LEARNING LOGS or A REFLECTIVE LEARNING JOURNAL

One way of developing evidence of your skills and knowledge development is to engage in the process of producing a learning log or learning journal. A learning log is basically a record or journal of your own learning. It is not necessarily a formal ‘academic’ piece of work. It is a personal record of your own learning. As such it is a document which is unique to you and cannot be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, although there are ‘better’ and ‘worse’ ways of producing one. A learning log helps you to record, structure, think about and reflect upon, plan, develop and evidence your own learning. In the context of this module your learning needs to meet certain requirements if you are to achieve the assessment evidence criteria for your chosen skill area.

What is a learning log?

A learning log or journal is something that you use write down things which you may use as evidence of your own learning and skills development. It is not just a record of ‘What you have done’ but a record of what you have learnt, tried and critically reflected upon.

For example in your learning log you could include details of what you did or how you did something and your reflections on this. Becoming a good self-critical reflector is not easy to do. You will probably not become a critical self reflector overnight, and it is a skill that some people seem to be able to do easily, whereas others, particularly people used to a more didactic or directive teaching style, find quite difficult. It often requires time to become comfortable with self reflection. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable reflecting upon your experience(s) and abilities and you may feel that you don’t know whether you are doing it properly. Don’t worry, just practice, or as Nike say ‘just do it’. With practice it becomes easier and you will be more comfortable with the