Learning Logs

Reflection... I feel that I do this often.  Thinking about how I do things (good/bad) has helped me become a better teacher.  If we are not aware of what needs work, how can we improve?  It is the same with students.

I started these Learning Logs as "tickets out the door" at the end of the day rather than after each lesson.  The purpose is to write something they learned, were successful/unsuccessful with, etc. and they plop it into their paper bag that's on the bulletin board.  At the end of the year, we go through the memories and learning process.  I sure have done this different ways...

• cut up blank lined paper into eighths for them o write reflections (I didn't get good reflections, so I reflected and...)
• printed lined paper with Learning Logs as the title to make it more official looking (I still didn't get good reflections, so I reflected again and...)
• had students choose one of the sentence starters I posted around the bulletin board to get better reflections (some weren't choosing sentence starters anyway and I didn't have time to check, so I reflected again and...)
• required at least 3 reflections on any part of the day and had them share out (I was getting unspecific things like, "Today we did math," so I reflected again and...)
• you get the point!  haha

So what actually worked better this year?
I printed different sentence starters onto paper itself.  They would write their ONE good reflection based on this sentence starter they received at the end of the day and add more if they chose to.  Before introducing Learning Logs this year, I also started off with a lesson... the PURPOSE of reflection.  If I don't start off with reasoning and why it's important, how will I get buy in?

So before our first log, we discussed what reflection meant and how it could help us.  I even gave them examples of how I reflected as a teacher to improve on what didn't work and what went well.  We talked about if you always think you're all that, you don't tend to reflect, but then you have no room to grow because you think you're at your peak already.  I say that I never want to reach my peak because then the only direction to go is down.  I want to always keep climbing.

Some sentence starters I've used are below:

• Today in ____, I learned...
• I used my time well/not well today because...
• Today I am proud of myself because...
• I'm looking forward to working on/continuing...
• Today I was successful/unsuccessful because...
• Something I need to work on/improve on is...
• The easiest/hardest part of ____ is______
• Today I had a problem trying to____.  I will solve this by _____

The first few logs, we share what we write.  I make an effort to thank students who are honest and talk about any shortcomings, such as "Today I was unsuccessful because I did not stay on task during math and didn't get my work done."  I also have them follow up by writing what their PLAN is for tomorrow now that they know what distracts them. Now, I pick and choose days we share and revisit the purpose of reflection.  It's been going MUCH better this year so far.  I'm sure I'll end up reflecting again and tweaking this somehow...