4-Year Honors Learning Journal

The 4-year Honors Learning Journal is a space for you to document and reflect on your personal growth and achievements as you move through the program. Throughout your journey, you will use your journal to curate artifacts that showcase your learning and skill development, and create reflective annotations that contextualize, connect, and add meaning to your experiences. You will submit verification of your completion artifacts and annotations to the Honors Program each semester in which you are receiving Honors credit, and transform your journal into a public facing deliverable in HPR 403 during your final year in the program.

Accessing and Organizing Your Learning Journal

Your Honors Learning Journal exists as a folder in your Google Drive.  
In your first semester of the program, you will receive an email from the Honors Learning Journal Coordinator with a link this folder (Titled as “Your Name_Honors Learning Journal_Cohort Year”), which can be found by navigating to: https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive.

*The share settings for have been enabled so that the Honors Learning Journal Coordinator can view your work. 

Adding Artifacts and Reflective Annotations

As an Honors student, it is your responsibility to add artifacts and annotations to your Learning Journal each semester! Artifacts represent tangible evidence of your learning and skill development and can include (but are not limited to):

  • Creative writing samples (e.g., essays, poems, short stories, thought pieces)
  • Research papers and lab reports
  • Art pieces, design projects, musical compositions
  • Audio files, photos, and videos documenting study abroad experience, conference attendance, community engagement, etc
  • Presentation slides and posters 
  • Documentation of awards, certificates, nominations, recognitions
  • Reflective writing samples/ journals from other classes

Annotations are added reflections, notes, descriptions, etc. that provide additional context, and meaning for each artifact and its associated educational experience!

The What, So What, Now What Model of Reflection

While you have creative flexibility in how you approach your annotations, they should be loosely structured around a simple WHAT, SO WHAT, NOW WHAT model of reflection (Rolfe et al. 2001, Driscoll 1994). Please review the resources below for more info:   
Reflective Practice for Creative Practitioners: What? So What? Now What?
Critical Reflection Slides from URI Center for Career and Experiential Education

What to Include and How to Stay Organized

There is no limit to the number of artifacts and annotations you can include in your Learning Journal, and you are highly encouraged to use it for documenting your learning, achievements, and extracurricular activities outside of Honors as well. At minimum, however,  you must include at least one artifact/associated annotation for:

  •  each of following core requirements (HPR 100 level course, Colloquium, Honors Project, HPR/H-section elective)
  • additional HPR/H-sections courses,  HLE’s, Contracts, and/or graduate electives you are seeking credit for (under our flexible options for completion).

Prioritize the inclusion of artifacts/annotations that showcase your progress on our four Program Student Learning Outcomes (PSLOs) in Honors:

  1. Critical Inquiry: The ability to conduct in-depth inquiry and reflection.
  2. Creativity and Innovative Thinking/Action: The capacity for creative and innovative thought and action.
  3. Advanced Communication: The ability to communicate complex ideas effectively.
  4. Collaborative Engagement and Community Participation: The ability to work with others and engage with the community.

Tips!

Create subfolders in your Honors Learning Journal for each curriculum component you are receiving credit for.


Title folder by requirement name and date enrolled  (for example  “HPR 100  Fall26)


Upload artifacts and annotations as files within these folders. When possible, please merge artifacts and annotations into a single file.        

VIEW PROGRAM LEARNING OBJECTIVES MAP

Enrolling in HPR 403

In your final semester of the program, you will enroll in a required 1-credit online asynchronous “HPR 403: Honors Reflections” course where you will creatively transform your 4-year Honors Journal into a public-facing, professional deliverable that tells the story of your Honors Journey, showcased your achievements, skills, and competencies, and connects your learning/skill development to our 4 Program Outcomes.

  • *Enrollment in this course requires permission from the Instructor.  To be eligible for enrollment: your journal must include artifacts and annotations for all Honors requirements (curated over the course of your undergraduate career) AND these reflections/artifacts must be demonstrably ready for refinement and integration into a professional website, portfolio.

Due Dates, Verification, and Progress Towards Completion

  • Artifacts and annotations corresponding to the completion Honors Program requirements,  must be completed and uploaded to your Honors Learning Journal (Google Folder) no more than 2 weeks after the end of the final exam period each semester.
  • After uploading your artifacts and annotations, please complete the following Verification Form, to notify the Honors Learning Journal Coordinator that these submissions are complete and ready to review.
  • The Honors Learning Journal Coordinator will periodically check your progress toward completion. You will not be able to enroll in HPR 403 until you have artifacts/annotations for all Honors requirements. included in your Google Folder 
completion verification form