I am currently teaching a Tuesday
to Friday two-hour class with students between 14 and 16 years old. Last week,
I started to introduce them to learning logs and we had our first interview. I
would like to share with you how it went.
Firstly, I would like to mention that along with the learning logs, I am using field notes to support the outcomes of my students’ logs. The note-taking exercise has helped me a lot in keeping track of my students’ process and my teaching practices. I need to say that it has been very useful and I confirmed this when I had my first interview with them.
After the first couple of classes, I talked to my students about the learning log and so far we are still in the trial period in which they are getting familiar with it. In their blogs, they are asked to express in the way they prefer how they felt in class, what they did and what they liked or not about that class. Although they have had a lot of doubts regarding what they should include or not, I have noticed that after the first week they became more comfortable and interested. Mostly, they have wrote a lot of good things about the class, which I’m glad to read but I’m waiting for them to open themselves more and to be able to express dislikes too.
Since they were in the second week of classes and the mid-term exam was coming soon, I wanted to know how they thought things were going from another source different from the notes and the learning logs. So, I decided to have a short interview with them and I prepared few questions; however, I was expecting that they wanted to talk about other doubts or comments. During the interview, they first seemed surprised and expressed that they did not experienced such thing before in any of their classes (having interviews with the teacher). After the first two minutes, they seemed more comfortable and I asked them the questions I had prepared.
As I was expecting, my students expressed concerns they had that they did not include in their learning logs but that I was noticing and writing down on my notes.
I found this exercise very useful and the biggest advantage that I have is that I’m working with only five students, which makes things much easier. However, although I have tried to persuade my students to write things that are going right and wrong in their logs, this hasn’t happened yet. Based on this I would like to ask you:
What do you think would be a good way to make this happen?
Are you currently using journals, questionnaires and/or interviews in your class? If yes, how is it going? If not, Why not?
I really enjoy reading all your entries Mari. I find very interesting reflections and also suggestions for the improvement of teaching practices. Keeping a learning log is a very useful tool for both, teacher and students.
ResponderEliminarI want to ask you. What did you ask your students to include in their learning logs? Is it mainly about having students writing how they feel in the class? is it pretty much about writing positive and negative aspects in order to improve teaching practices? or are they also writing about what they have actually learned and what they were expecting to learn? I'm just curious because I am very interested in knowing more about this topic. :)
Thanks for your comment, Caro :)
EliminarI'm starting to get more familiar with how sucessful learning logs are and on the way I asked my students to write how they felt in class, if they had anything to tell me that might have had an impact on their performance in the class. I also ask them to write how they felt in the activities, if they liked them or not.
At first, it was hard for most of them to write more than a line, but little by little they are starting to feel more comfortable towards the activity.
I think it is satisfactory for you to observe how useful is this kind of assesment because you feel the students are getting involved on their own learning processes being honest about how they perceive them. It has not been that easy because you have had to lead a process which is new for all of them.
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EliminarThat's so true ! Besides, convincing teenagers about writing about their feelings is harder than I expected. Anyway, I feel this tool is working although some of my students haven't been very open.
Eliminar