Ruth Otienoh

Reflective Practice: the Challenge of Journal Writing Ruth Otienoh

This study was carried out in Tanzania and it explored why teachers find it difficult to sustain reflecting through journal writing for their learning and improvement of their practice despite after being introduced to the concept of jouranling in a teacher development course. The findings indicate that teachers were unable to sustain reflective journaling due to a complex interplay of diverse justifications: the way the concept of reflective journaling was introduced, and how this impacted on teachers? knowledge and understanding of the concept and the activity of journaling; teachers? perceptions and experiences of reflective journaling, which determined how and whether they valued it as meaningful to their profession; and other challenges they faced in reflecting through journals seem to have discouraged them from journaling.