Journal Keeping: How to Use Reflective Journals for Effective Teaching And Learning, Professional Insight, And Positive Change

"This is the book I wish that I'd had years ago when I first started experimenting with journals in my classes. I commend it highly, and believe it has the potential to bring journaling into more widespread and effective practice in reflective learning."―Teaching Theology and Religion

“"A superb tool for educators who want to be reflective practitioners, and help their students become reflective learners. I hope this fine book will be widely read and used."― Parker J. Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach

“Stevens and Cooper offer multiple possibilities for readers to use journaling for personal growth, fostering their own and others’ learning, and managing professional life.”―
Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership at the Miami University of Ohio

“An impressively complete and well organized exploration of the uses of journal writing. It provides rich backing for John Dewey’s key insight, namely that it’s not experience that makes us learn, it’s reflection on experience."―Peter Elbow, author of Writing with Power

This book presents the potential uses and benefits of journals for personal and professional development―particularly for those in academic life; and demonstrates journals’ potential to foster college students’ learning, fluency and voice, and creative thinking. The authors present the background so readers can determine whether journals will fit appropriately with their teaching objectives; and offer insights and advice on selecting the format or formats and techniques most appropriate for the reader’s purposes.

Dannelle D. Stevens is a tenured professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Portland State University in Oregon where she has been since 1994. Her roots, however, are in the public school classroom where she taught middle school and high school social studies, language arts, and special education for 14 years across four school districts and three states. She received her master's from the University of Utah in 1983, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Michigan State in 1991. Before coming to PSU she taught at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Whether the topic is rubrics, journal writing, action research or academic writing, her work centers on how adults reflect on what they do and, then, act on those reflections. One of Dr. Stevens' underlying assumptions is that cognitive, social and emotional development does not end with the teenage years but continues through the lifetime. Besides over 75 conference presentations, she has written three books, all designed to impact development of her fellow faculty and their students. Her first book, co-edited with Joanne Cooper, Tenure in the Sacred Grove: Issues and Strategies for Women and Minorities, (SUNY Press, 2002), was written to help faculty women and minorities negotiate the path to tenure. Introduction to Rubrics, now in its second edition, and co-authored with Antonia J. Levi, and Journal Keeping, co-authored with Joanne Cooper, are both published by Stylus Publishing.In addition to teaching classes, she has taken on leadership positions in the department and campus-wide. In the Curriculum and Instruction Department, Dr. Stevens leads teacher licensure cohorts and coordinates the MA/MS program for experienced teachers. For the university at large, she works within the Center for Academic Excellence as faculty-in-residence for assessment. She is chair of the Institutional Assessment Council.

Joanne E. Cooper is a Professor in the Department of Educational Administration, University of Hawaii at Manoa.