The learning log is designed to demonstrate to the ARCP panel that the learner is an adult learner, capable of reflective learning and able therefore to tackle all parts of the learning cycle in an “upward spiral of learning”.
The log entry
Documenting
What?
What did you learn? Be specific – record nuggets of learning.
Entries don’t need to be verbose, don’t pad them out.
Entries should be varied and cover all the possible ways of learning – seminars, reading, professional conversations, etc.
The log entries should show balance – important learning points,all tutorials, all half day release sessions, all out of hours sessions, each nugget. If you add every trivial thing that you look up between patients then you won’t have time to do any real learning.
The length and number of entries is not important – it is their quality that matters.
Add the curriculum headings that this learning log entry covers. This is useful to allow you to see what areas of the curriculum you haven’t covered.
Don’t fill boxes just for the sake of it – if there is nothing useful to add to the box leave it blank.
The eportfolio is a professional document – your spelling should be correct. Use Firefox which spellchecks automatically, or IE7 wih a spellchecking add-on.
Reflecting
So what?
Any defined learning needs should be SMART (specific measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed) and entered into the PDP
There may not be any new learning needs. That’s fine. However, if there are always no learning needs, then no reflection is occurring.
“What will you do differently” is an action and should be specific.
Moving on
Now what?
What action have you taken? How do you know that you have learned what you think you have learned? Are you using it?
The difficulties with the learning log
The eportfolio currently does not support linking of learning log entries.
