WRITTEN REFLECTION AS A “MOVEMENT” IN A QUALITY SERVICE-LEARNING PROCESS

Nowadays, Service Learning (SL) is considered as a form of experiential education. This perspective is based on the recognition and enhancement of experience as an ordering criterion of teaching and learning methods. In these terms, learning offers students the opportunity to experience a deeper understanding of personal competences. Thus, the central element of the SL is the link between personal and interpersonal development with cognitive development and the curricular path. Investing in authentic conditions of subjectivity and consequently promoting the production of significant knowledge towards research parameters encompass the possibility of collaborating and interacting with a plurality of actors with different interests and perspectives. Besides its strengths the knowledge processes in terms of feasibility and applicability to real community life. Written reflection is an essential element in a quality SL project, as on the one hand it helps students to connect what they observe and experience within the community, on the other hand, it allows teachers to understand if what they have taught so far manages to go "beyond" the classroom by generating effective strategies and possible significant learning. Thus, writing ca be considered as an interesting means which constitutes a useful self-training approach relating to an experience from which to extract significant materials and traces of one's personal learning. In this research it was aimed to give voice and consistency to the actions and thoughts of the university students who, through Service-Learning activities, have enhanced the narrative training monitoring tool: the logbook. A sample of 150 students, enrolled in the fifth year of the Bachelor of Science in Primary Education (academic year 2021-22), at the University of Palermo, its was asked to report in writing all the observations, challenges and achievements, as well as the desired prospects for the future. Writing, a source of strategic information to be able to identify the progress of experience and skills, is thus considered an engine-training effect for the construction of critical thinking and personal identity. Written reflection is the main pivot for transforming meanings, re-examining them and consolidating them in learning, knowledge of oneself and of the group, and at the same time awareness of one's role as active citizens. Therefore, this study aims at identifying good practices in the face of social commitment, analyzing the development of experiences and promoting a self-directed attitude.