(733b) Writing Journal Reflections in Engineering Courses: Effect On Critical Thinking Skills

Many humanity and social science courses require students to keep journals, where they reflect on the class materials and discussion.  The journals from a recent first year seminar course clearly showed how the students worked out their ideas, and began to think critically about the ideas presented in class.  The final papers written by students who wrote in their journals daily showed increases in four areas of critical thinking (question and reasoning; recognizing assumptions; presenting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions). 

As a result, last year daily online journal entries became a required component of ChE 321 (Applied Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer).  The prompts were designed to encourage students to reflect on what they had learned in class and relate it to ideas or objects they observe on campus.  The student responses from two semesters were analyzed for the elements of critical thinking.  Did requiring students to summarize what they learned in words – instead of equations – increase their understanding and problem solving ability?  Was it possible to see misconceptions early, before the students began solving problems for the homework?  Did any journal prompt trigger an “aha!” moment, when the student grasped the essence of the subject? 

This presentation will present the rubric used to analyze the journal entries, document how the journal reflections encouraged the students to think deeply and process what they learned in class, and how they contributed to the four areas of critical thinking as well as exam scores.