Reflective learning logs in computer science

teaching, ,

Do you have any comments, advice or other pointers on how to guide students to maintaining high quality reflective learning logs?

Context: I teach part of a first year computer science / information systems course on Interactive Systems.  We have some assessed labs where we set the students fixed tasks to work on, and there is coursework. For the coursework the students have to create an app of  their own devising. They start with something simple (think of it as a minimum viable product) but then extend it to involve interaction with the environment (using their device’s sensors), other people, or other systems. Among of the objectives of the course are that: students learn to take responsibility for their own learning,  to appreciate their own strengths and weaknesses, and what is possible within time constraints. We also want students to gain experience in conceiving, designing and implementing an interactive app, and we want them to reflect on and provide evidence about the effectiveness of the approach they took.

Part of the assessment for this course is by way of the students keeping reflective learning logs, which I am now marking.  I am trying to think how I could better guide the students to write substantial, analytic posts (including how to encourage engagement from those students who don’t see the point to keeping a log).

Guidance and marking criteria

Based on those snippets of feedback that I found myself repeating over and over, here’s what I am thinking to provide as guidance to next year’s students:

  • The learning log should be filled in whenever you work on your app, which should be more than just during the lab sessions.
  • For set labs entries with the following structure will help bring out the analytic elements:
    • What was I asked to do?
    • What did I anticipate would be difficult?
    • What did I find to be difficult?
    • What helped me achieve the outcome? These may be resources that helped in understanding how to do the task or tactics used when stuck.
    • What problems could I not overcome?
    • What feedback did I get from teaching staff and other students?
    • What would I do differently if I had to do this again?
  • For coursework entries the structure can be amended to:
    • What did I do?
    • What did I find to be difficult? How did this compare to what I anticipated would be difficult?
    • What helped me achieve the outcome? These may be resources that helped in understanding how to do the task or tactics used when stuck.
    • What problems could I not overcome?
    • What feedback did I get from teaching staff and other students on my work so far?
    • What would I do differently if I had to do this again?
    • What do I plan to do next?
    • What do I anticipate to be difficult?
    • How do I plan to overcome outstanding issues and expected difficulties.

These reflective learning logs are marked out of 5 in the middle of the course and again at the end (so represent 10% of the total course mark), according to the following criteria

  1. contributions: No entries, or very brief (i.e. one or two sentences) entries only: no marks. Regular entries, more than once per week, with substantial content: 2 marks.
  2. analysis: Brief account of events only or verbatim repetition of notes: no marks. Entries which include meaningful plans with reflection on whether they worked; analysis of problems and how they were solved; and evidence of re-evaluation plans as a result of what was learnt during the implementation and/or as a result of feedback from others: 3 marks.
  3. note: there are other ways of doing really well or really badly than are covered above.

Questions

Am I missing anything from the guidance and marking criteria?

How can I encourage students who don’t see the point of keeping a reflective learning log? I guess some examples of where they are important with respect to professional practice in computing.

These are marked twice, using rubrics in Blackboard, in the middle of the semester and at the end. Is there any way of attaching two grading rubrics to the same assessed log in Blackboard? Or a workaround to set the same blog as two graded assignments?

Answers on a postcard… Or the comments section below. Or email.

3 thoughts on “Reflective learning logs in computer science”

  1. Hi Phil,

    Afraid I can’t help you with blackboard (canvas otoh give me a shout) 😉

    WRT the rubrics and the logs. I don’t want to overthink this by casting it as a portfolio but hoping I can pull some of that thinking in.

    For the student and rubric there’s a combination of a) what are you doing, b) how are you doing it, c) why are you doing it & how is it going and d) reflection on how to do a) & b) better & perhaps what you think of c).

    It’s really hard to stop some of this becoming formulaic but as you, Martin, and others mention there good examples from professional practice. You noted: 1) Code comments as part of writing good code/ handing over code others can work on is something that you can draw out easily parallels for. 2) Crowdfunding status updates are more of how is the project going.

    I think Code comments can hit a) and probably b). Status updates can hit c). I’m guessing d) is more thinking of programming as lifelong learning – perhaps showcasing some relevant professional communities – eg a list apart ?

    In terms of the mechanics of this It’s a bit structured but I’d be tempted to separate the questions out to help your students think about these things differently both in terms of framing what type of question something is and when then should answer it. eg what did i anticipate might work better if they fill that bit out after the setup piece but before they get stuck into coding.

    After reading project brief:
    What do I have to do?
    *What do I anticipate being difficult?

    After project:
    What did I find to be difficult? How did this compare to what I anticipated would be difficult?
    What helped me achieve the outcome? These may be resources that helped in understanding how to do the task or tactics used when stuck.
    What problems could I not overcome?
    What feedback did I get from teaching staff and other students on my work so far?
    *Was that feedback useful? why?
    *What feedback did i give?

    Reflecting
    What would I do differently if I had to do this again?
    *What problems could I avoid?
    *What could I improve on?
    *How did i figure this out?

    Planning
    What do I plan to do next?
    What do I anticipate to be difficult?
    *Are there any gaps in my understanding that I need to address before i start?
    How do I plan to overcome outstanding issues and expected difficulties?
    [or?] *What have I discovered that can help me overcome outstanding issues and expected difficulties?

    With knowing the context I’m afraid that I’m veering to the speculative but, in case it prompts a useful thought that my penny’s [/ two cents’s] worth

    1. Thanks John, those are really great ideas. I think there is a lot to learn from experience with student portfolios, and also it’s worth thinking about this exercise as preparation for keeping a portfolio (we have a new programme starting which might involve that).

      I really like the idea of encouraging students to think about different things at different stages of their app development. That will help with one of the other aspects which is getting the students work throughout the semester and not treat the coursework as a sprint to be done the night before it is due.

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