HTW Berlin Fachbereich 4 Internationaler Studiengang Internationale Medieninformatik (Master) DIDACTM : The Didactics of Media Winter Term 2009/10

What is a learning diary?

A learning diary is a didactical instrument used to encourage reflective thinking and to help you discover how you learn best. When you begin a new subject, you need to start either a bound book or an online file in which you record the following:

• Goals - What are you planning to learn in this course? What are the learning goals? What are your expectations?
• Daily tasks - Record with date and the amount of time spent what it is you did today. What book or paper did you read? Put down exact bibliographic information, record good citations. You never know what you are going to be needing. Do any questions arise upon reading this? Did you discuss a topic with someone? Was a good question asked? A nice turn of phrase put together? In idea given for further investigations? Record this as well! We are all humans, we forget. But if you have a method for recording this (and finding it again), you can extend your brain capacity.
• Weekly Analysis - Set aside 30 minutes every week to review your notes. Summarize what you have learned this week and set yourself at least one goal for the coming week. Was there something you have observed that helped you learn better?

Writing in complete sentences (in German or English) will give you additional practice in writing, which is absolutely necessary for sucessfully completing your thesis. It does not matter if you use a bound book or work online, for example in a blog - the only thing is that you train yourself to do this regularly. You must have access to the book or your computer at all times in order for this to be successful.

I will not grade your learning diary on the content - only on your having done one. I want to see it at the end of the semester. But it is for you, not for me. I have enabled the "blog" block for Moodle, so that you can experiment with that, if you want to.

Literature on the topic

• Learning diaries can be used for any age group. Here is the entry (in German) in the ZUM-Wiki
• Mittendorfer, Hans: Lerntagebücher? http://collabor.idv.edu:8888/course/stories/2937/ (2010-04-25)
• Nückles, M., Schwonke, R., Berthold, K., & Renkl, A. (2004). The use of public learning diaries in blended learning. Journal of Educational Media, 29, 49-66.
• Werner Stangl, Lerntagebücher als Werkzeug für selbstorganisiertes Lernen
  http://arbeitsblaetter.stangl-taller.at/LERNTECHNIK/Lerntagebuch.shtml
• There are many instances of forms on the Internet - choose one for you! You can either do it online or offline.