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What's a Learning Log?

A Personal Record is a written account of your period of work experience. It is best illustrated by this common example:

You work in a company for 10 weeks. For the first week you are given your project and feel a little overwhelmed. You get to grips with the requirements, produce a plan and make a start. Things work well and you get results. Halfway through you hit a problem. You think you can't solve it but are pleased to find a solution. All in all, you learn new skills, learn how a business works and have made great strides in your personal development (confidence, communication skills,etc..).

All our placements differ but this is a very common experience. Unless you record your achievements it is easy to forget exactly what you have achieved. Making notes as you go along makes all the difference. It doesn't take long and is proven to help with your future job applications.

How you make a record is up to you, we can provide a guide or you can devise your own.

How to write a Learning Log

What do I need to do?

Get into the habit of completing your account regularly at a time that bests suits you; this could be daily or weekly. It should only take a few minutes but by adopting a more analytical and reflective approach to writing about your placement, you will gain greater insights into what you have experienced. From this you will be able to learn more about yourself, the skills you have been developing and your understanding of the nature of the working environment.

When you are writing reflectively make sure:

  • your writing has a purpose
  • you give yourself time to consider what really happened
  • you try to include other people’s views and perspectives on what happened to you
  • reflect on what you have learnt about yourself and others
  • think of how you would do something differently another time

The following table (taken from "Learning By Doing" Gibbs (1988) and based on Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle) offers a methodology for reflecting on specific experiences. Use it as guide, or, when you have written about an experience, use your written account to test whether or not you have answered the questions. If you can’t answer the questions then your written account may be too descriptive and not analytical enough. Remember that your diary is not simply about telling the ‘story’ of what you have experienced; its about learning from the experience

Description
What is the stimulant for reflection (incident, event, theoretical idea)? What are you going to reflect on?
Feelings
What were your reactions and feelings?
Evaluation
What was good and bad about the experience? Make value judgements.
Analysis
What sense can you make of the situation? Bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you. What was really going on?
Conclusions (general)
What can be concluded in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken?
Conclusions (specific)
What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or ways of working?
Personal Action Plans
What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time? What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?