Learning Journal Questions - Week 5

Hi all,

Happy Thanksgiving! :D I hope you had a great Thanksgiving day yesterday and ate lots of turkey, or other food.

Sorry that I didn't post it earlier because I am not in Oahu at this moment.

Here are the learning Journal questions for this week:

1. How do people learn best? You can talk about learning in general, or one specific type of learning. Use examples and your own opinions to support your answer. You need to be specific about the definition of learning of your own words, as well as how to do it best. (For me, learning is best by doing it. However, everyone thinks differently.) - 200 words required. 




2. We talked about the differences between "strategy" and "skill" in class on Wednesday. However, I didn't have a chance to hear from every of you. I would like you to write about this again and give supporting details. Explain how you think these two terms might be similar or different and justify your answer. You may give examples to help us understand. - 200 words required 




3. Propose a several topics for your final presentation and explain them in a little bit detail. 
At this point, I want you to brainstorm 3 possible topics for the presentation. (No word limit for this quesiton)

Here are some guidelines for your final presentation:

    a. You can choose to do the presentation alone, or in pairs.

    b. Each person has 5 minutes, so if you are doing in pairs, your time just adds up to 10 minutes, and so on and so forth.

    c. Your topic has to be related to studying skills or learning using GOs. You may talk about "what", the concept,  and "how-to", how to do it in practice.

    d. Some topics from last term as examples:

• All about Cynthia's GO class
• How to create GOs for novel (stories) 
• How to use GOs in daily life
• Thinking in English 

* Important note: 

Please write down any initial ideas you have at this point, and we will figure out the best topic for you together. You need to produce some topics first for me to be able to discuss with you, so don't worry if you can't decide on the topics yet. You don't usually decide on the topic in first discussion. It always takes some time to decide. Make sure you have SOME ideas written down here first. 

Week 3 Learning Journal

Hey all, 

For the journal this week, please make sure you have 150 words at least. Otherwise you won't get point for it. Be sure to follow the rules. If you have any questions, please contact me before the deadline. 

1. New things that you learnt from any of your HELP classes. (What are you learning in other classes? Share with me and also reflect on it.)

2. New things that you learnt outside of HELP. (You can talk about more than one thing. Is there anything interesting that you learned outside of class? Any interesting activities? Anything new in terms of cultural differences? )

3. Apparently, there are certain steps for creating GOs. What are your steps when creating GOs? Try to recall what you do (step by step) while creating GOs for readings. 

(For example: 

First, I read the reading from the beginning to the end once without stoping for general understanding. 

Second, I look for all the signal words before sorting them out and decide the pattern of the text. 

.......so on and so forth.)

 <Write down the steps in DETAIL. First tell "what" you do in detail and then "explain why(purpose)" you take this step.>

4. After reading part of the article "Graphic Organizers in Reading Instruction" by Jiang and Grabe (2007), explain what the questions are in GOs research in your own words (p. 35). Also, according to Jiang and Grabe, what are the merits of GO instructions suggested by researchers (p.35)?

(You don't need to write 200 words but I would like to see good quality of writing.)

Week 3 Learning Journal

Week 2 Learning Journal Questions

Hi all,

It's the end of the second week already, I hope all of you had a great time on Halloween! :D Thanks to Shinpei we all got delicious candies!

I apologize that I have not been able to reply to all your journals and I will finish commenting by tomorrow for sure. I have had some family issues and too much work to do this past week. Again, thank you for your patience and understanding.



Here are the questions for this week.

1. One New thing that you learnt from any of your HELP classes.
(For example, did you learn any new strategies? New phrases? Use them here and reflect on what you have learnt.)

2. One New thing that you learnt from outside of HELP classes.
(For example, did you learn any new things about Hawaii? Did you learn any thing new from the Halloween fest? Did you learn any thing new from talking to your friends or anyone?)

3. Are there any reading strategies in reading in your L1(first language)? (For this question, just write as much as you can. It does not have to be 200 words.)


4. Do you have any questions about creating GOs so far? Anything you would like yo know at this point?

Week 2 Journal Questions

Coming soon

Week 1 - Reading Journal Questions

Hi all, 

This learning journal is to help you reflect on your learning progress. 
For the learning journal this week, please answer the following questions in details. I am expecting around 200 words for each, so please do your best. 

1.        One new thing that you learned in week 1 in any of your classes at HELP.

2.        One new thing that you learned in week 1 outside of your HELP classes.

3.        Tell me what you think about language learning and other types of learning. Is there any difference?

4.      Why do we need learning strategies? 

The deadline for completing this assignment is Sunday noon (12 pm), 

and making comments on other people's journal is due Monday noon (12 pm).

If you have any questions, please email me or make comments here as soon as you can. Don't forget that you need to go to 2 other people's journals to make comments. Remember, make constructive comments. 

Cynthia's first post

Hi everyone,


Welcome to the 361I Graphic Organizers class!
Leave your comments here with your name and blog address so I can link you to my blog.

This blog is for you to write your weekly learning journal. I will show you examples in class today!

Have fun! :)

I will be posting more so stay tuned!