Conceptualizing Prompt Journaling Through Reflective Learning Frameworks

Introduction - In recent years, AI literacy has become a prominent concept that is widely discussed as a key competency for the future. Increasingly, educators are recognizing the need to teach students not only the technical aspects of generative AI (GenAI), such as prompt engineering, but also how to critically and reflectively engage with these tools. Building on their previous reflective prompt engineering learning journey, two university educators and researchers in the tourism field from Portugal and Türkiye proposed use of prompt journaling as a pedagogical tool, particularly in complex fields like tourism.

Goals and Methods - Current conceptual study extends researchers’ earlier work by systematizing prompt journaling as a reflective pedagogical strategy and tool. The study draws on the TARL model (Teaching and Assessing Reflective Learning), which guides pedagogical decision-making within cognitive and developmental dimensions. Central to this framework is the 5Rs model (Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and Reconstructing), which provides a scaffold for deepening reflexivity. Through their hermeneutic-phenomenological co-analysis of their own prompt journaling practices, researchers explore how these theoretical foundations can inform the systematic design and pedagogical application of prompt journaling in tourism higher education. From a postdigital pedagogical perspective, this study assumes that digital technologies are already entangled with human teaching and learning, requiring intentional and reflective integration rather than mere adoption.

Results - This reflective analysis leads to the proposal of preliminary guidelines for conceptualizing and applying prompt journaling as a reflective pedagogical tool. This framework aims to assist tourism educators in embedding reflective AI engagement into their pedagogy and develop AI literacy among tourism students.

Conclusions - When approached as a relational, interpretive, and reflexive practice, prompt journaling has the potential to cultivate AI literacy and contribute to postdigital pedagogy that promotes intentional and informed use of GenAI in higher education and beyond.