CGU Faculty Retreat

On Friday afternoon, CGU faculty gathered for the Fall Faculty Retreat. OIT was asked to participate in this year's event by providing a brief view of a few 'opportunities' for using technology to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom. In this post, I will focus on the first of the three that I presented to faculty, using blogs as electronic reflective journals.

Currently, I am teaching online as adjunct faculty in an MBA program for a small institution in the Chicago Area. My students are required to maintain a weekly reflective journal using either Wordpress or Blogger. I ask them to reflect upon the content, assignments and/or discussions as well as updates on progress with their midterm papers and Final Projects. The course is eight weeks long. A few of the benefits include:

• Continuing 1-on-1 interaction
• Student take-aways that assist in course updates
• Feedback to assist with ongoing course adjustments
• Utilization of a strategy that is student-centered

In the beginning, many students are timid and hesitant, but they quickly find value in their weekly time to reflect and often include issues and obstacles that may emerge and affect learning outcomes. Several have enjoyed reflective blogging so much that they continue to do so for subsequent classes or personally with family.

For further reading and consideration, you may enjoy reviewing the following research article:

"Using Blogs to Enhance Critical Reflection and Community of Practice"

If you need assistance with getting started using reflective electronic blogs, please feel free to contact me at carleen.shaffer@cgu.edu

Carleen