll discuss four general levels of reflection suggested by Moon that may be used to assess journals, followed by a list of criteria, or components of journals educators might wish to assess.

The four levels of reflection include descriptive writing, descriptive report with some reflection, reflection, and deep reflection (Moon, 2006). As you’ll see from the list of criteria presented later on, these levels of reflection inte-grate aspects from the list into considering how reflective a journal entry might be. The first level of reflection is descriptive writing. These entries con-tain very little reflection and are usually written as a story or simple listing of events. The student may make some connections to past or future experi-ences. These descriptive entries tend to broadly depict an issue or experi-ence and may contain limited outside information or show a small degree of connection to the student’s behavior. There is relatively no focus on the components of a particular event or issue, with all parts of the story receiv-ing the same level of attention. Descriptive entries often lay the foundation for more reflective writing, particularly if they capture important aspects of an event, issue, or experience.

The second level builds on the first—it is a descriptive report, but contains some reflection. These entries spot important aspects of an experience or ac-tivity that must be noted. While these points are identified, and potential questions asked, there is no attempt to answer these queries, provide pos-sible solutions, or consider how outside information might influence the student’s understanding. Descriptive reports with some reflection indicate that the student is able to view an event, experience, or activity from an outside perspective on a limited level (usually focused on a specific aspect of it). These entries may indicate some level of how the student feels about the experience, but on a superficial level.


Entries at the next level, reflection, include an overall description of an experience but specifically note areas to which the student would like to return for further consideration. The student begins to draw in outside information and to make links to things they have learned in class or from their life experience. There is the beginning of some critical analyses oc-curring, with introspection happening related to the student’s behaviors, feelings, or thoughts. The student takes an outside viewpoint towards the experience and realizes that it might be looked at through a number of lenses. However, these entries do nothing more than identify that these alternative opinions exist. Reflection at this level recognizes that views may change over time and as a result of the psychological state of the student.

The final level, deep reflection, is the level at which we hope students write a majority of their journal entries. These entries integrate the previ-ous three levels and extend the writing to a much more profound level. This level of reflective writing clearly shows that students are thinking about how they’ve experienced an event or activity and recognizes that others may have different viewpoints (i.e., they are clearly engaged in metacognitive processing). Students who are writing at this level show they understand that demographic, social, psychological, and emotional factors may modify their viewpoint and that of others. There is a clear and concise connection to outside information such as readings, theories, or what is being talked about in class. These entries include evaluation of perspectives and syn-thesis of ideas, and extend these to both previous and future behaviors. Through these entries, the student not only identifies what he or she spe-cifically learned, but also articulates how that learning will be integrated into his or her existing body of knowledge and way of being. Evidence is presented that indicates that the student understands that things change over time, and that new information and perspectives need to be integrated into his or her understanding of a particular topic or event.

These general levels of reflection certainly capture many of the ele-ments of the models we presented earlier in this chapter. While we feel it is important for educators to assess the level of reflection of entries in a jour-nal (but only if this is an intended purpose of the journal), there are other components of entries and journals that may be considered for assessment as well. These are presented in the following section.

We feel that Moon has also done a fine job of summarizing criteria for assessing journals. It is important to recognize that this list represents broad criteria. Educators may use some of the models outlined previously in this and other chapters in this book, but they will have to develop the specific fac-ets of the criteria while considering the purpose of the journal as well as the students with whom they are working. These criteria include the following:


1. Length—This may be defined as word count for the entire journal, number of pages, or words in a specific entry or set of entries. One potential issue with assessment based on length is that stu-dents will try to write more, which doesn’t necessarily mean it will be substantive.

2. Presentation—This criterion for assessment judges format and leg-ibility. Is the journal organized and can it be read?

3. Number of entries—Related to length, educators may wish to assess whether a particular number of entries has been written by the student. An alternative is to evaluate the regularity of entries—is the student writing on a regular basis?

4. Observation of facts—Does the student accurately record and describe events that occur? Are issues well-defined and clearly articulated?

5. Questioning—This criterion assesses whether the student is asking questions or identifying areas for further inquiry through his or her journal entries.

6. Modification of ideas—Does the student revise his or her original idea or understanding to reflect new learning?

7. Self-assessment—This area of assessment judges the students’ ability to be sincere in their understanding of the topic at hand, or in their performance on a specific task or activity.

8. Thoroughness of reflection—This criterion judges whether a student has adequately thought through an experience or event. Do they show the recognition of “aha!” moments and realize they’ve learned something new?

9. Depth—Related to the previous item, this criterion looks at the students’ ability to critically examine a particular learning experi-ence on more than a superficial level.

10. Overall depth—Similar to the previous criterion, this assesses the depth of the journal as a whole. Through their entries, do stu-dents touch on all components of the larger topic of study or body of knowledge?

11. Creative thinking—When developing hypotheses, asking questions, or proposing solutions, does the student come up with creative ideas that show connection to the topic of study?

12. Critical thinking—This criterion assesses whether a student is using critical thinking skills to identify and evaluate learning experi-ences, as well as to propose appropriate, well-reasoned solutions to problems.


13. Cognitive skills—If an educator chooses to use one of the models presented earlier in this chapter such as Bloom’s taxonomy, he or she may wish to assess the level at which students are making entries (i.e., knowledge, application, synthesis, etc.).

