Requiring students to keep journals?

[Hegemony]

For the first time I will be teaching the kind of course where it might be beneficial to require students to keep journals commenting on what they read and experience.  I see the benefits of this, but I'm hesitant about the down side.  The other profs I know who do this say, "Oh, they're a breeze to read, you just skim through them each week and give them a checkmark."  But the class will have 40 students, and even if each journal takes only 5 minutes to read — which I doubt somehow — that's 3 1/2 hours per week just to read through all the journals — and 7 hours if they take 10 minutes apiece!  Time is short and the rest of the prep for the class is also complex, so I'm really balking at doing this.  Are journals worthwhile?  Has anyone else done them?  What did you think?

[sinenomine]

I use them frequently, and find them really useful. Most I've done via email submission. I find that student evaluations tend to identify the journals as a highlight of those courses. What I've especially liked is when a student contacts me months or years after their course has ended to say they've just seen/done something that made them wish they were still sending me journal entries — that's when I know the learning has had impact.

[Hegemony]

Sinenomine, thanks, that's helpful.  Can you comment on what requirements you had — how long the entries had to be, whether you gave them prompts or directives, and anything else that a first-timer should know?

[sinenomine]

Some have a prompt that covers the semester — along the lines of, write about something you encountered this week that reminded you of the topics we're covering. Others have superficial prompts for each journal entry, and might involve reflection on what we're covering, or go more in depth by sending them to websites, places on or off campus, and the like. I keep the response length brief — usually one paragraph, sometimes two.

I find that sharing some in class, anonymously, or credited with prior permission, encourages more engagement and buy-in. It's a really good way for students to share in creating knowledge.

[Kron3007]

I do this for a field course I run, but the field component is only a couple weeks long and I only grade the final submission rather than each entry.  Could you simply do a weekly check to see that they actually submit something rather than actually grade it each week?  Alternately, you could randomly chose which weeks to grade without them knowing (tell them you will do this).  Just some thoughts...

[Aster]

I use them as low-stakes, basically free-points assessments.

They have value when you're desiring students to show evidence of continually working on their course curriculum, rather than just cramming for exams, for example. They're sort of like homework in this regard.

Journals may be better suited than homework if the course model has a writing component, or if experiential enrichment is a course objective, or if you don't want to mess with plagiarism and online cheating with homework. It's a lot weirder for students to plagiarize journaling.

All that said, rubrics and rubric grading for journals can be a PITA. I'm a fan of the "submit the journal at the end of the semester" vs. the "turn in this week's journal" model.

Much depends on the course type I think.

[Hegemony]

So, sinenomine and others who have the journals submitted online — do they just submit the single paragraph or two of that week's assignment, or do they submit a whole collection of assignments, with the newest entries appended to the end?  If it's just a paragraph or two at a time, it's sort of like a short informal essay rather than a journal, isn't it?  It seems as if it would be useful for them to have all their entries on the same document, but I'm not clear on how that looks when submitted online.

[kaysixteen]

Ah, another thing on the syllabus I am stuck with.   The kids won't really do them, and what i am lucky to get is three or four sentences that are largely just notes from the readings.  My repeated directions to write questions on the readings or class issues, in order to ask them in class and help participation in seminars has, with one or two exceptions, largely proved ineffective.  Since these things are graded pass fail, they all 'pass', but it is proving an essentially useless exercise, *with this specific student population*.

[Hegemony]

Kaysixteen, that sounds like a different situation than most of us are faced with, but if those things are graded Pass/Fail and they're terrible, just give them a Fail.  I mean, the grading options are not Pass/Pass.

[downer]

Kaysixteen, that sounds like a different situation than most of us are faced with, but if those things are graded Pass/Fail and they're terrible, just give them a Fail.  I mean, the grading options are not Pass/Pass.

Strongly agree. The students are failing to follow basic directions. They are in a college class. If they can't follow directions, should they be getting a college degree? My experience with students who probably have similar skills levels is that they can do it when they have a model for how to do it and they are sufficiently motivated with rewards and penalties.

[polly_mer]

Kaysixteen, that sounds like a different situation than most of us are faced with, but if those things are graded Pass/Fail and they're terrible, just give them a Fail.  I mean, the grading options are not Pass/Pass.

