Perception of Professional Practices from the voice of the student body of Pedagogy

Abstract

This study highlights the importance of the practicum in the training of education professionals, since it is a key moment for students to reach the specific competences of the profession in an active and reflective manner. The main aim of research in this field is to assess the pedagogy students’ perception of the blog, videoconference, and peer mentoring as effective tools for reflection and communication in monitoring and evaluating professional practices. The design/methodology about the evaluation of students’ perception was conducted using a mixed design, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods. It involved an already validated online questionnaire and individual blog entries submitted by the 131 participants. It can be highlighted among the results that the blog proved instrumental in enhancing Pedagogues’ knowledge of their professional tasks and fostering a more profound reflective process. Students favor its utilization for practice evaluation over traditional memory-based approaches, as it facilitates experience sharing, fosters camaraderie, and offers insights into diverse professional teams and career opportunities. The main conclusion about the main conclusion about the use of the blog, videoconferences and work dynamics through the Mentoring Groups is that they are favorably valued. There is unanimity regarding its use, throughout the four years analyzed; they value it very positively, for being motivating and, above all, enriching for the whole group, proposing that it be the work methodology for both third- and fourth-year students.And, the main contribution of this experience can be generalized to any of the university studies that carry out professional practices in labor scopes. The results of this research show the improvement of the theoretical-practical learning of the students, an alternative to the end-of-practicum project, compared to the traditional written memory and knowledge of other institutions where peers participate.

Keywords

• Blog
• Evaluation
• Degree in Pedagogy
• University Practices
• Videoconference