Journal Writing as a Learning Tool

Teachers are constantly looking for ways to make learning easier for their students. One technique gaining more attention recently is journal writing. Of course, in the classroom this is nothing like the personal time spent writing only what the writer is likely to read. But then, even that shouldn’t be ruled out. Some children are more likely to feel comfortable about this than others. Their privacy should be high priority, but those who want to should be given room to read aloud to the class.

Instructional Strategies Online has an excellent article on how to use journal writing and how to adapt journal writing to the classroom setting. They’ve suggested some great ways to use journal writing, which may seem a little different. In particular the link to the information about adapting Maths Journals intrigued me. Perhaps I may have enjoyed the subject better at school if my teachers had employed journal writing as a way to solve mathematic problems.

There’s even a list of resources for teachers who want to explore these ideas further. I found journal writing worked well for home schooling, too.

Here’s some more from Scholastic on Maths Journals.