Practice Records: A Reflective Learning Method, II
On practice records – continued from Part I.
One common type of reflective learning method used in educational settings is journaling — the process of recording one’s personal experience from an outside objective perspective. Journaling has been noted by many educational scholars as having many benefits in educational and therapeutic settings.
It is a personal dialog that opens the cognitive process to review while allowing a student to vent frustrations, fears and concerns. Sometimes private music lessons can indeed be like therapy, and in this case the student’s practice journal can be of use to both teacher and student.
For a young student especially, a private teacher/mentor is crucial in this experience to ensure that this reflection goes somewhere and does not wallow in self-pity, doubt or loathing.
It can be very informative in regards to a student’s perception of growth, change and learning based on their reflection of their personal experience. Use of journal work in higher education settings helps students take home much more of their processing of learning than is evident in the studio or other standard assessment means.
Example
Creating a practice journal begins with creating a format to record practice sessions. Using Microsoft Word, I created a page template in just a few minutes. You can create one yourself, or just use one of the templates included at the end of this post.
The next issue is how to organize the record. In the sample at right (click the image for a larger view) the table includes several details.
Myself, I prefer more information beyond what was practiced and for how long. In the sample, a row is dedicated to notes and comments. This extra detail can over time, add volumes of information when analyzing long-term trends.
Each page in this practice journal is devoted to one or two days of practicing. It should be kept tidy in an organized three-ring notebook, otherwise pages may get lost or out-of-order. Since this journal is a tool for both student and teacher, the journal needs to remain complete and chronologically organized. Also, this may be a project that will continue for several years – organization in a notebook of some kind is crucial.
Below are templates to get started:
No matter how you do it, keeping a detailed practice journal has tremendous benefits. Not only does it generate a record of what was practiced, but more importantly how it was practiced. In personal reflection or in problem-solving personal habits and quirks, a journal can be as equally useful as other practice tools like tuners and metronomes.
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