STUDENT OPINIONS ABOUT LEARNING DIARIES USED IN SCIENCE COURSES

Abstract

Learning diaries used in science courses are one of the alternative evaluation tools. This tool improves reflective thinking skills that are used to determine students' thoughts, questions, problems, and learning experiences. The aim of the study is to determine student opinions about the learning diaries throughout the unit of structure and characteristics of materials, which is become one of units in science course at the seventh grade, during the six week lectures. The working group is the 7th grade students who are studying in a secondary school in the second semester of 2017-2018 academic year. The study was conducted with six students with different academic achievements. In the study, phenomenology pattern is used from qualitative research designs. Semi-structured questionnaires were utilized as data collection tools. Descriptive analysis technique was employed to analyze the obtained data. After six weeks of planned lessons with student-centered activities, the students wrote their diary into the learning diary files where the questions were included. Using the scaled scoring key generated by the researcher, the teacher evaluated the student's diary. The teacher helped the students to make corrections when necessary. After the diaries's printing process was finished, six students who participated in the study were interviewed about the learning diaries by asking the prepared interview questions. When the opinions about the learning diaries were evaluated after the study, it was determined that the students had positive opinions with the learning diaries. Four of the students stated that learning diaries improved course success and improved writing skills. They also stated that they could ask their teachers questions, not ask. They said that the feedback and corrections given by their teachers gave them a better understanding of the lesson. In addition, they have indicated that their learning diaries enable them to be ready for classes. Two students with low academic achievement reported negative opinions by saying that write is time consuming and tedious. According to these results, the use of learning diaries in science class provides many facilities such as ensuring that students are ready for classes, encouraging questions, and writing their knowledge in writing.