Biographical research and inclusive education. An innovative teaching experience at the university with an enormous potential

In this pages are drafted and examined the innovative learning experience carried out by the paper's author every time he has to teach a basic subject of Inclusive Education in the Faculty of Education. The subject's axis is a narrative research work. Every "small group" (4-6 students) has to reconstruct (following certain methodological guidelines) the academic biography of a person who had lived some handicap situation (physical, intellectual, ethnic, linguistic, etc.) during his/her time in the school, in order to analyse it with the epistemological concepts studied in the subject. Biographical research is a didactic strategy with lots of potential, but also has a holistic potential which complements the students training in different senses. The last day of the semester the students evaluate, anonymously, the whole learning experience, and the results are very satisfactory every year. The experience is described and examined through the paper from the testimonies collected on those assessments. Some of the more highlighted aspects of the learning experience are: the truly participative role played by the students during the process; the context of applying knowledge; the reality-theory connection; learning by doing; the development of relevant learning and competences; etc. It is also shared the enormous transcendence the experience can become, illustrated through two real cases. All that, shed light on some of the didactic / teaching aspects the University of the twenty first century should be walking into.