Learning Logs: Reflective Writing and Metacognition in Bioethics Courses

Abstract

The value that bioethics has added to the discourse between science and the humanities is indispensable. However, there is a need that when bioethics is taught that the focus be not solely on the identification and analysis of the problem, but also on critical reflection to enable a student to internalize that which they have experienced. This article provides an analytical description of the use of learning logs as a tool of reflection and metacognition in bioethics courses, based on the experience of educators at the Faculty of Sciences of the Universidad de la República (Uruguay). An analysis of students’ learning logs shows that this tool promotes complex reflective and self-reflective processes in which the development of skills such as abstraction, argumentation and problematization is manifested in an integrated way.