Using a Learning Log

Note taking is a good way to initially engage new information. After that, you can deepen your understanding by reflecting on the material and your course work in a learning log (a separate part of your notebook). Here are some tips.

Reserve a portion of your notebook for making reflections about each day’s lessons and your work in a particular course.
Resolve to write entries on a regular basis, especially about more difficult information and ideas.
Label and date each entry so that you can track your thinking.
Freely explore your thoughts and feelings. Try writing nonstop for three to five minutes at a time.
Spur your thinking with the strategies below as needed.
Read your entries periodically to see how your thinking has developed and to review key details.

Learning-Log Strategies

Predict	Predict what the new ideas will lead to or what you will learn next.
Summarize	Summarize what was covered in a lesson or class.
Evaluate	Evaluate its importance and meaning.
Ask	Ask “what if?” or “why?” about a subject you are studying.
Debate	Debate ideas by creating a conversation between you and another person.
Connect	Connect an idea to something else you already know.
Argue	Argue for or against ideas or beliefs discussed in class.

Your Turn Write a learning-log entry about something you are currently learning. Follow the tips at the top of this page and use one or more of the learning-log strategies to spur your thinking.

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Sample Learning-Log Entry

In this entry, a student reflects on a classroom discussion about the biological phenomenon endosymbiosis, connecting the subject to past experience and knowledge.

Connect current learning with prior knowledge.

I remember being in 6th grade and making a model of an animal cell, with a cell membrane and the nucleus and all the mitochondria. Now I find out that the mitochondria has different DNA from the rest of the cell. That’s because it comes from an ancient kind of bacteria that got swallowed by another cell. Wild!

And in plant cells, the chloroplasts that do the photosynthesis also have their own DNA. Every plant cell has at least three types of DNA in it, from chloroplasts, mitochondria, and its own nucleus.

Embed images, videos, and other media if they are not copyrighted.

Here’s what’s really strange: chloroplasts and mitochondria reproduce by splitting inside the cell. They reproduce the same way that the whole cell splits, but on their own.

Put new concepts in your own words.

Mrs. Christi says that the theory of endosymbiosis is that a protist cell—basically a bacteria—tried to eat another bacteria, but the bacteria that was eaten stayed alive inside the other one. She said there was a time when this slime called stromatolites started producing a lot of oxygen, which was a poison for most of these bacteria. The kind that could survive the oxygen ate the kind that couldn’t, and the kind that couldn’t began to live inside the other kind.

So, every cell in my body has these little bacteria inside, providing power to the cells.

Include links to sources of additional information.

I knew we had some bacteria that we needed for digestion—bacteria that lives in our digestive tract. We get the bacteria from our mothers when we are babies. But thinking that there are other bacteria that are just kind of part of me is so crazy.

And, in a way, animals came before plants because both have mitochondria, but only plants have chloroplasts. I always thought of plants coming before animals, but it must have kind of been the other way around. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Christi about that tomorrow.