My teaching journal


One of the key elements of my pedagogical practice—and how I’ve gotten so darn good at my job—is my teaching journal. Keeping a teaching journal gives you a space to generate teaching ideas, work out pedagogical problems, reflect on your successes and struggles in the classroom, and put your past insights to work in planning future courses.

I think of my own teaching journal as a place to record all of the course marginalia that doesn’t make its way into my formal teaching documents (such as assignment sheets). I typically write in my journal as soon as possible after each class session, keeping what happened during that class fresh in my mind. I compose a short summary of the class, and then reflect on and evaluate how my lesson went. Of course, this isn’t the only time—or the only material—that I write in my teaching journal. I keep it with me all the time so that at the spur of the moment I can jot down ideas. I also use my journal during class sessions–for example, to write down smart things my students say.

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