Broaden your self-awareness through reflective journaling

by Mariah Kidd, B.S., GEOSCIENCES, 2022, Boise State University

This is the 4th post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

Introduction

The summer after I graduated high school was a turbulent time; plans changed, I felt lost and confused, and I needed a way to make sense of it all. I’ve never understood why but at that time I felt a natural pull towards writing about my life. So, I bought a journal and began scribbling down my thoughts and feelings. During the last five years, I have used journaling as a tool to digest my experiences. Each time I write, I leave my journal feeling lighter and clearer than when I started because I took time to slow down and release the internal pressure of my mind. My journal slowly became a place where I was able to express myself freely without the worry of judgment from another person. This took time, however; it was difficult to be honest and non-judgmental with myself about my own feelings. To this day, I continue using my journal as a way to ponder, process, and plan how I want to show up in life.

Building Self-Awareness

Before I began journaling in 2017, I did not practice self-reflection. I needed a practice where my internal world could be reflected back to me in a way that I could understand. My journal is a mirror; it reflects everything about myself back to me. Once I begin writing, parts of myself that I didn’t know existed are revealed; something about writing allows my subconscious thoughts and feelings to emerge. Awareness of my subconscious thoughts and feelings shows me how my life is unknowingly controlled by impulsive reactions or assumptions I carry. This awareness provides an opportunity for me to consciously choose how to respond to situations rather than instinctually reacting in harmful ways.

An entry from my journal on July 18, 2022 is an example of my growing self-awareness:

“Distraction is everywhere. Especially in my mind – my thoughts are constantly trying to direct my attention elsewhere. This morning I noticed myself getting pulled into social media so I decided to start reading. While reading I got distracted more than once. After reading I felt the urge to check my phone again. So I picked up my journal… Now here we are.”

Consistent reflection allows patterns in my life to emerge – only then, once my patterns are revealed through my writing, am I able to make tangible change towards more aligned patterns and habits.

Tracking Growth

As a person who values personal development, re-reading and reflecting on my journals is a useful tool to see how I have grown over the years. Since I began journaling, I have filled 11 journals cover-to-cover with my life story through college and beyond. Last spring I re-read these journals in chronological order from my freshman year of college to where I currently am six months post-graduation.

Reading my journals showed me how subtle and slow the process of growth is. Just like nature, we grow slowly. Each day we have the opportunity to be 1% better than the day before, and over the years that 1% adds up to substantial change. However, change can be difficult to notice in your day-to-day life. This is where the beauty of journaling becomes crystal clear. Journals allow us to time-travel to see how younger versions of ourselves moved through the world and can reveal meaningful changes that had previously gone unnoticed. Once I recognize where growth has already occurred, I feel inspired to take more aligned actions in my life to pursue future growth as a result of my reflection.

Beyond personal growth, reflective practices during college revealed trackable growth as a student. In English classes, university foundations courses, and philosophy classes I engaged in reflective writing that guided me into new ways of thinking about my academics. I had the opportunity to consider challenges I encountered through projects, acknowledge what I did well, and plan for how I can improve in the future. A full college course-load can quickly become difficult to navigate, but having reflective practices built into courses created the space to reflect, reground, and encourage me through my journey as a student. Reflection was always my favorite part of the few classes that incorporated it and I always wished every class had a reflection component.

Let Your Writing Evolve With You

Over the years, my journal has served many purposes depending on where I am in life. In the past it has served as a place to release overwhelming emotions. Other times it is used to capture special experiences that I want to remember the fullness of for the rest of my life. When I’m feeling stagnant, I use my journal to organize my life, dial in my habits, and plan how I want to show up in my life. Most commonly now, I use my journal to ask questions and dive deeper into my relationship with myself.

During college I used my journal to separate my personal life from my academic life. I created time and space to process my life outside of school so that I was able to fully show up to my academics without the distraction of unprocessed experiences. Through the years, I’ve realized how important it is to let the purpose of my journal evolve and change as I do because then it can support me at any point in life.

