Strategy #23 Learning Logs
Seth Rigel 9/23/15
What are learning logs?
Designed for grades Pre-k- 8, Learning Logs are journals that are kept by students to reflect on learning, typically during a thematic unit designed to work on writing, comprehension, and content areas. Students write summaries, questions, and reflections in their journals as well as make charts and diagrams. Students use learning logs to explore new information and work on complex vocabulary.
Why use learning logs?
Learning logs are simply a great tool to enhance learning. It is an opportunity to explore new ideas, vocabulary and personalize their own learning. This can also spark a desire to write for certain students as the focus of learning logs isn't perfect grammar or sentence structure, but simply reflecting on ideas in a way that is meaningful for students.
Learning Logs
How to use learning logs.
The first thing to do is prepare your logs for your students. It's easy if you give kids composition books but you can also prepare booklets for the students to use. The next is simply getting them to use the learning logs. Have them write investigable questions, draw pictures and diagrams, make maps, cluster information, write reflections, new vocabulary and simply share ideas about content. Your job as the teacher is to monitor student entries and make sure that the learning is constructive.
My personal opinion
I think this strategy is really cool and I wish we used something like this when I was in elementary school. I think this is a good strategy to use with aliterate students. Since the log doesn't focus on perfect grammar it encourages creativity and personalizes the learning process. I think this would have helped me enjoy writing instead of loathe the activity.