14. Theoretical links—This criterion looks at whether students’ journal entries have made connections between practical experiences and what they’ve learned in class, through readings and assignments. Students may identify or explicitly use a theory or construct in their writing.

15. Outcomes and objectives—Through their entries, does the student show that he or she has met the requirements of the assignment or expected learning outcomes? Does the journal meet its overall purpose?

16. Further reflection—This final criterion assesses whether or not the student has identified questions or issues that have emerged as a result of the reflective process. It also assesses whether the student has identified the need to reflect on these questions further.

As we mentioned above, it is incumbent on the educator to carefully develop the nuts and bolts of each of these types of criteria if they are going to be used to assess students’ journals. Just because it is listed here, doesn’t mean it has to be assessed!

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have taken a close look at the advantages and disadvan-tages of responding to and assessing journals. Hopefully, you have a good understanding of when it is and isn’t appropriate to respond to and assess journals. You should now be aware that there are different types and levels of responses that you can use—don’t feel as though you always have to write a missive in response to your students’ journals! You’ve been introduced to a number of standards and criteria that can be used in assessing journals and determining levels of reflection. And, finally, you should have learned some specific tools and strategies that will help you become a more rigor-ous and conscientious responder and assessor. If you choose to respond to and assess journals, then please do it well—otherwise, you risk turning a student off to journal writing for a long time!


8Technology and Journals

In recent times, we have noted that the classic tattered leather journal that has for centuries had aesthetic appeal has a direct competitor that is

much more alluring to many students: Web 2.0 technologies. The appeal is particularly strong for students who have been labelled as “digital natives,” “Net-Geners,” “Gen-Xers,” and “millennials” (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). These students are known for their expertise with the Internet, communi-cations, digital technologies, and other media compared with previous gen-erations. For some time, we have speculated (as have others) that it might be worth trying to engage these students with “their technology,” aiming at improving the quality of the reflection process to such an extent that stu-dents would be inspired by these new technological possibilities.

There is a mounting body of evidence pointing to the potential for tech-nology to support journal writing. For example, blogs, VoiceThreads, per-sonal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, and online journals have been shown to support some students’ reflective behaviors (Bouldin, Holmes, & Fortenberry, 2006; Downing & Chim, 2004; Gulwadi, 2009)—especially those who resist the traditional pen and paper medium. Other forms of


asynchronous, computer-mediated forms of communication such as bulle-tin boards, email, and texting also encourage interactive learning (Arnold & Ducate, 2006), particularly for a generation of students who seem to have been “plugged in” since they were young. E-portfolios, or the collection of materials and artefacts designed to capture growth and development over time, have also been widely used across a number of disciplines with good success (Parkes & Kajder, 2010). Parkes and Kajder noted that e-portfolios provide students with the ability to make connections between theory and practice, be explicit in their presentation of their growth, be authentic in making connections, and present the opportunity for critical thinking.

In this chapter, we explore how technology can support student jour-nal writing behaviors in education. We begin by describing the technologi-cal opportunities that can be used by educators to facilitate this approach to journal writing. Specifically, we look at the tools of digital recording (e.g., iPods, cameras, voice recorders) and two Web 2.0 applications (e.g., blogs and VoiceThreads). We then turn to a discussion of the advan-tages of this form of journal writing before concluding with an examina-tion of their limitations.

Tools and Applications for Capturing Reflections

Tools of Digital Reflection

What tools will educators need to record reflections? A trip to any electronics store will have the uninitiated frustrated with the choices and in some cases overawed by the cost. For student use in the field, teachers should be attempting to incorporate devices that their students may already have. For example, most cell phones and smartphones have a video camera, still camera, and a voice recorder. The family digital camera usually has still and video camera capabilities. A digital sound recorder is an effective tool for capturing thoughts in the heat of the moment, conducting interviews and recording the sounds of nature. While the prevalence of technological devices is evident, students can benefit from some basic training in how to use their digital recording devices prior to their educational experience. Collaboration with the IT department to set up a training program will ensure a better quality final product.

Applications

A number of applications on the Internet have an enormous potential to change the face of reflection. Web 2.0 is a term that is regularly connect-ed with online software applications that assist in information sharing and

Technology and Journals 147

collaboration on the World Wide Web. Students and teachers (and others if invited) can contribute to and modify a website’s content as opposed to the old style Web 1.0 methodologies which were passive in nature with informa-tion flowing only one way (to the online reader).

Educators interested in utilizing technology to aid the reflection pro-cess should “begin with the end in mind.” They must have a clear picture of how they want to present the captured reflections. There are many pos-sibilities on the World Wide Web, but for the context of this chapter we look at the following two applications: blogs and VoiceThreads.

Blogging. The word “blog” is an abbreviated version of “web log,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featur-ing diary-type commentary, links to articles on other websites or mashups which are embedded data or functionality from other web applications that appear as a seamless inclusion on a page (Wordpress, 2010). There are a variety of blog authoring tools on the web that require students to open an account, but once logged in, are free to use. Blogs may contain a variety of different types of entries, including:

◾ Text: At a most basic level, blogs can be used by students to “write” the text of their journal. Text can be typed directly on the blog or can be cut and pasted from another word processing document.

◾ Photos and Albums: Students can enhance their reflective journals on blogs by using photos that may capture a key learning mo-ment or breakthrough that will highlight an aspect of their learn-ing at that instant. The adage that “a picture paints a thousand words” holds true when a blog page is viewed. Students can also embed entire photo albums to support their online journal.

