Teaching and Learning from Journal Feedback: A Reflective Study

Abstract

Reflective journal writing and giving timely feedback is one of the effective teaching strategies used in the academia. This article highlights some of the responses of the students from a course taught thrice by the author at a faith-based university in Liberia from September 2017 to August 2018. While the first class had 109 students, the second had 68 students and the third had 86 students.  At the end of every class, students were asked to answer the following questions (a) what did you learn in today’s class? (b) What went well in today’s class? (c) What could be improved from today’s class? The last one (d) was do you have any questions or comments for your teacher? Based on personal experiences and reactions from the students, both the teacher and the students learned from the journal writing and the rapid feedback experiences provided before the teacher proceeded to a new topic. The author discovered that journal writing was student-centered which served as an evaluation tool for the teacher. It was used for students’ attendance and it motivated the teacher as well. Although journal writing was time consuming for teaching larger classes, it was rewarding because both the teacher and the students learned from the journal feedback experience. The author recommends journal writing because it enhances the teaching and learning process.