Metacognition and Learning Journals in Higher Education

The studies in higher education have its natural focus on the subject matters of study. This also holds for the master program Technology Management (TM). In addition it is important to complement the students’ academic knowledge with insights about metacognition, i.e. knowledge and understanding of themselves and their own behaviour. The introduction of so-called Learning Journals has proved to be a successful step in this direction. TM is a unique program at Lund University, where a selected number (40) of students from the Faculty of Economics (20) and from the Faculty of Engineering (20) are taught together during their last 2 years of study. Their different views on problems and challenges in today’s industry often complement each other. By the introduction of learning journals, they also learn about themselves, what influence their motivation, behaviour and attitude have on a group, and an understanding of their own preferred learning method. The learning journals are introduced in the course Project Leadership. In this course, the students are divided in groups of 4-5 students, each one managing one project. Throughout the whole course (2 semesters) the students are writing learning journals and supervisors are commenting monthly. The learning journals have four purposes; 1) providing an opportunity to reflect on the development of the project itself 2) enabling personal reflection on the own process, 2) enabling reflection on the own position and part in the group, and 4) through the longitudinal effect of the course; it provides an opportunity to compare journals over time to become aware of and able to analyse the own learning process. In a newly performed Placement report, students that have graduated from the Technology Management programme the last 10 years, rate their education 4.37 out of 5. Some students even consider the Learning Journals among the most valuable parts of the whole programme in retrospect