Patrick O Okechi Reflective Journal October 2010
Learning is achieved through reflection upon everyday experience and is the way that most of us do our learning.
As a new learner teacher, in my first couple of weeks of teaching and learning, a learning journal seems a sensible idea to record the learning experiences I am having in this early stages. Logically, the early stages of any career learning would play host to a large number of learning experiences as I settle into the ways of learning and teaching some practical lessons which cannot be learned without hands-on experience.
In beginning a reflective learning journal, I am making a conscious effort to recognise my own learning experiences; to make a normally subconscious process much more deliberate. My initial reaction to this task of writing a reflective learning journal is overwhelmed by the thought that reflecting upon my learning experiences and matching these to theory is time consuming, yet I recognise it as a beneficial piece of work.
I strongly feel a reflective learning journal is part of a developing process. At the outset I am forcing myself to think about my learning in a way I had not knowingly done before. I am recognising my learning experiences and I would like the journal to become a natural process. As I write this, I am begining to feel as though I could extend my thinking by writing. I also find that by writing a reflective journal, I am improving my practice just by spending the extra time thinking about it. I feel that perhaps this is beneficial experience after all.
So far I have been looking at some readings recommended for this course and I am getting inspired by them. Linking theory to my learning experiences is beneficial and relevant to me and the situations I am facing. I am reading into areas that interests me and which are helpful to my own development.
In my future journals I would like to include the...