Finding Beauty

Adopting a consistent journaling practice has allowed me to find more meaning and value in my life experiences. I regularly incorporate gratitude into my journaling practice as a reminder that my life is richer and more beautiful than my mind would sometimes like me to believe. Five years ago, I could have never imagined how large of a role journaling would play in my development of becoming a more aligned version of myself day by day. This fact alone provides unlimited opportunity for what role my journal may play in the coming years of my life. Reflecting and taking aligned action in my life will be a continual process of refining myself through my self-discovery process.

Additional Resources:

Laura B. Miller, Review of Journaling as a Teaching and Learning Strategy, Teaching and Learning in Nursing, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2017, Pages 39-42, ISSN 1557-3087.

Pastore, Caitlin, Stress management in college students: Why journaling is the most effective technique for this demographic, 2020.

Using Ungrading and Metacognition to Foster “Becoming a Learner”

by Matt Recla, PhD, Associate Director of University Foundations at Boise State

This is the 3rd post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

Becoming a Learner

When I started teaching a required first-year course years ago, faculty were recommended to include Matthew Sanders’ small text, Becoming a Learner. Though it seemed a distraction from the “real” content of my course, I dutifully added the text. It makes a simple, compelling argument that students should strive to be active learners rather than passive students, exposing common misconceptions about a college education and suggesting helpful corrections. I paired the text with a short assignment to craft three learning goals for the semester, including at least one for our course and at least one for their learning journey more broadly.

I was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reactions from students. Though assigned at the beginning of the semester, in their reflections on the course months later students still made comments like the following: “I learned so much about myself and what to improve on.” “It really set the tone for the rest of the class.” “It really changed my perspective on how I view my college education.” A few even claimed it was the most valuable part of the course! Reflecting on their past learning experiences and considering concrete goals provided a tool to gain purchase on their educational journey.

I began to wonder, though, whether my teaching techniques and assignments throughout the rest of the course were in harmony with the message of becoming a learner. Sanders exhorts students to be creative and courageous in order to learn (14, 42). Was I helping students do that, or was I penalizing them if they took a risk? He encourages critical thinking and the interconnectedness of learning (15, 35). Was I providing opportunities to make those connections, to reflect on the impact of their learning? These reflections led me to further opportunities for student metacognition. I made two additional changes that, in offering students a greater sense of empowerment in their education, also hopefully contributes to their sense of well-being.

Ungrading

The first change was ungrading, which to my mind was the natural complement to a first-year required course that promotes taking charge of your education. (There are many different ways to ungrade; I was initially guided by Hacking Assessment, and have since benefitted from the edited volume, Ungrading.) I’ve landed for now on a system where students receive no grades until the end of the course. They receive significant feedback on each assignment (based on Mark Barnes’ SE2R feedback approach) from me or a teaching assistant and have unlimited opportunities to revise and resubmit their work. We meet individually with each one of our 100 students at midsemester to hear about their progress and tackle any ongoing challenges. We meet again at semester’s end, and students explain the grade they believe they’ve earned. At least nine times out of ten they assess themselves just as we (instructors) would. When there appear to be gaps in the student’s self-assessment, we have a slightly longer conversation to understand (and rarely, suggest possible corrections to) their rationale.

I have come to see ungrading as part of my own well-being as an educator, as it appropriately shares my responsibility for a student’s grade with them. They are well-positioned to evaluate their performance if I trust them to do so and let them practice. There is a learning curve, and it can at first be frustrating for students who (like myself as a student) are used to finding out “what the teacher wants.” If embraced, though, it encourages for most students more authentic engagement with their learning. Their reflections suggest this augments a feeling of ownership of their education.

