The Learning Journal: from chaos to coherence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Learning journals are an unfamiliar feature of British academic life. When used, it is often to develop critical reflection linked to professional practice, for example teacher training or industrial placements. This paper argues that this is a restricted approach to their potential value in learning‐centred assessment. The author arrived at this position after several years’ experience of working with learning journals in adult education for a range of providers. This paper necessarily draws on that experience, but its focus is an Enterprise in Higher Education project undertaken with Dr Lynette Hunter of the School of English at the University of Leeds during 1995 [1]. The project involved piloting learning journals with third‐year undergraduate students on a Recent Canadian Fiction module. The paper outlines a rationale for the use of learning journals in higher education and a method for introducing and supporting their use by students. Central to the rationale is the argument that mass, modular higher education reduces opportunities for dialogue between students and tutors which in turn makes it difficult for students to recognise and articulate coherence across their programmes of study. The learning journals counteracts this fragmentation.