◾ Videos: Students can also take videos whilst on an educational experience and embed the video into their reflective journal. For example, a student could take a video of him or herself, in which he or she was asked to reflect on a specific question. This can later be edited and uploaded onto YouTube (a video sharing web-site) or other web-based learning platforms. While the video can be played on the student’s journal blog, it is actually housed on YouTube. Greiman and Covington (2007) reported that a major-ity of students in their study, when provided the choice, preferred to reflect verbally rather than in written format.

◾ Digital Voice Recordings: Capturing learning in the heat of the moment is a wonderful source of information from which to


base a reflection session. This “edgework” facilitation technique (Nadler & Luckner, 1992) lends itself to carrying a small digital recorder where students or educators can capture a student’s voice when that key learning moment is taking place. After the fact, interviews can then be recorded so that the impact of this breakthrough can be captured for all time.

There are many advantages to using blogs as a form of reflective jour-naling. Most contemporary blogging sites require little or no knowledge of HTML programming and making a post is as simple as cutting and pasting a passage from a word processing document. Blogs can be supplemented with video clips, audio clips, photos, and links to other informational sites, enabling the student to enrich and enhance their entry and overall reflec-tion. This will most likely appeal to students with a variety of learning styles as the blog becomes more than a screen full of text.

In terms of their educational and instructional value, blogs have been found to provide many benefits to students and instructors. For example, blogs create learning communities (Efimova & Fiedler, 2003) by allowing individuals with shared interests to interact with one another. Students con-tributing to a blog develop an enhanced sense of community with one an-other due to their level of involvement and the collaborative nature of a blog (Godwin-Jones, 2008).

VoiceThread. VoiceThread is a second powerful tool that allows partici-pants to comment and interact around a variety of media that is uploaded to the VoiceThread site. Students can upload photos, videos, or drawings and then add a voiceover to narrate their reflections on the experience being shown on the screen. VoiceThread also allows students to upload documents from a variety of formats (e.g., PDFs, Word documents, etc.). A group of students also has the ability to collaborate by layering individual comments about the media being shown on the screen. Similarly, teach-ers can add comments to the submission via video, audio, or written docu-ments. For a nominal fee, teachers can use the VoiceThread platform in their classroom. Useful tools include the ability to keep postings private between the teacher and individual students, within the classroom, or to make the postings public (Brunvand & Byrd, 2011).

How to Choose?

When faced with the number of choices of which Web 2.0 platforms to use for reflective assignments with students, instructors may feel it is a daunting task to make a decision. However, Joshi and Chugh (2009) pro-


vide a useful guide to selecting an appropriate tool for reflection based on the purpose, goals, and objectives of the activity. They suggest the following:

Wikis: A website developed by a variety of users who may add, edit, and peer-review content individually. Used for collaborative exploration of a topic and coauthoring of reflections.

Chat Rooms: An Internet location primarily for communication. Uti-lized for unstructured discussion, provision of “real-time” instructions, and as a means for organizing assignment logistics.

Blog: A website used to record information, opinions, or media. Best used for personal reflections, chronological accounts, and ongoing analysis of a topic or subject of study.

Discussion Forum: An Internet site where people hold “conversations” via posting questions and responses. Supports reflective discussion, but differs from a chat room in that it does not require “real-time” posting by users.

Joshi and Chugh (2009) noted that, optimally, courses would include a variety of these tools that could be used hand-in-hand with one another to support and promote reflective learning.


Opportunities

There is little doubt that the world has firmly grasped the use of technology in everyday life, and there are many opportunities and benefits that tech-nology brings to reflective journaling (regardless of form or function). In this section of the chapter, we present an overview of these opportunities.

Congruency Between Everyday Life and School Life

It is apparent that young people have grown up with technology in a way that is unparalleled in history (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008; Prenksy, 2001). As these children have progressed through the school system, they (and learners of all ages) have also experienced increased access to technology in the classroom (Yang, 2009). We hear our students comment on “dated” technology that for many instructors is “cutting edge.” It is reasonable for these students, who have grown up in the digital age, to expect technology to be accessible to them regardless of context, environmental factors, or lo-cation. It is reasonable to extend this rationale to reflective journals as well; students in contemporary society are more likely to feel comfortable with electronic forms of reflective expression such as blogs, Twitter (an instant messaging system in which “tweets” of a maximum of 140 characters may be shared), video, and chat rooms than traditional hardcopy journals.

In this sense, digital or electronic forms of journaling are more congru-ent with students’ everyday experiences and interests, particularly as they have not known the world without computers, video games, and the Internet (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). In our traditional classrooms, a majority of stu-dents no longer take notes with pen and paper, but with a word processing program on a laptop computer. As Stiler and Philleo (2003) noted, the use of technology for reflective work has certain benefits, as instructors are not required to discern the meaning of scribbles and often illegible handwriting.

However, Gleaves, Walker and Grey (2007) found that students who made digital entries wrote more often only to comply with the require-ments of the assignment. They theorized that if these students were not so technologically savvy, the compliance rate would have been much smaller. Strampel and Oliver (2008) noted that while the activity of blogging itself didn’t result in higher levels of reflection, students did show higher levels of cognitive processing and reflection through the larger learning activities of which blogging was a part. In this respect, blogs appear to positively impact students’ ability to gain critical reflection skills. Regardless, students in the contemporary education system are increasingly used to technology as a part of everyday life, and as such expect technology to be available to them.


