Abstract:

Knowing how to talk about yourself, about what you know and what you do, is increasingly a social need to be recognized socially and on the job market. We would like to share an experience carried out in a professional degree at the University of Strasbourg for three years. We rely to the portfolio as a valuation and capitalization process, but with the ambition of making the tool an instrument at the service of the formative approach.

The approach we present, questions the subject in the action and about the action. It emphasizes the process, the sense of the action and the transformative effects. It aims the subject awareness of his activity, which means, what he has committed to himself (use of self “usage de soi”) by doing the task: not only cognitively, but also in relation to others and to himself. In other words, we want to understand how the transition from a posture of reflection on his (professional) acts to a reflexive posture of the subject of the action, on himself, takes place.

We followed the line resulting from the ergological approach. The students are confronted with two ways of reporting on the same internship experience: on one hand the activity report; on the other hand, the activity story, which allows an entry from the point of view of the subject of the action.

This technique promotes two movements: the student's position in front of his professional acts (what I am asked) and the reflective analysis he engages to face the normative discourse (what it asks of me). The dynamic of the restitution takes place through what Yves Schwartz calls “double anticipation”: the way in which the subject receives the prescription (reference knowledge, tasks to be performed); and the way in which the subject makes his choices, regains the initiative by mobilizing the achievements of his experience.

The transformative effect of the exercise is manifested in two ways: in relation to professional practices (reflection on the professional act) and in relation to the professional posture (return of the subject on himself at work).

Keywords:

Activity, portfolio, training, experience.