Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 104–116 Innovation, research and professional development in higher education: Learning from our own experience Leonor Margalef Garcı´a à , Natalie Pareja Roblin University of Alcala, Spain Received 4 October 2006; received in revised form 20 February 2007; accepted 21 March 2007 Abstract This paper describes and analyses an innovative experience carried out by a group of lecturers from the Psychopedagogy Faculty of the University of Alcala, involved in an action research process with the purpose of reflecting about our own practice and constructing alternative teaching strategies to facilitate students’ reflective, autonomous and critic learning. The experience consists of a didactical proposal through which we intend to establish connections and interdisciplinary relationships among courses, in order to break down the isolation that usually characterizes the work of university teachers, and move towards a more global and complex formula for curriculum development. We also propose the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as tools to support the learning process and expand opportunities for reflection, dialogue and collaboration beyond the classroom activities. The results of this experience show a dialectic interaction amongst innovation, research and professional development processes. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Innovation; Professional development; Interdisciplinary approach; Self-study of teaching; Reflective learning; Information and Communication Technologies 1. Theoretical principles and objectives ‘‘Pedagogic innovations are like heart beats that renew air on its way, closely observing and discovering new routes’’ (Carbonell, 2001, p. 14). Our innovation experience was based on the methodological principles of action research (Kem- mis & McTaggart, 1998) and, more specifically, on teachers’ own research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2002; Burnaford, Fischer, & Hobson, 2000). This way of understanding the research process recog- nizes teachers as reflective professionals (Sho¨n, 1992) and allows recovering and representing their practical knowledge, with the purpose of promoting changes in the teaching and learning processes and contributing towards the generation of pedagogic knowledge that emerges from the reconstruction of educational practices. In the teachers’ own research, it is the teachers themselves who investigate about their own practice, becoming both subjects (re- searchers) and objects (participants of the social and educative life) of the research process. By overcoming the traditional distinction be- tween the researcher and the ‘‘object’’ of investiga- tion, action research falls into the teachers’ own research genre, becoming a type of research where ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/tate 0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2007.03.007 à Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 91 883 92 07. E-mail addresses: leonor.margalef@uah.es (L. Margalef Garcı´a), nataliepareja@hotmail.com (N. Pareja Roblin).