Multiple Forms of Capturing the Moment

Technology has provided us with an assortment of ways beyond the conventional bound journal to capture meaningful moments of learning experiences. As reflecting in a paper journal serves mainly students with an interest or aptitude in writing, technology offers an alternative for students who don’t like or who aren’t good at written forms of reflection. Providing students with different ways of capturing key moments such as digital au-dio recordings, video, or photos will most likely appeal to students with a wide variety of learning styles or ways of knowing other than those who are most comfortable with writing. A number of researchers including Gardner (1993) and Kolb (1984) have recognized that students learn and reflect in many different ways. Technology is one tool available that educators can use to assist students to reflect in a manner that more closely matches their preferred way (or ways) of learning.

Technology also allows key components of experiences to be recorded in more than one format. Students who can see and hear what was happen-ing at a specific time in a program through the use of technology will most likely reflect in a deeper way than by just reading an entry in a journal or by trying to remember a particular event. Technology can effectively provide an enhanced “database” for reflection that traditional paper journals might not be able to do as well. This is particularly salient if educators wish their students to reflect both in action and on action as Schön (1983) suggested.

Audio and video recordings, particularly those in digital format that can be accessed through tools such as Web 2.0 technology, can serve as a founda-tion for reflection. Additionally, educators can encourage students to reflect before an event or activity as Boud (2001) suggested by having them watch video or listen to audio recordings from a previous program. This may be attractive to educators who do not have access to their students directly be-fore a program begins. For example, in the outdoor education arena, many schools contract outdoor education centres or other agencies to deliver pro-grams. Outdoor educators often don’t meet students until they arrive on site for the program, and therefore don’t have the opportunity to encourage these students to reflect before the activity starts. Web 2.0 technology can assist in this process, and create a richer learning environment.

Immediacy

Web 2.0 technology and the Internet provide immediate access to in-formation, entertainment and to connecting with other people. This can be of great benefit to the reflective process, as students can receive sup-


port and feedback in a timely manner when an important event happens (Chretien, Goldman, & Faselis, 2008). Paper journals do not allow for this immediate exchange of ideas and feedback. When blogs are used as a tool for reflection, they can also provide a dynamic and vibrant pathway to ad-ditional sources of information through the use of hyperlinks and connec-tion to the broader World Wide Web. As Brownstein and Klein (2006, p. 19) stated “Diaries and journals are native to paper—they can only statically refer to other information sources. Blogs, on the other hand, do more than just refer to other sources; they provide a doorway, through hyperlinks, di-rectly to that idea.” When coupled with students’ expertise with technology, this form of reflection has an advantage over paper journals.

Other forms of technology may support reflection and learning in the same way. For example, social networking websites such as Facebook, Twit-ter, and LinkedIn may be used as a space for reflection to occur. Modern smartphones, when coupled with Twitter, may prove as an impactful meth-od of reflection as students can immediately post a thought and receive feedback from most places on the globe in a matter of seconds. As the Internet and technology provide a vehicle to instantly satiate one’s appetite for information and learning, many learners are foregoing the traditional educational system and “teaching” themselves (Howard, Veerman, & Saun-ders, 2010). These “edupunks” are using technology to circumvent the tra-ditional school system by using wikis, open-source textbooks, and blogs to learn about what they are interested in and when they are interested in learning. In terms of reflective activities, technology provides many of these attractive features as well.

Supports Students as Learners

As already mentioned, technology can support students as individual learners in different ways than traditional pedagogy by appealing to diverse learning styles. For example, it has been shown that some students who are introverts in traditional classroom settings exhibit more extraverted behav-ior in the online environment (Downing & Chim, 2004). It is postulated that these usually quiet students appreciate the additional time for reflec-tion offered by the online forum (instead of having to publicly and im-mediately respond in a face-to-face classroom setting). Other studies have shown that Internet access promotes student reading (Rodzvilla, 2002; Stiler & Philleo, 2003) and that technology has helped students document their lives (Godwin-Jones, 2003). Further, technology creates incentives for reflective thought by allowing students to exchange information without the confines of space and time (Yang, 2009) which caters to the individual


needs of students. This is important in terms of encouraging reflection as in many instances students feel the need to reflect when it is not convenient to pull out a paper journal and write. Instead, they can quickly text, videotape, or audio record their thoughts in a number of ways using technology.

Technology may also support students as learners by creating the op-portunity for collaborative reflection (Chretien, et al., 2008). Group proj-ects such as videos, websites, blogs, and wikis can be used to encourage students to reflect together as well as learn about the technology itself. This is particularly important for distance education students who may never meet their classmates face-to-face. As distance education is becoming more prevalent, instructors will need to be more thoughtful in creating collective occasions for students to work together. Some researchers have noted that the reflection that occurs in online journals is often perceived as group reflection rather than individual reflection (Romano & Schwartz, 2005).

As Brownstein and Klein (2006) noted, technologically-based reflec-tion in which a student posts a thought, receives comments, and refines the thought, mirrors the scientific process and may encourage deeper re-flection as the writer receives feedback in a more timely fashion than they might from a traditional journal. This will certainly benefit distance educa-tion students who might not have had the opportunity for feedback be-fore the widespread use of technology. Additionally, when used effectively, technology can enable faculty to serve a greater number of students as a role model for reflective practice (Chretien, et al., 2008). However, Killeavy and Moloney (2010) found little evidence of deep reflection in their study of blogs used as a way to reflect. They reported that blogs were used more effectively as a means of expressing emotions and feelings and personal perspectives that did not emerge in other forums.

