The major part of the portfolio is your log book. Your log book is an important element of the learning experience that is your placement. Your placement year is not simply for work experience. It is a unique opportunity to look at the theory you learn at university and apply it in a practical, real world setting, within a supportive academic environment. Your log book should be completed regularly, ideally weekly, and should reflect on your placement and also your own development. This should include reflections upon key activities such as: induction; meetings with the placement tutor; reflections upon workplace evaluation and plans for development that arise from these; records of all contact with the School during the placement year as evidence of continuing engagement with the academic aspects of the programme.
Documents such as the workplace evaluations should be included as part of the log book.
A log book is essentially a record or journal of your own learning; it helps you to record, structure, think about and reflect upon, plan, develop and illustrate your own learning. As the log book is a journal which illustrates your own learning and skills development, it goes beyond a mere diary or record of "What you have done". It is used as a record of what you have learnt, tried and critically reflected upon.
For example, if in your log book you include details of what you did or how you did something then consider asking yourself questions such as:
- Did it go well? Why? What did you learn?
- Did it go badly? Why? What did you learn?
- How can you improve next time?
A log book contains your record of your experiences, thoughts, feelings and reflections. One of the most important things it shows is your conclusions about how what you have learnt is relevant to you and how you will use the new information/knowledge/skill/technique in the future. It may contain details of problems you have encountered and solved (or not solved); examples of where you started to try out and practice some new skill, and examples of your own formal and informal learning. Formal learning is 'taught' in a formal academic setting - for example via a lecture or a course. Informal learning is learning which takes place outside a formal academic setting, for example, though talking with friends or colleagues in a social setting. The best entries will bring these elements together.
Once you have commenced a log book you will find it a valuable and useful 'tool' to help your learning and to help you to think about and structure your own learning.
How to keep a log book:
Try to write something down after every new learning experience.
- What you did
- Your thoughts
- Your feelings (but keep a balance, it is not a personal diary)
- How well (or badly) it went
- What you learnt
- What you will do differently next time.
Try to regularly review (usually every 3-5 weeks) what you have written and reflect upon this, documenting this reflection as an additional entry. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself questions such as:
- Have I achieved anything? If so, what?
- What progress have I made?
- Have I put any theory into practice?
- How does what I have been doing lead to me becoming better at a skill?
- How can I use this to plan for the future?
- How can I use this to plan new learning?
You will find that how you view something (your perception) changes over time. For example, you may have been trying to develop your communication skills and have had a bad or negative learning experience when something went wrong and you feel you have made little or no progress. You may reflect upon this the next day and your thoughts and feelings may be mainly negative ones. However when you reflect about the experience 3-5 weeks later on you may find that you have now overcome the negative experience and have used it to develop further and improve yourself. Skills rarely suddenly develop or improve 'overnight'. Learning new knowledge and applying it within a skills context usually takes time, effort and perseverance. A log book will help you to become more aware of how you learn, what learning tasks you enjoy (and don't enjoy) and of your emotional and cognitive (thought) processes.
At first it may seem difficult to start to critically reflect upon your own learning. Over time though, you will find that it becomes easier. The more often that you practice the skill of self-reflection then the easier it will become.
You can use your log book to record courses you went on, books you have read, discussions you have had, Internet sites you have looked at, television programmes you have watched. At the end of the day your log should become something that is directly relevant to you and your learning, as applied to your placement.
The log should be relevant to you and your job/studies/role/activities, therefore there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way of producing a log book. If you require any help, advice or guidance about your log book then please discuss it with the module coordinator.
Example Log Book
- What did I do?
- How do I think/feel about this?
- What did I think about but not say (or what did I want to say but did not)?
- How well (or badly) did it go?
- What did I learn?
- What will I do differently next time?
- How will I do it differently next time?
- What have I achieved?
- What have I learnt about myself?
- How have I put any theory into practice?
- How does what I have been doing lead to me becoming better at a skill?
- How can I use this to plan for the future?
- (How) can I use this to plan new learning experiences?