Reflective Journals: A tool for Self-Reflection, Self-Awareness and Professional Development

Professional learning is a multifaceted process with cognitive, behavioral, relational, and emotional components, with experience playing a key role. Experience, as a privileged setting for learning, sets the tone for one's activities, expands one's knowledge, and aids in the formation of personal identity through critical reflection. Reflection is self-improvement and a deeper learning approach that involves looking back on an experience in order to learn from it and then going ahead. Reflection can help you connect theory and practice, as well as previous and current knowledge. Journals can be used to teach and guide students in the development of higher-order thinking abilities such as reflection, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Journal writing can be viewed as a form of self-expression, a record of events, or a therapeutic aid, among other things. It could be a combination of these and other capabilities. One technique that requires students to assess their individual involvement with academic topic knowledge and learning processes is journaling. Journaling one's ideas become a journey of discovery during the course of an academic course.