Finally, electronic forms of reflection provide an opportunity for scaf-folding material, which benefits students who are new to a topic of study (Yang, 2009). Technology can help in organizing material in a manner that introduces students to a topic, allows them to experience it and reflect on it, and then adds new material or concepts. Technology allows students to see and hear a concept or idea in a realistic setting through the use of video or audio, and enables students to explore that topic in more detail through links to the World Wide Web. The use of technology for scaffolding can also assist students in learning how to reflect more critically. For example, Lai and Calandra (2009) found that the use of question prompts and a writing process display improved participants’ reflective writing. They advocated for continued exploration and use of scaffolding techniques when using reflective assignments with students, with which we wholeheartedly agree!


Portfolios

Technology can enhance the development of student portfolios, which have increasingly moved away from paper format (Parkes & Kajder, 2010; Romano & Schwartz, 2005). These portfolios not only capture a student’s improvement and maturity, but also provide a means of reflection both in and on practice as advocated by Schön (1983). Further, online or electron-ic portfolios not only provide written evidence of a student’s capabilities and successes, but also can show a student in action in his or her chosen profession through the use of video and audio clips or photographic evi-dence. They also show a student’s growth and development intellectually, as a professional and as a person.

From the viewpoint of an instructor, online or electronic portfolios al-low for easy access and limit the transport of boxes of hardcopy portfolios for review. It may be easier for instructors to provide formative feedback on portfolios because of this. Chretien et al. (2008, p. 2066) explained that In-ternet-based portfolios and reflective journaling have “facilitated tracking, accessibility, and mentorship of reflective assignments.” From a student’s per-spective, electronic portfolios allow them to review their development as a professional through reflecting on their past performances as well as collect “artefacts” about their experiences to which they may refer in the future.

Enabling students to use technology as a means of reflection certainly has some attractive qualities and advantages over traditional paper-based journals. This is particularly true in the modern world that is increasingly dominated by around the clock access to information and communication. If carefully thought out and facilitated by educators, electronic forms of journaling can certainly enhance student learning and add to the already powerful outcomes created by meaningful reflection.

A Pedagogical Framework

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere in this book, instructors must carefully consider any type of reflective assignment before it is implemented with stu-dents. This is especially true with reflective assignments using Web 2.0 tech-nologies, as there is the potential danger of student reflections being made public through the Internet. To help instructors understand different ways of learning using Web 2.0 technologies, Hourigan and Murray (2010) provide a useful description of activities and resources required to support this pro-cess. They outline two types of contextual inputs that should be considered by instructors including organizational and pedagogical inputs and two types of activities including student supports and pedagogical approaches/logistics.


Broadly conceptualized, organizational inputs include practical consid-erations such as the length and format of a class (e.g., does it meet once a week for three hours or one period every day?), overall length of a course (semester or year), and overall institutional support for this style of learn-ing (Hourigan & Murray, 2010). Pedagogical inputs refer to the overall goals and objectives of not only the course, but also the reflective learning activity itself. As we’ve already mentioned, this is a crucial aspect of any re-flective learning assignment!

Regarding the two types of activities, student supports include things such as technological assistance from an IT department, access to comput-ers and the Internet, student training and development in blogging or other Web 2.0 technologies, and managing the content of student blogs or Internet posts (Hourigan & Murray, 2010). Pedagogical activities incorporate instruc-tor-driven initiatives such as supporting students, responding to posts, lesson planning, and adjusting teaching styles and methods to meet student needs.

While integrating Web 2.0 technologies is certainly an attractive way to encourage and promote student reflection, we recommend instructors carefully consider this framework before starting. In this respect, instruc-


tors can ensure that the requisite institutional resources are in place to al-low for successfully reaching the goals and objectives of the reflective activ-ity. If these items are not considered, instructors may be faced with several challenges, which we discuss in the next section.

Challenges

While the benefits of embracing technological innovations to facilitate criti-cal reflection and/or writing are unequivocal, there are, unsurprisingly, a number of challenges that must be considered as well. In this section of the chapter, we explore some of these.

Levels of Reflection

The ultimate hope, of course, is that journals (regardless of medium) will allow students to engage in a deep and authentic manner. But it appears that this is not always the case. Our recent review (Dyment & O’Connell, 2011) of 11 studies that examined the level of reflection found in journals revealed that only a limited number of student journals contained deeply reflective entries whereas the majority of student journals contained primar-ily descriptive accounts of events, with little to no critical reflection present.

We have some concerns that the technological medium might actu-ally limit the depth of reflection found in student journals, adding to the latter larger body of research described above. This concern is supported by Strampel and Oliver (2008) who studied the content of student blogs to examine levels of reflection. Predominately, they described students’ writing as displaying “cognitive retrieval” and being largely descriptive in nature. They noted, “Despite these benefits, as claimed by the students themselves, the actual blogs revealed that the students writing typically showed minimal sophistication, meeting only the criteria of descriptive reflection” (2008, p. 1000). Their findings are supported by the work of Fischer, Haley, Saarinen, and Chretien (2011) who discovered there was no difference in reflections that were posted as blogs or made in tradi-tional paper journals.