Metacognitive Reflection

The second change I adopted is to have students write or record a brief metacognitive reflection along with every major assignment. (My first and last assignments are themselves reflections on their experience, so I don’t assign a reflection on their reflection. That gets confusing for everyone!) The prompt for this brief addendum asks students to think about successes and challenges, both internal and external. (I’ve lost track of the original source for this idea, but I’m grateful!) I show these four areas in a quadrant and invite students to respond to at least one prompt in each area:

Internal

External

Successes

● What did I do to achieve success on this assignment?

● What did I learn from this assessment (in terms of content, skills, and/or about myself)?

● What parts of the assignment worked well for me? Why?

● Where do I think I did best on the assignment or what portion am I particularly proud of?

● Which assignment standards did I meet or exceed? Why do I think so?

Challenges

● What challenges did I face while completing the assignment (outside the assignment itself)?

● How did I overcome those challenges?

● What do I plan to do differently next time as a result?

● What parts of the assignment were most challenging for me to understand? Why?

● How did I overcome those challenges?

● Which assignment standards did I not meet? Why?

Students reflect honestly on their challenges and modestly on their successes. They already may do this internally as they complete their work, but taking the time to record it helps reinforce that intuitive reflection and reveals the interconnectedness of their learning. The reflections often provide helpful context for their work, which may be impacted by any number of factors. In most cases I can affirm their self-assessment and suggest other small shifts as needed. The opportunity for intentional, transparent reflection has induced some “aha!” moments. I’ve seen many students follow through with changes in their time management for future assignments or double-down on areas of skill that were uncovered in reflection, which, because self-generated rather than forced, increases their felt self-efficacy.

Teaching in a COVID (and post-COVID) world

Although I incorporated both of these practices before the global disruptions of the last couple years, I’ve found that both ungrading and metacognitive reflection lend themselves well to teaching in a world unmoored by a pandemic. In the fall semester of 2020 we could see the impacts of a dramatic disruption in students’ learning, transitioning from in-person to primarily or completely virtual. Those impacts have become more pronounced each year since. The flexible design of my course is fairly adaptable to student needs and abilities when they enter the course, and it means that their grade isn’t ruined because they miss something due to unforeseen circumstances.

As they complete assignments and reflect on their progress, I can see them wrestle with the challenges of my course while simultaneously managing their other courses and the numerous obligations of adulthood. When they reflect at the end of the semester and assign themselves a grade, I can see how they comprehensively assess what this small piece of their growth as learners has added up to. I am privileged to work with students with a variety of different experiences and perspectives, and if my classroom provides a space where they can reflect on where they are and continue the lifelong process of becoming learners, I feel that I’ve boosted their well-being and not hindered their journey.

References:

Blum, S. D. (2020). Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). West Virginia University Press.

Sackstein, S. (2015). Hacking assessment: 10 ways to go gradeless in a traditional grades school. Times 10 Publications.

Sanders, M. L. (2018). Becoming a learner: Realizing the opportunity of education. Macmillan Learning Curriculum Solutions.

Student Well-Being Through Reflection and Metacognition in a First-Year Writing Course

by Ti Macklin, PhD, Department of Writing Studies Lecturer; Lilly Crolius, graduate student (Texas A&M University-Commerce); Harland Recla, first-year writing student; and Natalie Plunkett, first-year writing student, Boise State University.

This is the 2nd post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

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photo of a bubble floating in front of a blurred background — Image by dsjones from Pixabay

In summer of 2020, it was clear that business as usual was not going to work in terms of preparing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) to teach first-year writing (FYW) and for FYW students entering Boise State University. Students would likely be coming to class still in pandemic isolation and their needs would be unlike anything we had experienced as teachers. As FYW administrators, dawn shepherd and Heidi Estrem worked with Ti Macklin (an experienced instructor and teacher of the GTA pedagogy course) to develop a fully online course specifically designed to support both of these student populations.

This blog post examines the experiences of Ti Macklin, Lilly Crolius (graduate student and teaching assistant in the course), Harland Recla (FYW student), and Natalie Plunkett (FYW student).

