1. Claudia Venuleo and Marco Guidi University of Salento, Italy Corresponding author email: claudia.venuleo@unisalento.it

2. The object on which reflexivity works The conditions that allow reflexivity to develop (A dialogical and semiotic standpoint … ) TWO PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS

3. The meanings embedded in the discursive and behavioral practices enacted within a given system of activity (Venuleo & Guidi, 2011, 2013) The object of Reflexivity

4. Many of the meaning people use are implicitly assumed. They, nonetheless, affect people’ ways of thinking, talking about and acting within their context. The object of Reflexivity

5. Meanings might work as constraint on the opportunity to generate new learning (Cobern, 1993) Professional field Users’ system of meanings play a role over the intervention; practitioners must be aware of the way their users represent the professional exchange (Ballon & Skinner, 2008; Cotter, & Cullen, 2012; D’Cruz, Gillingham & Melendez, 2007; Taylor & White, 2000) Users’ system of meanings play a role over the intervention; practitioners must be aware of the way their users represent the professional exchange (Ballon & Skinner, 2008; Cotter, & Cullen, 2012; D’Cruz, Gillingham & Melendez, 2007; Taylor & White, 2000) Educational field

6. a way of thinking of the teacher’s position toward the educational relationship a specific competence that higher education programs are called on to enhance Reflexivity

7. Otherness: intersubjective condition for and main output of a reflexive practice (Hinga Britt House, 2011; Simao, Valsiner, 2006) A reflexive training setting requires the suspension of the certainty that a common frame of meaning is shared by the actors

8. Goals of narrative methods To explore the specificity (the otherness) of the students ‘ways of interpreting the training experience To make the meanings carried on by these ways the topic of a reflexive function

9. A reflexive training setting Experience (the use of open texts) Writing about the experience (the use of case reports) Writing about the experience (the use of case reports) Talking about the shared experience (the reflexive conversation) Talking about the shared experience (the reflexive conversation)

10. First Step - Experience On the use of open texts The stimulus selected to work as open text calls “for interpretative and constructive activity” of the participants (Wexler, 2000)

11. The «magical shop» (Montesarchio & Marzella, 1999) Students are invited to imagine they are dealers (or buyers) in a special shop, in which what is sold (or bought) are not commercial articles, but professional competences. The students are asked to think about the most useful products that have to be sold or bought in the shop in order to build their professional identity. Afterwards, in turn, all the buyers had to talk to the dealers and, if convenient, make a deal with them. The «magical shop» (Montesarchio & Marzella, 1999) Students are invited to imagine they are dealers (or buyers) in a special shop, in which what is sold (or bought) are not commercial articles, but professional competences. The students are asked to think about the most useful products that have to be sold or bought in the shop in order to build their professional identity. Afterwards, in turn, all the buyers had to talk to the dealers and, if convenient, make a deal with them.

12. Main functions of the open texts To allow the students’ educational and professional models to emerge; To challenge the idea that there is only one way to see, feel and think about any shared experience; To define the emerging issues in terms of an intersubjective dimension. What is the goal of the exercise? What kind of role should be given to the subjective position of each of us? What are the most relevant competences for? … …

13. To explore the specificity (the otherness) of the students ‘ways of interpreting a given situation To promote the students’ involvement in analyzing their models of interpreting a particular experience Second Step - Writing about the experience

14. “The buyers asked for the competence of ‘listening”’ the capacity of interpreting and the ability to administer the Rorschach test. The dealers had the listening competence in stock, but not the other two.” “I didn’t understand the real meaning of the role-play, but I enjoyed the fact that the teacher did not give a theoretical lesson, because I was very tired. It was a very nice experience.” Yet, …accounting for an experience does not in itself produce reflexive thought

15. The reflexive conversation looks at the reports as another kind of (open) texts waiting to be investigated Third Step - Reflexive conversation

16. Main Goals of reflexive conversation: to allow the plurality of meanings embedded in the ways trainees relate to the open text to become explicit; to highlight the “not given” nature of the students’ ways of reporting; to question and mobilize the representation of training and/or professional relationship carried on by these ways..

17. Through the reflexive conversation developed on the accounts written about a “Magical Shop” experience, addressed to psychology students, the teacher helps the students to recognize the different ideas they had expressed about the fields of intervention of a clinical psychologist, and about what the psychologist’s clients are like. Furthermore, by reflecting on the way the students have related to the task of writing about the experience, what emerges is the dominant idea that the students have only to answer, somehow, to the teacher’s request, and further on they will have been repaid by the “discovery” of the “hidden” goal of the activity proposed and by the getting of a good assessment. Through the reflexive conversation developed on the accounts written about a “Magical Shop” experience, addressed to psychology students, the teacher helps the students to recognize the different ideas they had expressed about the fields of intervention of a clinical psychologist, and about what the psychologist’s clients are like. Furthermore, by reflecting on the way the students have related to the task of writing about the experience, what emerges is the dominant idea that the students have only to answer, somehow, to the teacher’s request, and further on they will have been repaid by the “discovery” of the “hidden” goal of the activity proposed and by the getting of a good assessment. Either in the training and in the professional setting, not goal were imagined to set and motivate the user to the relationship with the expert

18. The reflexive activity promoted by the teacher might unfold in any area of the “reality” that students and teacher share and highlight through their discursive positioning

19. The reflexive work promoted by the teacher may be extremely important in the future professional practice of the students in order to manage the encounter with the users’ subjectivity, and their way of using the professional service Conclusion

20. Thank you