Abstract:

A group of lecturers from diverse areas of knowledge of the University of Alcalá have implemented an experience of teaching innovation based on “reflective diaries”. The students hand into the lecturer every week their “Weekly Reflection Papers” (WRP), in which they schematically express the most important ideas related with the topic presented during the classes of the previous week. They must include their reflections about the aspects they found especially interesting, making particular remark in the analysis of the teaching-learning process and also any kind of information they think worth to be given to the lecturer. The professor gives back to the students the corrected WRP in a few days and answers the student’s comments.

After having applied this tool for some academic years we introduced a modification called “Guided Weekly Reflection Papers” (GWRP), which enhances student’s motivation, encourages them to achieve more significant and reflective knowledge and generates interest in emergent topics. The GWRP activity, where the professors suggest a series of questions on which the students must apply the most significant concepts studied each week, allows them to improve aspects such as autonomous work, critical and analytical mind, fusion of theory with practice as much as to develop their ability to stablish the link between their theoretical knowledge and the real life or the professional duties.

However, we often detect that the information management needed to solve the proposed questions in the GWRP is not the most suitable one. The vast amount of information available in internet brings frequently the students to an indiscriminate use of it.
The aim of our present work is to help the students to develop the necessary skills and acquire a searching criterion in the framework of the information literacy.

The strategy was focussed on the main items for the acquisition of information competencies:
• Recognize, identify and determine the extent of information needed to accomplish a specific purpose.
• Build strategies for searching, finding and selecting information in an effective and efficient way.
• Understand the ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of information, which implies the correct citation of the selected materials,

In this communication, we analyze the evolution of the activity and we explore the response of students to the methodological proposal goals.

Keywords:

Guided weekly reflection papers, teaching-learning tool, information literacy, information competencies.