Metacognition Through Reflection

For Ti, building the online FYW course, English 101 (ENGL 101), centered on metacognition as a means of supporting the well-being of all of the students involved in the course; both graduate and undergraduate. Her pedagogy focuses on the notion that improvement as writers comes from self-awareness, so reflection was built into every module of the course, with students working to answer the overarching question of “how do we improve as writers instead of simply improving individual pieces of writing?” The table below highlights the deliberately reflective elements of the course:

Class Activity	Reflection
Four Unit Course Structure	● Unit 1 – reflect on who they are as writers/what their relationship is with writing ● Unit 2 – reflect on how they became the writers they are ● Unit 3 – reflect on and identify the transferable skills they developed through the course ● Unit 4 (the final portfolio) – reflect on their learning in the course, examine their growth as writers and students, and look ahead to the next FYW course
Weekly Self-Assessment Journal	Students reflect at the end of each module on what was most helpful, what they learned, what they’re struggling with, and what adjustments they might make for future modules
Weekly Writing and Rhetoric Activity	Students are introduced to a new concept/term each week and, at the end of the lesson, are asked to reflect on how they might use this concept in the class and outside of the class
Weekly Course Readings and Discussion Boards	Course readings are designed to encourage students to reflect on their own writing processes, literacy experiences, and experiences with transfer
Final Portfolio Reflection	Students reflect on the culminating activity at the end of each unit and consider what changes they would make if they were to include this piece in the final portfolio.

All three students (graduate teaching assistant Lilly, Harland, and Natalie) were unaware of the concept of metacognition at the beginning of the semester. However, as the semester went on, they all realized that the focus on reflection was impacting both their writing and their well-being. Lilly noticed changes in the FYW students’ writing as the semester progressed. Through examining themselves and their abilities, and being encouraged by the support of creativity and personal interests in their assignments, their writing showed evidence that they were able to see connections between writing for our class and other situations (both academic and non-academic) thus cementing the concept of metacognition as a transferable learning and life skill.

The FYW students’ experiences were similar to Lilly’s. Harland began to understand the concept of metacognition about mid-semester when he realized that dedicating a large amount of time to reflection wasn’t something he was accustomed to, so it began to stand out as the course went on. Natalie found that, because the instruction on metacognition was subtle, it took a few weeks for students to fully understand that they were consistently doing metacognitive work whether they realized it or not.

Harland and Natalie also recommend that, even though it would mean adding more terminology to the course, it would be worth making metacognition even more explicit. Harland suggests that describing the purpose of metacognition in the course would demonstrate to students that metacognition can yield helpful adjustments in both learning and behaviors, thus making the concept and its function more obvious. Natalie adds that pointing out the overtly metacognitive work that students did at the end of each module in addition to the subtle work throughout the module makes this deeply reflective and challenging work seem much more manageable and possible.

Metacognition and Well-Being

When asked how their learning/thinking/writing processes changed as a result of ENGL 101, all three students indicated that their well-being was positively impacted. For example, for Harland, this style of learning shifted his life outside of class because he spent time reflecting upon the methods he used to think and learn. He specifically noticed that the metacognitive focus of the course boosted his well-being as it gave him a sense of control over the knowledge he absorbs.

Likewise, for Natalie, the focus on metacognition impacted her well-being by fostering and supporting her self-confidence in her writing skills and ideas. This boost largely came from when she realized that she was thinking of the concepts in the ENGL 101 course in her spare time and found herself applying them to other courses and areas of her life.

For Lilly, the experience as a graduate instructor within this class and learning about these ideas encouraged her to apply her learning in much more thoughtful ways. It made learning more engaging and highlighted how meaningful and valuable it could be, giving her clarity. Her job as a GTA became less stressful once she realized that there was a clear purpose for everything done in the English 101 class that she could use elsewhere.

All three students believe that their writing processes evolved significantly as a result of the course. Natalie went from quickly completing assignments within the due date to soaking in what was being taught and feeling more fulfilled and confident in her learning. Harland echoes this and adds that he became more comfortable with his own process, which resulted in a boost in his overall well-being.

