Chapters authored
Institutional Metacognition as an Improvement Tool for Educational Management
A theoretical article is presented in order to describe and analyze an innovative methodology for educational management called institutional metacognition (IM), and it’s defined as a reflective and participatory process of an educative community to face conflicts, applying techniques that generate a conscious, dialogical and collaboratory learning in educational organizations. This perspective is relevant to school management field, because it implies the need to build a new vision of the school as an organization that not only teaches but also learns and therefore delivers new tools to current social needs of communication and participation that are stressed nowadays in educational organizations. This process can be used as a management tool for organizational change, to promote an effective learning, and to improve coexistence in schools; it would be used to manage organizational change, and it allows monitoring and accomplishing activities and conflicts that may occur. The characteristics of IM help to improve managing the organizational process when it is visualized as a part of improvement cycle. It presents benefits to collaborative learning, diversity, conflicts mediation and participatory diagnostics. On the other hand, there are challenges that hinder their application to improve relationships, both internally, as a new and unknown tool, and externally related to features of educational institutions.
Part of the book: Open and Equal Access for Learning in School Management
A Critical Role of the Psychologist: A Way to Achieve Complexity in Educational Psychology
The purpose of this chapter is to present a theoretical proposal for the adoption of a professional role characterized by thinking and acting critically, in order to generate educational changes. Educational psychology has been shaped by theoretical and epistemological perspectives that have not placed emphasis on the reflection or discussion of issues relevant to discipline, which has led to establishment of areas, functions and roles that are unclear and lacking consensus, from a paradigmatic logic of simplicity. It is proposed, through the bibliographic review of articles and book chapters, a position of educational psychology that promotes critical thinking as an essential part of the professional role, which allows, on the one hand, to discuss the foundational basis of this discipline, allowing greater clarity on the scope of the scientific and the professional field. On the other hand, it allows the development of a facet of promotion of changes in the educational community, from this same critical role, bringing it closer to a paradigm of complexity. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of this position are discussed, and it is concluded that this view would establish a new perspective of educational psychology, which can be complemented by the traditional view.
Part of the book: Educational Psychology