Daily Reflection Journals

As part of my management of the blended learning classroom, I’ve been having all of my students complete a daily reflection journal at the end of each class period.  With students working on a variety of tasks every day, I wanted to be able to take a measure of what they’d been working on and how they were feeling.  Even when walking around the room and talking to students all day, there are so many conversations and experiences that I missed out on and would not have known about if the student had not reported it in their journal.  As a teacher with a life outside of school, this is the one assignment that I made sure I sat down and graded every day after class.  While I may have fallen behind on other grading, I really had to be up to date on the journal entries or else I would not know the pulse of the class to prepare for the next day.

The journals are a Google Form that is linked on the About tab in Google Classroom.  The form would be available all the time but I would remind students to complete it when there were 5-10 minutes remaining in class.  Students responded in the journal at their own levels.  Some student wrote fabulous essays while others merely included one word answers.   A teacher using this could set their own expectations for length or depth of answers.  I counted each day’s entry as one point, to give them credit for done or not done, which made my daily grading of them rather efficient (10 minutes max every teaching day).

Part of my goal with this was for students to be able to see their journal entries throughout the year and to be able to reflect on their progress.  To do this I linked their journals to a document using the Add-On DocAppender.  Unfortunately, I had several glitches with DocAppender throughout the course of the year and a substantial number of posts were not recorded on the student documents.  I’m willing to test out another add-on to keep this sort of running record.  Another thought would be to use RowCall to separate out student responses and then link the student’s sheet to their grading spreadsheet.  (Hmm.  This is a new idea I just thought of that I think will be trying this fall!)

These journals evolved over the course of the year and certainly will continue to evolve in the future.   At the end of each trimester I asked for student feedback about the Reflection Journals and what ideas the students had to improve them.   The vast majority of students said they enjoyed the journals as a moment to reflect on their otherwise scattered day (Success!).  Each trimester several students offered some very insightful ideas of how to improve the journals for the next trimester.  Here I present to you the evolution of the Reflection Journal:

Trimester 1:  goo.gl/Y9u9L7 
  • What did you work on today?
  • What work do you need to finish or revisit?
    • My primary goal was for students to self-assess what they spent their time on and to think ahead to what they still needed to work on.  However, I discovered that going back over your work is a skill that these 6th graders had not practiced yet and were not able to reflect on.
  • Explain one new concept or fact you learned while working today
    •  After the feedback survey, the one question most disliked was explaining the fact or concept because many students said that they didn’t learn something new that day.  I am skeptical of that but figured I needed to use a different approach to get them to share their learning.
  • Questions?  Comments?  Areas of difficulty?
  • After class today, I feel…. Choices:  🙂  😐  🙁  Other
    • A quick thumbs up, sideways, or down to get the pulse of the class.  The “other” option provided an opportunity for students to otherwise express themselves with emoticons.  For example:  ~=[,,_,,]:3

Sample Student Responses for Trimester 1

  • Student A
    • I worked on cloud bingo then global weather El Nino survey the front and air masses and the air and clouds quiz.
    • I need to finish ocean circulations the trimester test global weather website and the weather current event.
    • One new concept I learned that nimbo stratus clouds of 6,500 ft up.
    • Questions? Comments? Areas of difficulty? none
  • Student B
    • Today, I worked a little bit on the Cloud Bingo Assignment, also I improved previous assignments that I could have done better on!
    • I don’t need to finish anything.
    • I learned my east from west. xD
    • Questions? Comments? Areas of difficulty? None!

 

Trimester 2  goo.gl/qJbhDM
  • What did you work on today?
  • What do you plan to do next class?  Is there anything you need to finish or revisit?
    • Instead of the open ended “What do you need to finish or revisit?” question, I shifted to the more concrete “What are you going to do tomorrow?”.  This phrasing was taken much more seriously by the students and helped them set more realistic goals for themselves rather than knowing they had tons of work to do.
  • What was the highlight of your day?  Learn anything new?  Do something interesting?
    • The new fact question became the “highlight” question because many of the students were much more interested in sharing a social experience than a content experience.  Middle school is definitely about navigating relationships and this question now allowed them to share what was important to them during my class.
  • How productive were you today?  Scale of 1-10 (I got nothing done –> I got so much done!)
    • A student suggested this question.  While not all student answers would have matched my assessment of them, this at least encouraged them to consider if they spent their class time effectively or not.
  • Overall, how was your day in science class?  (Emoticons are acceptable)
    • With the plethora of emoji available, just having the happy, middle, and sad were not enough for my students to express themselves.  Some took this opportunity to tell me all about their day while others shared their favorite emoticon of the day.
  • Any comments, questions, concerns, or notes for Mrs. Knecht?  (Optional)
    • This last question became a private dialogue between the student and me.  This question was not printed in their journal and was an opportunity to share or tattle or send me a private note.  One student used the opportunity for every journal the entire year to say “I think you are awesome.”  You never know until you ask.

Sample Student Response for Trimester 2

  • Student C (Trimester 2)
    • What did you do today?  quiz,changing the earth
    • Plan for next class?  Finish changing the earth and the essay thing
    • Highlight of the day?  i don’t know
    • Overall, how was your day in science?  Not good. 🙁

 

Trimester 3  goo.gl/k8jJJW
  • Which assignments did you work on today?  Checklist of all assignments available
    • Switching to the checklist was such a simple move but made the students so much happier.  Previously this was an agonizing question for them to go back and figure out what the assignment numbers were.  This updated question also reinforced that they needed to assess whether the work they did was for an assignment or something else.  I will continue this going forward.
  • What do you plan to do next class?  Is there anything you need to finish or revisit?
  • What was the highlight of your day?  Learn anything new?  Do something interesting?  Work with some fun people?
  • How productive were you today?  Scale of 1-10 (I got nothing done –> I got so much done!)
  • Overall, how was your day in science class?  (Emoticons are acceptable)
  • Any comments, questions, concerns, or notes for Mrs. Knecht?  (Optional)

Sample Student Response for Trimester 3

  • Student D (Trimester 3)
    • Plan for next class? I’m so glad I finished 6314! Next time, I should work on 6321. 2 assignments to go; I’m almost done.
    • Highlight of the day?  Today, I enjoyed discussing possible non-flammable building materials with Isabella. Some ideas were grass, (but we realized that is very flammable) and plaster (is that flammable?) and oxygen.  And frozen CO2. Yes.
    • How productive were you?  5
    • Overall, how was your day in science?  Today was good, and eventful! Isabella had to untangle the slinky I tangled since I ruin everything I touch, and finally finished CO2.