As a student, Lilly found that reflection helped her to see that her writing was part of a bigger picture. No matter what is being written, she felt like there was a place for it in the world. Even if it never sees the light of day, it’s an opportunity for improvement and growth.

The Takeaway

In the midst of the isolation of the pandemic, people were turning inward and hiding from the world, which became a cycle of solitude and stagnation. The consistent reflective opportunities of this English 101 course introduced and amplified the notion of metacognition, thus pulling both the GTAs and the FYW students back into the world. By reflecting on themselves as writers, these students were able to connect to various places in their lives where they hadn’t previously made associations.

It is worth noting that this productive introspection took place in a class of 300 students in an asynchronous, fully online course. The students worked in semester-long groups of 10, each with an assigned GTA, in order to provide as much educational and human support to both the GTAs and the FYW students as possible. The reflection that Heidi, dawn, and I mention in the introduction to this blog series allowed us to rethink the size and shape of FYW classes while holding on to the essential elements of the course, like metacognition, that make a class a writing class.

Student Readings on Reflection, Metacognition, & Transfer

Allen, Sarah. “The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, https://writingspaces.org/essays

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 49, no. 2, 1998, pp. 165–185. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/358929. Accessed 13 July 2020.

Carillo, Ellen C. “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball & Drew M. Loewe, p. 34-37.

Driscoll, Dana Lynn and Roger Powell. “States, Traits, and Dispositions: The Impact of Emotion on Writing Development and Writing Transfer Across College Courses and Beyond.” Composition Forum, vol. 34, 2016. Accessed 21 July 2020.

Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 31, no. 4, 1980, pp. 389–401. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/356589. Accessed 1 June 2020.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Source.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, https://writingspaces.org/essays

Robertson, Liane, Kara Taczak, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. “Notes toward A Theory of Prior Knowledge and Its Role in College Composers’ Transfer of Knowledge and Practice.” Composition Forum, vol. 26, 2012. Accessed 21 July 2020.

Tomlinson, Barbara. “Cooking, Mining, Gardening, Hunting: Metaphorical Stories Writers Tell about Their Composing Processes.” Metaphor & Symbolic Activity, vol. 1, no. 1, Mar. 1986, p. 57.

Teaching and Learning Writing Together in a Pandemic

by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD, Boise State University

This is the 1st post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

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It is not hyperbolic to say that “The Pause and The Pivot” of March 2022 has irrevocably changed the three of us (dawn, Ti, and Heidi). In particular, the pause, pivot, and subsequent rethinking of nearly every aspect of our professions has deeply affected how we approach our colleagues and the classroom. The three of us have extensive experience administering large first-year writing programs, as well as decades of teaching behind us. Still, the unprecedented changes brought about by the pandemic shook loose many of our previously held beliefs about quality writing instruction.

Throughout this intensive and extended pandemic period, the three of us have met regularly to commiserate, plan courses, brainstorm ways to support our first-year writing students and instructors, and develop new approaches to teaching. Our collegial, challenging, and deeply supportive professional conversations have enabled us to use the unsettled ground of this time period to prompt new growth for all of us. This professional growth has, in turn, enabled us to develop pragmatic and humane classrooms and relationships with colleagues. To be sure, we would have said our classrooms were humane prior to 2020, and they were – but we attend to the well-being of self, colleagues, and students now like we never have before. One of our richest strategies for calling attention to well-being is through metacognitive discussions that take place in our co-writing and collaborative pedagogical work.

