Mr. Rennie's Class

This week marked the start of a new field study for me. The students and I have started exploring learning logs also known as reflective journals. These logs provide students with an opportunity to reflect on, connect to and draw conclusions about their learning and experiences. This thinking about their thinking or metacognition, has proved in research to be a vital part in students improving their learning and self awareness about it.

The kids reflect a few times a day either at the start, the middle or end of a given lesson. The reflection at the start may help them prepare their brains to learn something new or connect with the previous day. The mid lesson reflection allows them to assess how the experience is working for them. The end of lesson write allows them to sum up or draw conclusions about what was learned or the process they went through during the period. The reflection is often written but the students have and will be encouraged to draw, map, web or choose their own method to represent their ideas.

This week the students wrote six entries. They wrote in response to reading, science, math and social studies/teamwork. It is no surprise to me that these initial efforts are rather short generally. The whole idea is kind of new for most .Some are at this point wondering why they are even doing it. As we work through the process and discuss the merits and applications of the logs I believe they will start to see the value and benefits of becoming more reflective learners and critical thinkers. For the most part they have responded to a content related question in order to hold their thinking or state their current understanding of a concept. For example they were asked in math to explain or show, "what does 0.01 mean to you? Explain your thinking. It worked very well as a basis for discussion with a partner and the next class we started with a review of the entry to get back to where we ended and prepare their minds for decimal work.

Lastly, I was super pleased with the response of my student teacher, Leah, to the whole learning log thing. She instantly embraced it and incorporated it into her lessons the very day we discussed it. This consistency of practice will help the students greatly as they realize it is a new routine that is not dependent on the adult in front of them.