We’ve been hearing a lot about journaling from CSD teachers. Whether it’s digital or paper, OneNote or Google Slides, journals can look different in every classroom, and every teacher has their own tips and resources on how to get kids to write down their thinking. We’d love to hear more from teachers about how you are using journaling in your classes.
Do you journal every day?
How do you use the journaling prompts in your classroom?
Do you any outside journaling resources?
Do you prefer digital or paper?
We’re interested in finding ways that we can better support teachers and students in this practice, and we’d like to incorporate the strategies that are working best for you. Reply below to join the discussion!
I only have kids every other day, so I am not having them journal every single day. Many times I will take prompts from the curriculum that I feel are really hitting the heart of what they need to learn and turn them into journal entries. Sometimes a quick journal entry is an entrance or exit ticket. I usually do paper journals to save time (with middle schoolers, it can be more of a challenge to get everyone in the right place at about the same time, then you have distractions or kids just want to code, so they just skip the journal entry in favor of going on to code.org.).
This year, I am trying to use seesaw as a digital journal. I also use schoology. I find that turning some prompts into discussion boards is a great way to get students interacting and it is a quick way for me to see how well students are grasping the concept. With discussion boards, I usually provide students with sentence starters so they know how to respond to each others comments in a polite and helpful way (ex. I disagree with what ___ said because, I have a question about… etc.)
I like having the students keep a journal, so they can go back through their entries at the end of the year and incorporate them into their year long portfolio.
I use Edublogs with my students. It gives them the opportunity to blog online, as a part of the online community, but with me as a buffer. I give prompts and they answer there. I then have them put the link as an answer to a google classroom question so I can keep track of them as a grade. It solves the problems of the “I forgot my journal today.” And I can give side lessons on intellectual property and have them use the lessons immediately.
I have my students video journal with some of the prompts provided in the curriculum with Flipgrid it allows students to respond with what they are problem solving and then allows other students to respond to them with a supportive solution.