Journaling

Journaling is the practice of writing accounts of the day, reactions to experiences, personal reflections, and questions. Journaling promotes critical thinking because participants will ponder and then express the links between new information and their existing knowledge. Journaling is beneficial to those participants who need more time to reflect to be able to express their ideas or who are not good oral speakers. Journaling can be free-form reflective writing or you can add more structure to the exercise by providing short answer prompts linked to learning outcomes.

Some of the types of prompts you can use in a journaling activity include:

  • Self-questioning: This type of journaling prompt asks participants to create their own questions about their learning. They can choose to answer them or just pose them for reflection.
  • Metacognitive: Participants are asked to write about their own thinking, that is, if they noticed any trends, recognized any knowledge gaps or misconceptions, or realized their thinking changed during the course.
  • Change: Training should result in a permanent change. This type of journaling prompt ask participants to express the changes in their knowledge, skills, and/or behaviors. They can also write about the impact of their new knowledge on their pre-existing knowledge.
  • Connecting: This type of journaling prompt asks participants to make connections between their new knowledge and their prior knowledge or to the world at large—data, business, technology, science, society, etc.
  • Transfer: Participants are asked to express how they would transfer their learning to the workplace and to new and unfamiliar circumstances, for example, health and safety or home design.
  • Visualization: This type of journaling prompt asks participants to create a visual metaphor or analogy for the function of something they have learned.
  • Sketch: Participants are free to sketch or diagram how they visualize their learning.
  • Concept/example: This type of journal prompt asks participants to explain an abstract concept and provide concrete examples of how it appears or functions in real life.
  • Five Ws: Participants ask asked to explain the who, what, where, why, and when of their new knowledge.

Journaling can be used as a review activity. To refresh their memories, participants could reread the entries they recorded in the designated spaces in their workbooks.

Instructor-Led Training

Distribute several large sticky notes to each participant. At the end of each day, ask them to take 2-3 minutes to record the “ah-ha” moments, questions, connections, or other impressions they had of the day’s learning. Ask them to stick these notes inside the cover of their workbook binders as mini journal entries. At the end of the course, ask for volunteers to share some of their reflections that relate to the expectations expressed at the beginning of the course.

Web Conference Training

At the end of the day, ask participants to compose a short email to themselves to record the “ah-ha” moments, questions, connections, or other impressions they had of the day’s learning. Explain that they will read their own emails the next morning as part of a review activity. The next day, facilitate a review of the previous day’s learning by asking for volunteers to share some of their reflections or questions.