Metacognition has long been recognized as a deeply valuable and critically important practice for first-year writing students and for learning about writing more generally (Hayes, Jones, Gorzelsky, and Driscoll 2018). Indeed, one of the most important aspects of a rich first-year writing course is not only content about writing and practice doing writing but also extensive reflective work on how, when, and why writing changes across contexts (see Gorzelsky, Driscoll, Jones and Hayes 2016; see also Moore and Anson 2016). It is in the thinking about writing that novice writers gain sensitivity to changing rhetorical demands. So, as the three of us have collaborated over the past three years, employing these reflective practices ourselves has been fundamentally important. As program directors (dawn and Heidi) and innovative course designers (dawn and Ti), and as colleagues and friends (all three of us), we constantly and critically approached all of our curricular and pedagogical practices through a lens of metacognition and with a steady eye on making decisions that promote well-being.

This has been layered, intensive, and exhausting work. It has also been one of the richest periods of growth and collaboration of our professional lives. In brief, here are some of the grounding principles we returned to and perspectives that enabled us to thrive in these times:

We can enable, enact, and model healthy decisions. As program directors, dawn and Heidi were keenly aware of the need to encourage healthier work-life choices but sought to make it explicit in crisis times. It was top of mind for us to encourage our colleagues – to give them permission – to scale back assignments, to cull their courses for anything that wasn’t essential, to honor their need for breaks in fully online/remote semesters. Our approach to leadership has always been reflective, iterative, and in service to others. We also tend to work more than we should. This moment required us to enact healthy decisions related to our own workload and self- care, serving a model for others as well. We quickly set up google drive folders for sharing ideas for moving online in late spring 2020 to immediately encourage informal collaboration; we sent regular emails throughout the pandemic designed to both acknowledge the deep challenges of teaching in this time and offer hope and strategies for instructors.
We can change course. We all learned to be differently flexible in this time period, and meeting regularly to check in with each other helped us make visible things that were and weren’t working – and that might need to be adjusted. For example, the three of us were excited about a potential second course innovation for the spring 2022 semester. But as the fall unfolded, we realized together that it wasn’t the right semester for it. So, we adjusted. And let go.
We can learn to live and even thrive in an environment of productive discomfort. Nothing felt comfortable in 2020-2022. We know that learning is uncomfortable, and we strive to help our students to remain resilient when things are hard, and we were forced to face both productive discomfort and trauma, by experiencing them in our own lives and witnessing them in the lives of colleagues and students. In teaching and learning environments as well as workplaces, we don’t always make a distinction between the two. Discomfort can bring growth.

With these ideas in mind, we brought together a number of other colleagues who have also been thinking deeply about the interplay of writing, well-being, and cognition. In the next post, Ti Macklin and three students from her Fall 2021 first-year writing course examine their experiences with a metacognitively-focused English 101 course. Lilly Crolius (graduate student and teaching assistant in the course), Harland Recla (first-year writing student), and Natalie Plunkett (first-year writing student) provide insight into the student experience by discussing how reflection and a focus on transferable writing skills impacted their well-being.

The third post, written by Matt Recla, Associate Director of University Foundations at Boise State, discusses how reflective practices and assessment improved his students’ sense of self-efficacy and well-being. He specifically details how incorporating “ungrading” and metacognitive reflection practices into his required first-year course provides students with a framework to see themselves as life-long learners.

The series ends with a final post from a former Boise State University undergraduate student, Mariah Kidd, who explains how reflective journaling helped her to track her growth as a writer throughout her undergraduate career.

Works Cited

Hayes, Carol, Ed Jones, Gwen Gorzelsky, and Dana Driscoll. “Adapting Writing About Writing: Curricular Implications of Cross-Institutional Data from the Writing Transfer Project,” WPA: Writing Program Administration, 41.2, Spring 2019, pp. 65-88.

Gorzelsky, Gwen, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Joe Paszak, Ed Jones, and Carol Hayes, “Cultivating Constructive

Metacognition: A New Taxonomy for Writing Studies,” in Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer, eds Jessie Moore and Chris Anson, Utah State University Press, 2016.

Moore, Jessie and Chris Anson, Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer, eds Jessie Moore and Chris Anson, Utah State University Press, 2016.

Improve with Metacognition

Author: dawn shepherd