Topic 74

REFLECTING EFFECTIVELY: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL (PDJ)

PART 1

Professional Development Journal (PDJ)

Full effect reflection. We can consider a number of tools. Perhaps the most prominent, the most
used method of reflecting is the professional development journal. This is very simply a written
record of experiences in the classroom and their response that the teacher has to those
experiences in the classroom.
It can take a number of forms, but the important thing is that it really takes, a general account of
the learning from the experience and. Perhaps most importantly, it identifies critical incidents.
Critical incidents are something we'll discuss later, but the professional development journal is a
very good place for the reflective practitioner to identify and then to reflect on critical incidents
as they occur, Because the reflective practitioner is writing in a journal.
The professional development journal is therefore quite subjective. It is the individual's response,
the individual's perception of what has actually taken place. And therefore, it is very important in
the professional development journal too. Take time to relate theory, which has been explored in
the literature with the experience of practice, perhaps one of the most valuable functions of the
professional development journal. Once the critical incidents, once the experience has been
noted down, once the feelings have been identified, is for there to be some indication of action in
relation to the experience we must not, just keep a diary. A professional development journal is
not a diary of what happened. It does follow a structure in terms of, reflection and action. So,
what you can be doing is to be looking for themes longitudinally through the journal, to see if
things recur, and then starting to develop some ideas about actions that you can take in terms of
your experience.
And therefore, it's very important to get into a very good habit of writing in the journal, try to do
it as soon as possible after teaching and as regularly as possible as you, go through your
teaching. The. Perhaps the most, difficult thing to consider as a reflective practitioner is writing
in a journal.
When do you get the time? the important thing to realize is that, it is a very critical process, but
try not to think too hard about it, that can actually stop you from writing in the journal. What you
want to do is to let the writing flow and to get the experience, capture the experience on the
paper.
So, a very good and simple rule to follow is little and often in the professional development
journal, you don't need to write pages and pages. You simply need to note down the key
incidences, the key approaches. And a very good thing to do with the journal is to share your
reflections with your colleagues in school.
So, you can get their perspectives on your reflections. And of course, it doesn't have to be just a
word. You can actually put diagrams or drawings in there. And so therefore writing in the
professional development journal is a very structured process. It's not free form. And what you
need to make sure is that you include description under the words, what happened that you have
in analysis and evaluation in there. This is the crux point of reflection and also conclusions that
you can draw. The conclusions are important because these will help you identify action points.