Similarly, Killeavy and Moloney (2010) found little evidence of the growth of reflective practice in their mixed methods study. They attributed this to a number of reasons. First, they noted that participants in their study (new teachers) made entries primarily describing what happened to them, with little or no analysis of the event. They hypothesized this was the re-sult of what Kelchtermans and Ballet (2002) term as “praxis shock,” or the response to daily events and crises. Second, as we’ve already mentioned


elsewhere, they recognized in hindsight that students needed more guid-ance and training in how to reflect. Finally, due to the nature of the course, students were hesitant to share their blogs with other students, as there was not a strong sense of community within the class.

Given the immediacy of the medium, we wonder if students tend to reflect more during the moment, without allowing the passage of time to consider, ponder, and reflect deeply on events. We are not arguing that re-flection can only happen after the event—we agree with those (e.g., Boud, 2001) who argue that such a view puts learners in a position of being pas-sive respondents to events. To counteract this assumption, Boud (2001) proposed three “occasions of reflection:” in anticipation of events, during them, and afterwards.

We agree that all three occasions should be happening, but propose that some of the technological avenues might promote reflection to occur more “during the event.” It is easy to document the moment with a video camera or iPod—and to capture someone’s feelings about an event during it or immediately after it. For example, we have explored using video to record students’ feelings of their rock climb—this involves asking the stu-dents questions immediately before and after the climb. This always gener-ates immediate and reactive responses that are very “in the moment.” This is a form of reflection, but we have noted that it is often shallower than the reflections that can be generated after a passage of time that seems to allow deeper reflection.

However, others such as Parikh, Janson and Singleton (2012) reported that reflecting via video provides a number of benefits to students, includ-ing an authentic means of reflecting and process that paralleled the stu-dents’ development as professionals (in this case, as school counsellors). Participants reported that capturing the reflection on video made it more difficult to mask their true feelings and allowed for deeper levels of re-flection than a written journal would. Further, they liked the fact that the instructors could see their faces, expressions, and body language that en-riched their “reflective entry.” Finally, they also appreciated the fact that the video precluded their grammar, spelling, and sentence structure from being critiqued as they were conveying their thoughts on tape.

Some technologies allow students to simply record their image and voice (e.g., Flip video camcorders) and we have found this type of journal entry contains a different, and often, lower level of reflection than is con-tained in a typical written journal. We wonder if students just say what is on their mind without giving it due consideration.


Retakes and Edits

We have some concerns regarding the fact that technology allows stu-dents multiple opportunities to document, edit, and then present their re-flections. By way of example, students have told us that they often take mul-tiple videos of themselves before and after a bushwalk to include as part of their journal—admitting that it often requires many “takes” for them to get it “right.” We have also had students report that they “edit out” (sic remove) some sections of the video that they simply did not like. On one hand, per-haps these retakes and edits allow students the opportunity to refine their reflection and to present their reflection at a deeper level. But on the other hand, perhaps these retakes and edits also serve to cover up authentic feel-ings that are warranted and genuine. These retakes and edits might also allow students to record what they think the teacher wants to hear or to per-form for a grade, instead of conveying what they really feel (see Chandler, 1997 and Crème, 2005 for a detailed discussion of these issues).

It could be argued that these retakes and edits also happen with more traditional journals. Students can rip pages out, write in pencil and erase things, or write in their journal the night before it is due—which is perhaps no more or less troubling than the retakes and edits that can occur through online journals.

Can’t Find the Reflections for All the Bells and Whistles

Another concern that looms large with online journals is that the ac-tual Web technology that facilitates the housing of the journals can readily mask the content. Students are no strangers to technology and often there is a high degree of sophistication in their presentation. Students who are technologically adept can easily create flashy and captivating journals, by having embedded videos, creating hyperlinks across and between pages, or by designing state of the art journals. In light of this clever and effective presentation, it can be difficult to see the reflective content.

We admit to being suitably impressed by this and have, at times, felt we have given a higher grade than perhaps was warranted. Some form of evalu-ative criteria that stipulates the desired outcomes can be very helpful in teasing out the reflective content from the presentation mechanics. When assessing online journals, we use rubrics that place much greater emphasis on the substantive content of the journal than the presentation style and mechanics. Having this established beforehand makes our jobs as assessors easier and ensures that we are not distracted by fancy presentations.


Allocation of Time and Resources

Time is an important factor that must be considered if this approach to critical reflection is to be successful. Before the journal or entry is made, many teachers and some students will need training to become competent with the Web 2.0 technologies. Collaboration with the IT department can be helpful and we know of some innovative partnerships that have formed in this regard. Time is also needed upon return from the field experience or learning event to allow opportunities for students to download their ma-terial (e.g., cameras, iPods, video recorders) and to actually write and cre-ate their entries, blogs, or posts.

Educators wishing to use online journals must also consider issues that emerge in relation to the provision of the recording equipment. Are stu-dents responsible for providing their own cameras and video recorders? Can students use their smartphone and mobile phones for recording? Is-sues of equity must be considered here to ensure a level playing field in terms of access and assumptions must not be made that all students have this technology.

Instructor Feedback and Responses to Entries

The benefits of thoughtful feedback and responses in reflective piec-es—irrespective of medium—are well documented in the earlier chapters of this book (see for example, Chapter 7). A teacher who responds and as-sesses a reflective contribution in an equitable and transparent way opens up the possibility for students to improve and enhance subsequent reflec-tive entries (English, 2001; Williams & Sundelin, 2000).

