Learning Log

The biggest fear we usually confront in our life is of committing any mistake or making any error in whatever we do. From our childhood, we are taught to identify correct actions with positive response and mistakes with negative response such as admonition, punishment as negative response to any mistake made, with the intention of making the child learn to try not to make the mistake or any other mistake for that matter, ever again. This instills an inherent fear of making mistake and makes us miss out on the scope to learn from the mistake and gain experience. We invariably become prisoners of the fear of committing any mistake. This fear is reinforced when a child has to face the process of Examination or Test to evaluate his success in achieving the learning objectives. Failure associated with the process of Examination has a social stigma attached to it, which augments the child's fear of mistakes and failure. The fear of failure or committing mistake has a negative connotation on the development of the child's persona.

You may now think that I am advocating for errors and failures. In fact, it is not so, I am not advocating for any mistakes committed deliberately, but for the mistakes we inadvertently commit, which may result in our failure to achieve our objective. Yes, you are right to ask me, what Learning Log has to do with mistakes and the fear of committing mistakes?

Then let me ask you whether you have seen the movie 'Martian'. NASA sends a team of astronauts to Mars and the team returns leaving a member, who is a botanist, behind on Mars, presuming him to be dead. In fact, he survives the storm on the Red Planet and maintains a log of all the data he collects, his observations, his study and analysis of the data and application of his knowledge and information he has to survive on the planet. Though, making entry in the log is part of the activities of each team member, but for him, it proves to be an effective learning exercise too as, he documents the strategy he plans to execute, based on the information he has and what the result of the execution is, so that when he repeats any of the activities, he knows how to implement it more effectively. It was a remarkable learning experience for the astronaut to survive alone on Mars and he effectively documented his learning experience in the form of a log. Hence, I would term it as a Learning Log.

Many of us maintain daily diaries, where we note down our day's experience of the day's events and activities. It is merely a note or a memo; therefore, we cannot equate it with the Learning Log.

We can not only encourage the formal learners-the students to maintain learning log, and we too can maintain one for ourselves.

How do we maintain a Learning Log?

It is very simple:

1. On a day to day basis, we make a note of our planned and unplanned activities for the day. Our preparation to perform the activities. The time and logistics involved, etc. 
2. Document any curiosity you have about any object, person, place, even any concept which is a taboo and analyse the way you will gain information to satisfy your curiosity without any negative impact on your thought and on your course of life.
3. Document any idea that you have and analyse the steps to implement it successfully along with the assumptions you have to make in course of your analysis or study. 
4. Document any bad habit you have and how you want to get rid of it. Subsequently document how you succeeded in your endeavour.
5. Document any good habit you intend to inculcate and how you intend to do it. Subsequently document how you finally achieved it.
6. Document your success and achievements with proper analysis of it.
7. Document your failures and the factors that contributed to it. Then make a note of what should be done instead of could have been done to transform the failure to success.
8. Document any fear, worry, cause of anger, frustration or depression and analyse the root cause of it and work out how you can overcome it. Subsequently document how you did overcome it.
9. Document about people or prevailing conditions or circumstances that irritate you, trouble or challenge you and analyse, how you can compassionately and empathetically take care of it. Subsequently note your achievement too. 
10. Document any event that left a positive impression on you and how it has helped you.
11. Document any event that left a negative impression on you and how you can take care of it. 
12. Document your prejudices, biases, false beliefs that you have and how you can overcome them. Subsequently document how you did achieve it.
13. Document any mistake you made, even your involvement in our any such activities that have affected you and your life. Analyse the cause and how you intend to work your way out. Subsequently document your achievement too.
14. Document any experiment you did, such as devising a new recipe and its result.
15. Even document your fantasies, desires, hope and aspiration. Continue to document the steps you took to realise them and what was the outcome. In case, it was a negative one, then what were the subsequent steps you took to achieve your aspiration.

It is true, you will need professional help and guidance in few of the points listed above and you can always mention it in your notes.

You may now ask, what is the benefit of maintaining a log? 

1.       Learning Log is an effective tool that learner can use in the process of learning by application or applied learning.

2.       It is also an effective tool for informal form of learning called trial and error method of learning.

3.       It helps the learner to effectively apply any knowledge learnt and be better equipped in its use.

4.       It helps the learner to overcome the fear of making mistakes or failure.

5.       It helps the learner to adopt any unfair means of addressing his curiosity or getting an answer to any taboo questions.

6.       It helps in the overall development of the learner, especially in self development in terms of personality.

7.       It is an effective tool to help anyone to chart a course of his or her life and help the person to keep tab of his initial setback and final success.

8.       It is an effective way to both formative and summative evaluation of the learning objectives achieved by the learner.

9.       It is an effective tool in work place mentoring and coaching.

10.   It is an effective tool for self development.

11.   It is an effective tool to help overcome any behavioural problems too.

12.   It is an effective tool to help in striking a work-life balance.

13.   It is an effective tool for project management.

14.   It is an effective method of documenting your life and this will eventually be the resource of your biography.

15.   In fact, many universities and educational institutions maintain error logs of their students in the libraries as effective reference material for the learners.

16.   It is an effective tool for team management.

17.   Do share any more benefits that you too can think of maintaining a Learning Log.

We can transform prisons and penitentiaries into self development and skill development centers through effective use of Learning Logs. 

You are the captain of your ship called life and you can maintain the log of its journey, its voyage: The Learning Log.

Shri Dhirubhai Ambani of Reliance Industries had said, ‘Ideas are not any body’s monopoly. When you find any idea floating around and if it is worth your farthing, you can always use it.

Suggestion:

One can also make a mobile application or software of learning log for academic purpose, or for self development or for performance/talent management of any organisation. The App and software can be equipped with Reference links of information and knowledge sharing. It can also be integrated to Analytical and Decision making tools such as Mind Maps, Fish-bone Analysis, TRIZ, Decision Tree, etc. This can therefore become an effective learning mechanism as well as effective management