Following the methodological framework of educational action-research, this article presents the results of a formative experience supported by the development of historical thinking skills in undergraduate Social Science students at Universidad La Gran Colombia, which was conducted in a Colombian history seminar as part of the curriculum of this academic program. This document, thus, analyzes the pedagogical and disciplinary potentialities derived from the treatment of strategic historical or second-order contents in the history teaching and learning process, which takes place in the initial Social Science teacher training program. It explores the educational advantages resulting from the pedagogical actions related to the development of historical skills, particularly those associated with the search, selection and analysis of historical sources. As a result, it is recommended that the teaching and learning of history in the context of undergraduate studies should not be focused on uncritical reproduction of information, but on the production of historical knowledge, a process in which the work on first and second-order sources is key.