In traditional pen and paper journals, feedback is often written along-side the journal entry. These responses serve to support students’ writing, provide inspiration, stimulate further critical reflection, and create an opportunity for a meaningful exchange of ideas. A response that actively contributes to the dialogue can help students solve problems, create con-nections, extend ideas, and discover and validate things about themselves. Ultimately, such responses can help students become more critical and re-flective thinkers (Stewart & Richardson, 2000).

Likewise, comments in electronic journals can be made using Web 2.0 technologies (such as blogs) that allow for remarks to be made by writ-ers other than the owner. However, as multiple comments are posted, the feedback of the instructor may be lost in the larger scope of other posts. Of course it is also possible to make comments on a piece of paper and give that to the students—but we wonder if some of the connections might be


lost in this disjointed approach. When the comments are written in close proximity to the text, direct connections can be made between the stu-dent’s writing and the responses of others.

Public vs. Private?

Traditional journals are usually exchanged between the student and the instructor, and as such, a student can be assured that their reflections will remain confidential. Given this exchange happens only between a stu-dent and an instructor, a key element to a successful reflective experience is trust (Dyment & O’Connell, 2003). Other research has supported these claims, revealing that students might choose to keep their reflections super-ficial if they have reason to believe that the instructor does not create a safe space for their personal thoughts, ideas, and deep reflections (Epp, 2008).

The situation can look quite different with Web 2.0 technologies—with online journals, blogs, and wikis entering a potentially far more pubic do-main. We wonder if and how this might influence the reflective experience of students. They may start reflecting more for their peers than for the instructor or for themselves. They might actively repress their content if they know their peers are going to read, view, and comment on their reflec-tions. They might not be so open about group and individual relationships, instances of conflict resolution, or other students who they found difficult.

In light of these concerns, instructors need to think very carefully about who has access to the online reflective work as content, depth, and contemplations all stand to be influenced by the prospective audience. As the ultimate controller of the Web 2.0 technology, instructors must duly consider and potentially limit who has access to the Web 2.0 application where the reflective works are stored (e.g., individual student, cooperative learning group, whole class, or general public).

Storage and Review

Having grown up in an era of traditional journals, we relish in the knowledge that the journals from our early years are kept safely in boxes and on our bookshelves. Although they can be unwieldy and ungainly to store and move, we do enjoy pulling them out and reminiscing through them occasionally. The touch of the paper, the smell of the old tattered books and the extra add-ins (e.g., crumpled leaves, faded maps, and pic-tures) that we have added to our journals are powerful and evocative re-minders of times gone by. It is impossible to have these sensory and tactile


items as additions to an electronic journal or other reflective work. In our opinion, this is serious flaw with Web 2.0 technologies.

Storage of online journals should be an easier prospect—simply save an URL, a username, and a password and in theory, access to an online reflective piece is readily possible. But is this necessarily the case? What hap-pens when Web 2.0 technologies change? Will VoiceThread or Blogger be around in a decade or will they go the way of MySpace and fall out of favor? If not, what happens to the journals that are stored there? Can students download their journals? Will students dutifully keep track of their count-less links, usernames, and passwords for each of their journals? Recently, legal concerns have emerged as to who actually “owns” content posted to popular websites such as Facebook.

Due to these concerns, we fear that online reflective pieces might be more quickly forgotten and lost in cyberspace. We also wonder if they might be revisited less and thus lose some of their power as motivators for future reflection.

Conclusion

Reflective journals have a long history in education, and continue to be a mainstay in many programs around the world. While the traditional paper journal has served as a trusted form of recording thoughts and impressions that inform student learning, recent technological innovations have caused

Photo 8.1 Will electronic reflections be lost in cyberspace?


us to reconsider the value of electronic forms of reflection. This is particu-larly true, as most students who are of traditional school age have grown up in an era in which technology has dominated everyday life. Additionally, many of these students are more comfortable using technology than educa-tors themselves.

This technology takes many forms, ranging from computer programs and applications to hardware such as digital audio and video recorders. Web 2.0 technologies add to this list of possible ways that technology can enhance reflective practice in education. As noted in this chapter, many instructors are beginning to embrace technology as they enhance students’ ability to deeply and critically reflect both in and on their experiences. When carefully planned and facilitated, electronic reflection can have the same effects as traditional paper-based journal writing. Additionally, ben-efits such as creating congruency with other parts of life, providing multi-ple forms of capturing the experience, immediacy of the reflective process, supporting student-centred learning, and enhancing professional portfo-lios are above and beyond those provided by conventional journals.

However, there are potential downsides as well, including the ability to “edit” reflection, getting distracted by the bells and whistles of technology, time and resources required for implementation, opportunity for meaning-ful feedback, privacy issues, and storage and access concerns. Perhaps the most notable downfall is that some research (i.e., Killeavy & Moloney, 2010) has found little evidence to support the superiority of electronic reflection over paper journals. While this was defined as level or depth of meaning-ful reflection, it is of note as critical reflection is the primary purpose of a journal, regardless of format.

