Engaging in critically reflective teaching: from theory to practice in pursuit of transformative learning

This article presents the critically reflective teaching experience of three university professors at a private university in Bogota, Colombia. It addresses two research questions: How to design a critically reflective process aimed at transformative teaching and learning? What do professors learn about their own practices and about their students' learning when they jointly carry out critically reflective teaching? To answer the first question we drew on theories of reflective practice and transformative scholarship of teaching and learning to design a critical reflective teaching approach, which can be useful to other university faculty. We addressed the second question by presenting two experiences in which we enacted this approach to teaching. These experiences yielded three instructional principles for preparing self-directed, autonomous, and socially responsible students: (1) linking learning experiences promoted in class with students' lives and contexts; (2) confronting both instructor's and students' frames of reference; and (3) recognizing the influence of broader curricular, disciplinary, institutional contexts in our instructional practices and students' learning.