Resource on Learning Journals

Resource on Learning Journals

Sample resource for a law student: Reflective Journaling – July, 2011

Why use a learning journal? Developing skills as a reflective practitioner

Developing your capacity to reflect effectively and critically is an important life long and professional development skill. Reflection helps deepen and integrate your learning. Keeping a learning journal is one of the most important ways to develop your reflective skills. Developing a habit or discipline of reflection helps you to become a “reflective practitioner.” We’ll explore what this concept means for you as a law student, and as you develop as a legal professional—your learning journey from novice to expert. I use a graphic illustration (Venn diagram) of the three intersecting concepts of reflective practice (on practice, critical reflection and self-reflection) and the need for integration or an enlargement of the space where the three circles intersect. I also use a “mind map” to explain the many potential beneficial “outcomes” from reflective practice will inform our discussion.

In a law school context, Prof. J. P. Ogilvy (1996) described the following benefits:

  • Writing helps students learn better. Amongst other benefits, interaction with the material under study becomes deeper and more critical
  • Nurtures a lifetime of self-directed learning
  • Improves problem-solving skills
  • Promotes reflective behaviour
  • Fosters self-awareness
  • Helps release stress
  • Can provide periodic feedback to the teacher on how students are learning.

According to the literature, journals can serve many purposes:

  • To record experience. For example, experience can help provide material for reflection, help you to undertake research on your own practice, and to develop your own “portfolio” of your accomplishments.
  • To document your “learning journey”
  • To help you learn better by:
  • Helping you to:
  • understand your own learning process and what you are learning (“learning to learn” and “metacognition”)
  • slow down your learning
  • learn from experience (which is enhanced by reflection)
  • learn how to reflect
  • integrate your learning from theory and practice, knowledge and experience
  • solve problems, including developing creative responses
  • Building your capacity to be a self-directed learner (which will become more critical as you develop as a professional) including being able to uncover or discover your personal learning needs
  • Deepening the quality of learning by helping you to reflect critically and develop a questioning attitude – questioning, exploring, analyzing
  • Deal with the emotions connected to your experience so you can learn more effectively and deeply
  • To enhance professional practice or the professional self in practice – to facilitate becoming a reflective practitioner by developing a habit of reflection
  • Increase your self-awareness - to explore the self, personal constructs of meaning, values, and understand your view of the world
  • Increase your sense of personal agency and empowerment - to enhance how you value your self and your capacity to take action
  • To support planning, development, implementation and evaluation of a research or other type of project.
  • To help support a desired change in behaviour or taking action
  • To help you develop your own “philosophy of practice”
  • To enhance your creativity by providing an outlet that encourages creativity
  • To free-up your writing and to develop new ways of thinking
  • To help you prepare for reflective and generative conversations and interactions with others

Tips for Learning Journals

A learning journal is most effective when it is primarily for you. It is to help you deepen your learning, and to increase your capacity to reflect.

Your professor will explain her specific expectations of your reflective journaling process for the course you are taking. Going beyond being descriptive about your experience will be most beneficial. Think about these three aspects of reflection:

  • Reflecting on your practice and the skills and knowledge you need to acquire or refine (developing the requisite technical and professional knowledge)
  • Applying critical reflection and thinking to your experience (consider “law as lived”? examine access to justice issues? challenge professional values?). Or critique using theories or articles that you may have read (feminist analysis, critical race theory, poverty law scholarship, critical legal studies, cross-disciplinary approach, etc.)
  • Consider self-reflection (What are you learning about yourself? Your values? Your comfort or lack of comfort with your role? Ethical issues? Your commitment to the legal profession and its’ values? Your attitudes, your behaviour, etc.)

Here are some other ways to think about your journal entries—try:

  • Reflecting on your own learning – how are you learning from your clinical or other learning experience? How is your vision expanding or understanding changing? What are you learning about law “in context”?
  • Reflecting on your own skill development and assessing what else you need to learn. (This can help you with personal development planning or building a portfolio about your competencies and capacities after the course is over.)
  • Reflecting on the course readings – how can they be applied to the experience you are having?
  • Reflecting on “critical incidents” or anything that is providing a “learning opportunity” or a “disorienting dilemma”
  • Developing theory or new knowledge– thinking critically about law—what insights are emerging?
  • Self-awareness - Integrating the values you had prior to law school, with the development of professional values
  • Helping you to develop your personal “philosophy of practice.” Are there changes in beliefs, theories, attitudes, relationships or practices as a result of what you have experienced, observed and read? What do you stand for now?

Some suggestions to assist journalling:

  • Try a pleasing routine, or a special space for reflective writing
  • Don’t delay—just do it!
  • Let it flow
  • Divide page in half (observations on one side and reflections on the other)
  • Leave space for later reflections (reflecting on reflecting)
  • Use your own words
  • Who?/so what?/now what? – use this as a guide to prompt your writing
  • “5 Whys? “(use for progressively deeper questioning—google it!)
  • Get graphic: use concept or “mind-mapping” (google again!)
  • “Professional” vs. personal disclosure – watch for this
  • Use sticky tags or other memory jogs (small notebook also helps gather data)
  • Ask teacher or peers for help or feedback if you get stuck
  • Share your writing with a peer or “critical friend” for reflective feedback
  • Use titles to differentiate sections of your journal
  • Experiment with different colour pens or colour coding
  • Be flexible: Try different reflective tools or methods (poetry, quotes, photos, drawings, myths, explore metaphors, etc...)
  • Consider yourself to be researching your own practice
  • Consider the metaphor of the learning journey to guide you
  • More suggestions available from St. Francis Xavier University Faculty of Adult Ed. (see Michele Leering for copies of this resource)

Inspiration

See the Collection of Quotes about Reflection and Reflective Practice—enough provided for reflection for every week of the year!

References (APA style of citations):

Bolton, G. (2005). Reflective practice: Writing and professional development. London: Sage.

English, L.M. & Gillen, M.A., (Eds.) (2001). Promoting journal writing in adult education. New Directions for Adult Education, no. 90. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Moon, J.A. (1999). Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice. London, UK: Kogan Page.

Moon, J.A. (2006). Learning journals: A handbook for reflective practice and professional development (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Ogilvy, J.P. (1996-1997).The use of journals in legal education: A tool for reflection. Clinical Law Review, 3, 55-107.

Ogilvy, J.P., Wortham, L., Lerman, L.G. et al. (2007). Reflective Journaling in Learning from practice: A professional development text for legal externs. St. Paul, MN: Thompson/West.

Useful resource on reflective practice from UWO Preceptor Education site: Accessed from: . Designed for students in the health professions doing practicums, this website is worth a look as there are reflective exercises. It is open for anyone to use and you can sign up for free – Module 5A & 5B are the sections on reflective practice.

Excellent 2010 introductory resource on reflective practice and reflective journaling recommended by Professor Mary Anne Noone of the Law Faculty at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia http://www.unisa.edu.au/teachinglearning/goodteaching/BuILT/reflect.pdf

Prepared by: Michele Leering –

2009 LFO Community Leadership in Justice Fellow

Executive Director & Lawyer - Community Advocacy & Legal Centre`

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