The great barrier to extensive use of journals is, of course, the enormous demand on an instructor s time. It isn t reasonable for any faculty member to read journals for more than about thirty students per semester. This severely limits the number of preservice courses in which journal-writing can be included since at most universities, all of the mathematics preservice courses are taught by a very small group of faculty. Because of this, we require prospective teachers to keep journals only in their first math course, Number Sense. In both Number Sense and Measurement and Geometry for Teachers, I have experimented with problem-portfolios.
Students select problems from a wide variety given throughout the semester.
They are encouraged to turn in preliminary work if a solution has not been found after a reasonable amount of effort. I respond with comments, leading questions, and sometimes substantial hints. There is no limit to the number of times a problem can go back and forth. I do set limits on how many problems can be turned in during the last three weeks of the semester to discourage last-minute guessing or copying. Selecting appropriate problems, as well as reading and writing comments on the students work, involves a prohibitive amount of time.