Change in knowledge of learning and teaching through journal writing

This paper focuses on the analysis of learning journals maintained by 27 Graduate Diploma in Education students while undertaking a 1‐year course of study in a subject in human development and learning. The learning journals yielded four types of information: (1) students’ perceptions of the subject (its structure, style, assessment); (2) students’ understandings of and reflections on the theoretical content presented in the subject (informed knowledge); (3) students’ connection of theory with practical teaching experiences; and (4) indications of their development as learners and teachers. Analysis of this information indicated students’ movement from naive to informed views on teaching and learning through declarative (knowing what) and procedural (knowing how) knowledge about teaching and learning in the early parts of the subject to conditional knowledge (knowing when and why) through the remainder of the subject. Students tended to see theory as being unrelated to practice until the first practice teaching session when many students’ journal entries exhibited evidence of theory and practice becoming connected. Journal entries during the second practice teaching experience provided extensive evidence of the development of conditional knowledge. There is also substantial evidence of students developing meta‐cognitive thinking through the course of the subject.