Keeping a teaching journal

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The best training I ever had for teaching came from supporting myself through individual and small group tutoring as an undergraduate. In the early stage of a tutoring career, you have absolutely no idea what you're walking into each session. Most of the material should be familiar, of course, but chances are you've never taught lessons on the subject before, but even if you have, you probably haven't taught enough to know just where students get stuck. In each session, then, you have to rapidly assess what the client's professor is teaching, how they are likely to assess those skills, and where the client is struggling. Then you have to make up a lesson on the fly to help get that client where they need to be.

Tutoring is trial by fire, and it doesn't always go well. When you're tutoring to pay rent and put food on the table, though, you have no choice but to shake off the bad sessions, regroup, and figure out what you could do better before the next session because you're going to see a lot of the same issues with your next client. Real-time self-assessment becomes instinctive, and it's an instinct I think every teacher should cultivate.

One thing, though, that threw my self-assessment instincts for a bit of a loop when I finally became a professor with classes of my own was the different paces of teaching and tutoring. In tutoring, you debrief and troubleshoot each lesson because you're going to give that lesson again, possibly in as few as five minutes as one client clears out and another comes in. When something goes awry in the classroom, by contrast, you're probably not going to give that lecture again until the following semester.

This is great in that it gives you plenty of time to think deeply about how to improve a lesson and bring a lot of resources to bear on any problems-- but only if you can remember them!

While tutoring drilled into me the importance of constant self-assessment, the fast pace of the tutoring world didn't do much at all to help me develop important personal knowledge management skills. It wasn't long, though, before I learned the value of keeping a teaching journal to capture my insights. It's one of those obvious-in-retrospect solutions, but even so, it's amazing how few professors use one.

Teaching journals are powerful tools. They relieve the burden of trying to remember common pitfalls from one semester to the next. They open space for brainstorming. They reveal patterns in your teaching that aren't apparent in the day-to-day management of your courses. They help you cover your butt when dealing with problem students. They provide the documentation you need for annual reviews, grant applications, teaching awards, etc. And that's just for starters!

On the surface, keeping a journal seems simple. However, journaling requires a bit of practice to use effectively. Below are some of the lessons I've learned about this amazing tool.

Print vs. Digital

One of the first decisions you need to make is whether to keep a digital or handwritten journal. 

Which one is better? The one you'll actually use! 

I kept handwritten journals for years. I use digital notes now. They each have their tradeoffs but they're both highly effective. The only mistake you can make is committing to a format that doesn't fit your workflow and personality.

What to Record

Everything! Well, within reason, of course. We all tend to overestimate our own memories. When we have a really great idea for our class or run into a really thorny problem, we think that, of course, we'll remember it for the next semester. We won't.

We also tend to discount the little things. When a student comes to our office hours confused about a topic or with a complaint about an assignment, we regard it as routine and not worth the time to record. That's a mistake. When you record the little things, you often discover patterns to the points of confusion or the complaints, patterns that are impossible to see in the moment.

Annotate Your Notes!

Journaling generates a lot of information. That's a good thing! However, it also means that, before long, you'll find yourself struggling to find the important among the mundane. 

If you're keeping a manual journal, highlighters are your friend. Dedicate one color for things that went well, another color for things that need to be improved. You can also dedicate colors for lecture issues, assignment issues, exam issues, technology issues, etc. I also recommend flagging pages with ideas you know you'll want to revisit later.

Be careful, though. The more elaborate an annotation system becomes, the more difficult it is to maintain, increasing the chances you'll stop journaling altogether, especially at the busiest times in the semester.

Electronic journals make it easier to find important notes using keyword searches. Or at least they do in theory. In practice, it can be maddeningly difficult to find what you're looking for in a digital notebook because it's almost inevitable that most of your notes will contain the same keywords. And, of course, even your journal entry on your amazing idea to completely transform a super-specific activity in a super-specific lecture in the third week of class is going to be lost in the archives by the time you're ready to prepare for the next semester because you will have forgotten all about it and won't think to search for those super-specific keywords.

All of this is to say that annotations are just as important in digital journaling as they are for handwritten notes. If your notetaking system supports hashtags, use them! I use a common tag for all teaching ideas (#teachingidea), as well as tags for each class I teach, for our learning management system, for individual assignments, etc. Again, don't get too carried away or your system will fall apart once the semester gets stressful, but try to strike a nice balance between rapid notetaking and rapid note retrieval.

Set Reminders!

The only thing more frustrating than forgetting a great teaching idea is remembering a great teaching idea with no time to implement it. Many of our best ideas require extensive preparation. They may require research, a rewrite of our syllabus, the adoption of a new technology, a revamp of our teaching schedule, or finding new readings. Even revising assignment prompts or exams is time-consuming. 

For your teaching journal to be most effective, then, it's vital that your best ideas come back to you in time to put them into practice. Some notetaking apps integrate reminders, but most don't. When you have a great idea, then, don't just record it in your journal.  Make it a habit to also set a reminder in your calendar. At the very least, you should set a reminder a couple of weeks before the new semester begins to review your notes from the previous semester. If your idea requires research into new technology or better readings or consultation with colleagues, be sure to set reminders far enough in advance to make those things happen.

Teaching may be rewarding, but it's also often exhausting. The last thing most educators want is anything more on their plates than they already have. Journaling, especially in the beginning, will feel like just one more damned thing. I promise you, though, that it's not. Journaling done correctly is not just busywork. It's a powerful, transformative tool that, ultimately, eases some of the worst burdens of teaching.