Patrizia Magnoler

THE USE OF VIDEO RECORDED CLASSES TO DEVELOP TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM: THE EXPERIMENTATION OF A CURRICULUM

The paper presents an investigation aimed at validating the hypothesis that the teaching workshops in teacher training degree courses, in which videos are used as a supporting strategy, can foster the development of students’ professional vision. Since several studies highlighting the advantages of the use of videos exist, yet there is less literature that describe the educational procedures to be used, the aim of the research is to present a tried-and-tested curriculum for teacher professionalization that involves, over the time span of 5 years of initial training, the alternation of theoretical lectures, internships, and workshops in which the use of videos has specific goals each year. The research is framed within a qualitative approach using a control group, post-test only quasi-experimental method to address the effectiveness and the impact of the use of video recordings during a prospective teacher training program. The research involved students from the University of Macerata as the experimental group and students from different Italian universities as the control group.

Activity Analysis as a Method for Accompanying Industrial Craft Companies to Internal Changes and Market Challenges

The competition that exists in today’s markets increasingly calls for more flexibility and continuous changing of operating schemes depending on the type of products in question. The worker’s creativity constitutes a resource that constantly regulates the actions to be carried out during the productive process, and that sometimes also endangers the psychophysical sustainability of the worker her/himself. This paper presents a research project which, by using Activity Analysis, Professional Didactics and Neo-Functional methodologies and tools, engaged the workers in a training process of self-development in collaboration with their colleagues and the company management, allowing the change of failed schemes of action, improving the wellness of the worker and the performance of the company.

Approaches to training in companies

Abstract The need to address generational change and the challenges of a global market in terms of maintaining productivity require small and medium enterprises, mainly of an artisanal nature, to rethink training. The challenges mainly concern production capacity, which is increasingly problematic given that demand does not allow for long-term schedules and enhancement of human resources. There are many tensions and just as many needs for improvement, and training is therefore the space in which to collect and rework in order to restore a new perspective of sustainable and quality change. This study presents a process of collaboration between universities and businesses, in which the former provide the framework for the activation of mechanisms that make use of work analysis, while the latter provide the appropriate support (time and opportunities for discussion) to allow for a review of the proposed training model and trainer functions in a dynamic and complex production environment.

Induction and professional development of teachers. Pilot experience of Newly Qualified Teachers 2014/2015

The initial training programmes for teacher induction to school activity, need to be integrated within a recursive, self-sustaining circularity, able to produce professional skills. The present work defines an innovative theoretical framework underpinning the experience of Newly Qualified Teachers (NQT) in the 2014/2015 academic year, based on a pattern which envisages an alternation of theory-practice. Such a pattern finds in the teachers portfolio, structured into training curriculum, teaching and competence assessment, a time of tight integration of the perspectives that guide the teacher’s work, maximizing moments of action, reflection and appraisal. The evaluation of the way in which, either a personal perspective, responsive to one’s understanding of teaching and of designing a teaching method, or a social perspective, reified in competence profiles defined at the international level and summarized by National Guidelines, have been perceived to be a continuum and functional to the teacher development, is presented here through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative results obtained during the pilot experience.

L’analisi dell’insegnamento: situazioni e concettualizzazione dell’azione .

Il volume raccoglie alcuni dei contributi selezionati dalla giornata di studio “Oltre i confini, lungo i margini” del gruppo SIPED Teorie e Metodi della Ricerca Empirica in Educazione (TMRE), svoltasi il 3 ottobre a Rimini presso il Dipartimento di Scienze per la Qualita della Vita dell’Universita di Bologna. Il gruppo TMRE, coordinato dalla Prof.ssa Luigina Mortari (Universita di Verona) e dal Prof. Massimiliano Tarozzi (Universita di Bologna), ha organizzato l’incontro con l’obiettivo di costituire un primo luogo di incontro e di riflessione sulle modalita attraverso le quali la ricerca empirica viene praticata, al fine di rispondere all’esigenza di fondare la ricerca in ambito pedagogico come sapere rigoroso che aspira ad una validita scientifica, evitando di cadere in una visione riduzionista dei fenomeni educativi. I lavori qui presentati affrontano la complessita dei fenomeni educativi secondo una pluralita di approcci teorici e metodologici qualitativi, quantitativi e mixed method.

The “Scuola a casa” group. Social networks as tools for building meaningful ties

Report on an experience using social networks to create connections and meaningful ties in order to overcome the difficulties and isolation of homebound people and their supporting institutions.