Use Journals in Blackboard 

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The Journal functionality available in Blackboard can be used for formative activities as well as assessment. It can be particularly useful in fostering reflective learning. Before setting up your Journal activities, please take a look at the good practice recommendations below.

Design Journal Activities 

Where possible, link the reflection to real situations  

Reflection is ‘a mindful process of looking back at one’s experience and evaluating it to gain insights about the complexity of learning and about oneself as a learner’ (Dewey, 1910 as cited in Guo, 2021, p. 118). As argued by Kolb (1984), observation and experimentation are key sources of reflection. Real-life experiences, such as field trips, practical sessions, clinical experiences or work placements where students can encounter doubt, conflict, dilemma, uncertainty or confusion can provide a richer ground for authentic reflection (Finlay, 2008). Where linking reflection to practical aspects of the course is not possible, it’s worth considering how students can draw from their personal, past or current experiences.  

Create effective journal prompts

Providing clear, detailed and specific prompts is essential to engage students in critical reflection (Guo, 2021), particularly in the early stages of learning where students may not be used to reflecting on their experiences. The prompts should address both the content (what should I reflect on?) and the process (how should I reflect on it?). To get students started you may want to introduce them to some of the reflective models such as Gibbs’s (1988) or Boud’s et al. (1985). Dr Dave Lawson and Dr Emily Bell who embedded reflective learning in the MSc Science Communication for a Better Planet programme asked students to choose and justify a reflective model themselves. This is an excellent way of introducing more autonomy into the activity design and prompting students to reflect on the process of reflection itself (see Embedding Reflection to Empower Students for the case study details).

Provide adequate scaffolding

In addition to effective prompts, you could also use other strategies to further scaffold student reflection. In their case study on Embedding Reflection to Empower Students, Dr Dave Lawson and Dr Emily Bell introduced reflective writing workshops in the early stages of the unit, focusing on the pedagogy of reflection, emphasising its importance and covering various reflective models. The reflection in their programme was embedded both in formative and summative assessment which enabled students to practice and develop their reflective skills. Lastly, they provided clear marking criteria which covered both the reflection’s content and format (see Embedding Reflection to Empower Students for the case study details).

Create a Journal

  1. Click on the purple plus button anywhere in the course and choose Create.
  2. Scroll down and click on Journal under Participation and Engagement.
    Journal option highlighted in the menu.
  3. Add the journal’s name and a prompt and click Save.
    Journal page that shows the title and text editor where the prompt can be entered.

Configure Journal’s settings

Change journal settings by clicking on the cog icon on the right. You can choose to:  

  • Grade Journal (off by default) – if turned on, this will open up further settings related to grading.  
  • Allow users to edit and delete entries (on by default)  
  • Allow users to edit and delete comments (on by default)

Once you are done, click Save.

Journal settings panel.

Make the Journal available to students by using the visibility dropdown to the right of the journal.

Blackboard course item visibility dropdown menu, with Visible to students highlighted.

Adding Entries 

To add an entry, students need to: 

  1. Click on the Journal.
    Blackboard journal item
  2. Add their entry and click Post.
    Blackboard journal entries page showing the text editor where an entry can be created and posted.
  3. If this option is enabled, students can also edit and delete their entries.
    A Blackboard journal entry that gives the student the option to edit or delete it.

View Journals

All Journals are visible only to the instructors and the students who added them.

  1. A purple bubble will appear next to the Journal when new entries are available.
    Blackboard journal item with a bubble indicating there is a new entry.
  2. Click on the Journal and go to the Participation tab to see who added an entry. You can set the Student Status to Entry Made to see students who submitted to their Journal.
    Blackboard journal participation tab showing how many are participating and a list of students and their participation status.
  3. Click on the student’s name to see their Journal entries. The New label will appear next to entries you haven’t seen. If this option is enabled, you can add comments under the student’s entries.
    Comment editor below a Blackboard journal entry.

References