Sparse information exists on how elementary teachers might use reflective journaling as a tool for professional development (PD) to enhance their teaching methods. The problem is that even though elementary teachers have access to a variety of PD opportunities, these opportunities are often insufficient for meeting individual teachers' needs to…

Increased specialisation of disciplinary cultures creates barriers for students who may not understand the genre, style and conventions of disciplinary writing. Academic literacies research recognises that literacy is a social practice where writing is inextricably linked to knowledge construction. Learning to write, therefore, requires…

The purpose of the following case study was to examine the daybooks of 3 fourth-grade writers who autonomously determined the content they included across the pages of their composition books. Three themes emerged from an analysis of their daybooks: (1) Students used their daybooks to engage their "writing process"; (2) students used…

Reflective Learning Journals are used to engage students in the learning process. To motivate students to complete the Reflective Learning Journal it is common practice to allocate marks and it is in this area that problems arise. To address the problems rubrics have been used however, most rubrics are based on assigning marks to very…

In an era in which "all media are mixed media" (Mitchell, 2002), visual information is central in interpersonal and mass communication. Despite this daily consumption of visual information, "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001) are not prepared to critically engage with images (Brumberger, 2016). Scholars in the field of visual…

Interpersonal skills, which are variously called soft skills, employability skills, people skills, and noncognitive skills, are critically important in personal, academic, and workplace settings. This descriptive case study explored how individuals from underserved communities described the use of reflective learning journals in an interpersonal…

This explanatory case study aims to investigate conceptual changes on the part of gifted and talented students and describe their reflective thinking with regard to problem-solving as part of the problem-based learning (PBL) process. Twenty-two gifted and talented fourth grade primary school students participated in the study. The students were…

National studies continue to indicate that the graduating STEM student body is not representative of the diversity of the U.S. population. In addition to, or in the absence of, institutional change, instructors must learn how to implement equity-focused pedagogical changes in order to better support their students. This article describes my…

This qualitative study examined the use of reflective journal prompts during the student teaching experience to gauge the success of seven areas of teacher preparation. Results varied by certification areas. Showed strengths in reflection, classroom management, and planning. The areas for growth centered on objectives and essential questions,…

This article shares the findings of a study examining the use of dialectical journals as liminal spaces for the development of critical reflection in practicing teachers. In an online graduate course on critical teacher inquiry designed to foster teachers as antiracist multicultural educators, teachers engaged in dialogue with themselves as they…

Contemporary critical literacy instruction primarily revolves around group discussion, yet the reflective nature of writing makes it an ideal strategy for supporting student sense-making about the world and how we operate within it. And semi-private reflective writing is especially necessary for instructional models that center text reading that…

Reflective journal writing is recognized as a valuable tool for pre-service teachers to analyze their teaching experiences and foster professional growth. However, its effectiveness in EFL teacher education in Kuwait remains understudied. This study investigates how systematic reflective journal writing affects pre-service EFL teachers' practicum…

Objective: To evaluate the effects of three different gratitude interventions on college student well-being. Participants: Participants were 132 college students at a university in the northwest sampled between September 2019 and February 2020. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of three gratitude interventions (journaling,…

Through an intersectional analysis, this article examined undergraduate students' use of reflective journal writing as a student engagement tool by helping students to apply course concepts and theories to personal experiences and thus promote experiential learning.

Investigating the integration of learning journals into a pre-service teacher education course to promote reflection was the overall goal of this study. Studies about evaluating students' journals have generally analyzed them using a holistic and general approach without examining their content and levels of reflection. This study focuses on both…