Appendix 1: Guidance for the Reflection Journal
A Reflection Journal is created by students to help them reflect on their learning throughout the course. The journal can be in written, digital, audio or visual format.
The journal should provide:
- A summary of information they have learned
- Reflection on skills they have developed
- A record of particular insights they have gained
- Questions they are still left with
- Reflection on what they have learned from this and what it means for their own lives or for the future
It is recommended that students make entries in their journals at the end of each class/week using prompts such as the following:
To look back on what you have done:
- A fact I learned was…
- I enjoyed learning this because…
- What I found most interesting was…
- My favourite part was…
- This is good for me to know because…
- The importance of learning this is…
- What surprised me about this was…
- Something I found difficult or challenging was…
- This was a good learning experience because…
- From completing this, I now understand…
- Before this, I did not know that…
- Doing this work made me wonder about…
- A question I’m left with is…
- I participated by…
- Now I feel…
- Something I learned about myself…
To look forward to what you could do:
- This has inspired me to look into…
- Having done this topic, I need to…
- The one thing I would like to learn more about is…
- Having done this work, it will help me…
- In the future, I will make sure…
- To improve my understanding of this, I will…
- If I was doing this again, I would change…
- From making this mistake, I will change…
- To understand this, I need to…
- The importance of knowing this is…
To avoid the journal entries become tiring or formulaic, the teacher might wish to vary these prompts or sometimes offer the option of writing a creative piece, creating an image or sharing reflections orally by talking with a partner (pair and share), or by adapting any of the creative classroom methodologies suggested in the Money Matters Teacher Guidelines.
The Reflection Journal is explicitly supported in a range of homework tasks and ideas for projects embedded in the lesson plans across each of the four strands, in the Teacher Guidelines accompanying this course.
