Abstract

Learning plus service is a type of methodology that emerged in the United States in 1903 as a cooperative educational movement comprising work, service and learning. The present review has the objective of finding out the state of the art of the use of this methodology in several curricula of professions for service. A search was made in the databases available in the library system of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile on November, 2011. The results referred to the conceptualization of the service learning, and the critical thinking at the higher education, their interrelationship, and the models of the service learning implementation. It was concluded that the incorporation of this methodology in the higher education has an impact, since it brings the benefits of the reflection activities, including academic (abilities for the complex thinking and the resolution of problems), personal development (clarification of values, self-knowledge) and curricular.