Author K. L. Chrzanowski

The newest trend in the world of education leads to a shift from a paradigm centered on curricular content to a paradigm centered in the students’ learning processes. Teachers will now have to plan, implement, mediate and evaluate educational intervention practices with the purpose that each learner develops the ability to transfer knowledge(s) to a myriad of contexts. Now, in their role of companion-mediators, besides learning about theories and techniques, teachers will also need to try out new strategies and adopt other attitudes, on a trial and error basis, in order to succeed in deeply involving students in their formation process. As part of the activities of the Diploma Program “Transition towards the learning centered paradigm” carried out in the framework of the Permanent Program of Teacher Education at the Autonomous University “Benito Juárez” of Oaxaca (UABJO), three teachers-researchers observed and were observed in their teaching practices. As a result of both peer observation and peer accompaniment reflecting on the conditions of the “teaching-learning environments”(TLE) that encourage or limit the students’ involvement in class, the teachers manage to reflect on peer observations of their own teaching practices. Consequently, teachers changed aspects of their TLE and, once more in accompaniment, the teachers assess the effects of such changes on the students’ attitudes. The second-order observation is the methodological tool used to describe and analyze the classrooms’ reality.

Key words: long life training, accompaniment training environment, second order observation, undergraduate education, teaching learning environments.