Learning Journal

Some of us might wonder what exactly is a learning journal. A learning journal which is also known as the reflective writing is a personal record of your learning in education. It involves an assemblage of notes, thoughts, observations that has been jotted down throughout the period of studies and the writing may be followed by some programs of research and field-work. The unit Learning in Higher Education which I’m taking this semester  requires the students to produce a learning journal of 12 weeks throughout our learning in Monash University Malaysia. Here I produce a 12 week learning experiences during the semester 1 of 2015 in Monash University Malaysia.

• Week 1

The first week of the semester is the week where the students enjoy the most. I enjoyed my first week too because there’s no labs and tutorial classes going on during the first week. This first day of week 1 is the day where all October intake students got their examination results and there’s many emotional experiences going on in the campus. I’m satisfied with my results and aimed to achieve higher as I always had a very high expectations on myself as I believe high achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectations. I’m from the School of Science majoring in Medical Bioscience and time management is important in my course as the units that I’m enrolling in is not easy and I don’t like studying last minute. I developed my own learning style when I first enrolled in this university on October 2014. I study through videos that has been posted on the Moodle page and I would find some other tutorial videos as well to cope up with my studies. Lecturer at Monash University expects us to be prepared before every lecture and I am not prepared for any lecture beforehand. A lesson that I learnt from the last semester is never expect the lecturers to teach you everything. You need to be curious and explore it yourselves. Basically, nothing much is going on in the first week of the semester. The lecturers explained to us the unit guides in our units just to give us an overview of what to expect in the following weeks and I have lots of free time for this week. Those three times are used to bond with other people in the campus, communicating with different subsets of people.

• Week 2

Starting the week with an 8am is what all students hate the most. Lecture at 8am is tiring and I have a 4 hour laboratory session right after the lecture. Who loves Monday? No one. Assignments are being assigned to us on this week as well. From my learning experiences in the last semester in ATS 1017,  I’ve learned how to write academically in my essays and assignments. I never knew what is referencing and citing until I begin my course in this university. I took STPM and in our assignments were  not taught how to reference and cite. The worst part is we’re allowed to copy and plagiarized during my school times. I never knew the importance of referencing and also not knowing the consequences of plagiarism. The unit ATS 1017 and AMU 1018 had a great impact in my studies experiences. I have learnt how to reference properly in my coursework. University referencing is different as one’s failure to rephrase could sometimes lead to plagiarism. Referencing is important as it gives an acknowledgement to the authors. Writing someone’s words and phrases without referencing it is unethical. Referencing also helps to support my arguments and gives credibility to the information that I have decided to present in my assignments.  

• Week 3

Lab sessions and lectures are going on as usual. My friends and I are busy preparing for  the presentation that we’re preseting on week 4. I chose to be the first group to present because I don’t like to drag my work that can be settled in the early weeks of the semester rather than settling it at week 10 of the semester because I know that by week 10 all of us busy with our examination preparation and wouldn’t have time to prepare for group presentation. Our lecturer taught us the ways on how to present our work during tutorials. I make notes of what she has taught so that I would not repeat the same mistakes that I had commited last semester. From her lessons, I learnt the importance of eye contact during a presentation and how we should make an eye contact with the audiences while presenting our information. I also learnt how an evidence is presented in argument.

• Week 4

On this week as well, I had my first Inquiry-Design-Explore-Answer (IDEA) experiment in this semester. All of us are divided into a groups of 4 and we are required to identify an unknown white powder. Each group member has to play his/her role to make the experiment successful however through my observations in the laboratory, some group members are not being cooperative at all. Science requires learning skills which is associated with cooperativity and communication.  I learn how to work productively in the group and found out that how to identify an inquiry with the collaboration of my lab partners. Preparation before the experiment is also important so that I am able to answer the questions given. Before the experiment , I had done some research and reading on the experiment so that I would not make silly mistakes during the IDEA experiment. It is actually helpful to read up some informations before attending lab session. Lab reports need to be done on that lab session itsef hence it is important to be clear of what I am doing. Group presentation for AMU 1018 is on this week as well. Presentation slides were not done until a day before the presentation and indeed it was rushing. Mistakes had been done in our slides due to lack of time. References list was not included and it was a very huge mistake. Some of the research conducted was not properly cite as well. Time management is important and all 3 of us learnt our lesson. However, the presentation goes on well and all of us obtained a high mark on our presentation and we were given two weeks to complete our group essay.

• Week 5

Since week 6 is mid-semester break for Monash students, my group members decided to complete our group essay by week 5 itself as we had plans during the mid-semester break. I divided the work equally and we agreed to write what we had presented last week. I was in charge to write the 3 types of learning styles and elaborate on it. We finished the essay by the end of the week and handed it to Miss Melissa Wong, our AMU 1018 lecturer. We had our lab sessions as usual this week as well and nothing special happened. I learned to apply critical thinking skills even though I’m in the laboratory during experiment. In laboratory work, it is important to apply critical thinking during our work.  Identification, constructing and evaluating a data obtained is how critical thinking skills is applied but not everyone values the skills of critical thinking. I need to form a judgement on by balancing different approaches and facts on the experiment that I am doing. Critical thinking is important and I believe it improves everyday when practicing it.