Many education systems around the world are currently highlighting the importance
of social-emotional and personalized learning. The need for teachers to respond
optimally to these educational goals often presents a complex challenge. To
help teachers address this challenge, we designed a didactic-pedagogical tool
we call “correspondence with the professor”, to provide them with a means to
develop in their students the ability to reflect upon and take personal
responsibility for their learning, while at the same time allowing teachers to
become better acquainted with the inner world of their students. The idea
behind the tool is to have students write a letter to an imaginary professor
describing the scholastic difficulties they face; this is followed by a
detailed response letter addressed to themselves from the imaginary professor,
in which they offer proposals for resolving each of the problems presented. In
studies conducted, which served as the underpinnings of the tool’s design, we
examined the benefit of the tool for cognitive, emotional, and personal aspects
of learning, as characterized by both teachers and students. This paper takes a
teacher-focused perspective of the tool.
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