Strongly agree. The students are failing to follow basic directions. They are in a college class. If they can't follow directions, should they be getting a college degree? My experience with students who probably have similar skills levels is that they can do it when they have a model for how to do it and they are sufficiently motivated with rewards and penalties.

I strongly agree with Hegemony and Downer: start recording Fail for students who are failing.  Submitting poor work with insufficient penalties is one contributor to how the students ended up in the remedial class in the first place.

[sinenomine]

So, sinenomine and others who have the journals submitted online — do they just submit the single paragraph or two of that week's assignment, or do they submit a whole collection of assignments, with the newest entries appended to the end?  If it's just a paragraph or two at a time, it's sort of like a short informal essay rather than a journal, isn't it?  It seems as if it would be useful for them to have all their entries on the same document, but I'm not clear on how that looks when submitted online.

I've done both options, depending on the context of the course. With Google Sites, wikis, and the like, it's pretty easy to assemble a running digital journal, and the finished products are useful for reflections on learning — and as archives for assessment.

[mamselle]

Our Bible as Literature class in c. 1973 had a journal component, turned in 2x before the end of tthe quarter, and as a final element at the end.

I had started dating a guy in the class, and the prof. got a bit flummoxed by our cross-references to each others' ideas...I think he figured it out, finally.

[kaysixteen]

I get not following directions stuff, and also admit that my lack of enthusiasm for this assignment I got stuck with this semester but have already decided to remove for the future (I'd cancel it for the remainder of this one if I thought I could get away with) may well be coloring my decision to go easy on the direction-shirkers here, but I'm noticing that many of these remedial students seem to have real difficulties comprehending syllabus directions, even when repeatedly reiterated and explained orally.  One such assignment, also one I'm stick with, is to have the students choose an article from some print or online source, approved by me on a first come first served basis--i.e. Everyone has to choose a different article, prepare a short presentation on it, and bring copies for everyone else in class that day, including for me.  I put off the due date to select one's article from tomorrow to next Thursday, and have been reminding students of this for days now, but when I asked students to email me privately telling me whether they'd chosen their article yet, one out of the only 2 students who did this(out of 9) said he'd not done so because he'd been waiting for me to assign one to him.  Arrrggggg!  I have even mentioned on several occasions that the students should go to the reference librarian for help in selecting an article.  Am I doing something wrong, or is the remedial nature of the students perhaps the reason for most of these sorts of problems with which I have been dealing?

[Hegemony]

My guess, kaysixteen, is that what appears obvious to us is overwhelming to them.  They don't know what constitutes an article, and choosing something that qualifies as an article is probably bewildering.  They seriously and legitimately probably don't know that academic articles exist, and the rest of the "article" landscape probably is not differentiated to them — is text on a website an article?  Is a newspaper article an article?  What kind of magazine has the kind of article you want?  Etc.  So many choices in an unfamiliar landscape.  They almost certainly do not know what a reference librarian is, and don't want to look stupid asking at the library.  They may not know which building is the library. 

I overheard two undergraduates in our library asking a librarian how to find a book on something or other.  The librarian explained the computer catalogue and how there would be a number with the book (the students stated to look very worried), and then they were supposed to look on our library signs to find the book.  The library signs say things like "A - F, 1st floor, G - L, 2nd floor," etc., the letter being the first number of the Library of Congress shelfmark.  At this point the undergraduates were looking very seriously overwhelmed.  "What if the letter we have is not on the sign?"  The librarian explained that it was all about alphabetical order.  They had heard of alphabetical order but were not sure what it was.  The librarian explained that they could just go through the order of the alphabet, "A B C D E," etc.  The students nervously asked how they were supposed to know which letter came when.  And so on.  Your students may be very like those students.  As the Fora often says, You have to start with the students you have.

My finding about unprepared students is that you have to teach them in very small steps, and that too many unfamiliar tasks at a time just freeze them in their tracks.  Choosing their own articles does sound overwhelming.  I would at least give them a selection of 4-5 to choose from, if not assigning them one.  I hope they are not academic articles.