While there are many benefits and challenges of technology, we en-courage educators to consider their stance on the overall importance of reflection in the student learning process. If an instructor believes that en-couraging students to reflect in a meaningful way is important, that the use of technology can enhance the level of reflection, and that technology can be used without compromising the essence of the educational experiences, then the potential seems limitless. If an educator feels uncomfortable with technology, that it detracts from reflection, or that it is at odds with the purpose of education, then electronic reflection might not be appropriate. We encourage you to consider what is right for you.


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A P P E n d I x

Sample Workshop Outline

Goal

◾ To provide students with training in reflective and creative jour-nal writing.

Objectives

◾ Upon completion of the workshop, participants will: – demonstrate the ability to write entries related to specific areas

of content (e.g., personal growth, transfer of concepts, group dynamics, professional development, sense of place/connection to the land) in their journals.

– demonstrate an understanding of several typologies/models for writing at higher levels of reflection or critical thought.

– learn how to use materials such as tape, colored paper, colored pens/pencils, glue sticks, etc. in journal writing.

– demonstrate an understanding of creative methods of journal writing.

Workshop Format

◾ Length: 60 to 90 minutes ◾ Style: Lecture, discussion, individual, and group creation.

172 Appendix: Sample Workshop Outline

◾ Materials: – Journals (1 per participant) – Copies of typologies/models for writing at higher levels of reflec-

tion (1 per participant) – Colored paper – Colored pens and pencils – Tape – Glue sticks – For “This Date in History” exercise—Copies of appropriate pages

from Dahlstrom, L. (1990). Writing down the days: 365 creative journaling ideas for young people. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Pub-lishing, Inc. (1 per participant), or questions related to historical events that happened on the day of the workshop.

Workshop Content

1. Introduce goals and objectives of the workshop. 2. Overview of journaling.

a. Brief history of journaling (see Chapter 1). b. Educational applications and what journaling can provide to

students (see Chapter 2). c. Who has kept a journal in the past? Famous journalers such as

Anne Frank, Alexander MacKenzie, Lewis and Clark, etc. (see Chapter 1).

d. What were your experiences (both positive and negative) with journals in the past? Ask students to write experiences on a piece of paper provided. If no experience, have students write what they think journaling is like (positive and negative).

e. Collect papers with negative experiences, burn them to create ashes, and mix with egg yolk (We often burn some paper before hand so we have ashes available if needed).

f. Egg tempera painting on page of journal—you can be creative! Negative journaling experiences are turned into a fun, positive journaling activity.

3. Review types of entries (see Chapter 5) a. Personal reflection and self-discovery b. Group dynamics (inter- and intra-personal relationships) c. Professional development d. Sense of place and connection to the land e. Transfer of academic theory to field course experience f. Transfer of field course experience to academic theory g. Factual information

i. weather

Appendix: Sample Workshop Outline 173

ii. location iii. duration of travel iv. length of travel v. flora vi. fauna vii. cultural history viii. group members (may be a single entry at beginning of

journal) 4. Review typologies or models for writing at higher levels of reflec-

tion (see Chapters 4 and 7) a. Dewey’s Process of Experiential Learning (Dewey, 1938) b. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984) c. Scanlon and Chernomas three-stage model of reflection (1997) d. Kember’s four stage model of reflection (Kember, McKay, Sin-

clair, & Wong, 2008) e. Valli’s Typology (Valli, 1997) f. Schon’s Reflective Practitioner Work (Schon, 1983) g. Hatton and Smith’s Framework (Hatton & Smith, 1995) h. Merizow’s Typology (Merizow & Associates, 1990) i. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking (Bloom, 1956) j. Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton’s Articulated Learning model

(2004) 5. Select a typology/model (e.g., Bloom’s taxonomy) and review

what it means to write reflectively (or not) at each “level” 1. Knowledge 2. Comprehension 3. Application 4. Analysis 5. Synthesis 6. Evaluation

a. Provide sample journal entries reflecting each of these levels. b. Practice writing a journal entry using two of these levels (one

lower and one higher). 6. Review Use of Materials (see Chapter 6)

a. Pencil crayons b. Water colors c. Pencils d. Markers e. Charcoal f. Ink g. Crayons h. Glue i. Sticky tape

174 Appendix: Sample Workshop Outline

j. Stickers k. Rubber stamps

7. Review Creative Journal Writing Techniques (see Chapter 6) a. Being creative—Graphic entries

i. Concept maps ii. Drawings iii. Imprinting iv. Polar passages v. Acronyms vi. Billboards vii. Different font

b. Style ideas—Creative approaches to writing differently i. Dialogues and conversations ii. Letters iii. Freewriting iv. Lists and organizers v. How things work vi. Plans and actions vii. Road map of life viii. Guest entries ix. Dream logs x. Theory testing xi. Metaphors or themes xii. Answering questions xiii. Asking questions xiv. Quotations xv. Dress rehearsal xvi. SWOT analysis xvii. This date in history

c. Add-ins—Imaginative items to supplement journal entries i. Maps ii. Clipped editorials or newspaper/magazine clippings iii. Favorite quotations iv. Poems v. Songs vi. Labels vii. Postcards viii. Pictures ix. Name tags x. Glossary/words xi. Cartoons xii. Stickers

8. Questions from students?

Appendix: Sample Workshop Outline 175

9. Practice doing entries a. Pick one type of entry, one of Bloom’s taxonomy, and one cre-

ative technique and write an entry that reflects an aspect of this workshop.

10. Wrap-Up

[Timothy S. O'Connell, Janet E. Dyment] Theory Int(BookZZ.org)

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