Abstract

Reflective practices offer an alternative perspective from which to explore teaching and learning in higher education. University education for social and educational professionals requires attention in the relationship between theory and practice and in the development of reflective thinking. Participation-oriented course activities and a supportive classroom community are linked to an education able to guide students in understanding the relationship between equality and difference, and working at the level of reflective practices. This proposal highlights the need to integrate reflective practices based on reflective journals into the process of teaching and learning in higher education programmes. Reflective journals enable learners to take responsibility for their personal development in terms of competences, personalizing and deepening learners’ interdisciplinary learning; generating new understanding and alternative connections; and developing competences with which learners can analyse their own cognitive and emotional processes. This study discusses the use of reflective journals in order to professionalize students by placing them at the centre of learning situations, and of engaging them in dialogue so that they become aware of new and different perspective, capable of new visions, and interested in making sense of experiences and in reconstructing and sharing ideas and views