Rosanna Tammaro

Teacher Training and Digital Competence: A Pedagogical Recommendation

Teacher training in all fields should include advanced digital competence for teachers and their teaching, not concentrating only on ICT user skills of teachers. These issues should be part of both initial teacher training and in-service training. The training should consider aspects of using ICT both as a learning tool within subject teaching and as a tool used by learners for their homework and learning-related actions outside school sceneries. Recently, digital competence has become a key conception in debates on the kind of skills and understanding learners need in the Knowledge Society. The wide meaning of digital competence offers the necessary framework (i.e. the knowledge, skills and attitudes) for working, living and learning in the knowledge society. In this paper the focus is on how pedagogically the skill area can be addressed and what tools there are available to help the teachers and students.

The professional profile of quality teacher

The paper examines in depth the importance of teachers, seen as professionals able to generate an improvement on the quality and effectiveness of instruction and education. The teacher profile describes a complex profession, which does not perform only in the classroom but also in the whole school and in the community, in a permanent development. The overview on Italian and European models profile expected for teachers sheds light the gradual emerging of new competences in relation to current challenges of education. The expertise of teachers is seen as a set of cognitive, affective, social and instrumental competences, in which assume particular importance the specific characteristics of the educational context. Il profilo professionale dell’insegnante di qualita Nel contributo si pone al centro l’importanza della figura dell’insegnante, intesa come professionalita capace di generare un miglioramento rispetto alla qualita e all’efficacia di istruzione e formazione. Il profilo dell’insegnante descrive una professione complessa, che non si esplica solo in classe, ma anche nella scuola e nella comunita, in uno sviluppo permanente. L’excursus sui modelli italiani ed europei dei profili attesi per gli insegnanti mette in luce il progressivo emergere di competenze nuove in relazione alle sfide attuali dell’educazione. L’expertise degli insegnanti e intesa come un insieme di competenze cognitive, affettive, sociali e strumentali, in cui particolare rilevanza e assunta dal carattere situato, dunque alle specificita del contesto educativo.

The Assessment of Learning Mediated through an IWB

The most recent studies have shown that the introduction of technology in schools is not a factor that improves student achievement unless other context factors related to teaching methods and the teachers who use them are present. This paper aims to illustrate and consider the results of an action research project, carried out by the team of the University of Salerno in 2011/2012, on the “Assessment of learning mediated through an IWB†. The theme of this work concerns the relationship between the learning mediated through an IWB and the evaluation methods. Starting from a specific experience and considering the link with the theme of motivation, the use of an IWB that leads to perception of effective interventions of the teachers involved in the project has been presented. This empirical approach may constitute the first step towards assessing the use of an IWB. The conclusions of the research action will constitute a chance to reflect on the validity and appropriateness of doing tests with an IWB.

New Teaching Support Tools: Cl@Ssi 2.0 and Cooperative Learning

The collaborative approach through which learning becomes significant, active, located, open, multimedial, and meta-cognitive has profoundly changed pedagogical tradition. Nowadays, the teaching/learning process is based more on the subject who learns rather than on the teacher: the main goal is the construction of a person who is able to go towards broader educational horizons. In this “rolling over†process of traditional roles in which the student becomes unique and true knowledge constructor, every good teacher knows that in order to make an effective contribution, it is necessary to support motivation, promote the desire to learn, to encourage research as well as develop learning processes through empowerment strategies and personal learning project (L. Camaioni, P. Di Blasio, 2007, p.162). Formal education becomes an environment of life experience, where the student “grows with others†. This kind of education is based on the dynamic interaction between multiple subjects, rather than on a dual relationship. Moreover, when we deal with problems related to the learning and teaching processes, it is worth considering communication technology due to the fact that they play a very important role in the formation of the person. New media are not simply added to old ones but they have created powerful interference fields in cognitive processes. New image, sound and communication technologies have introduced significant anthropological elements of novelty. The teacher has the function of an expert who, in addition to supervising, continually introduces additional support. Teaching is, therefore, a radical process of adaptation to the new demands of new generations entering the classrooms. The action Cl@ssi 2.0 offers the possibility to verify how and how much the learning environment can change, through constant and widespread use of technologies in daily teaching practices. Additionally, innovative ideas that, with the use of technologies (consider the introduction in the classrooms of the electronic textbooks or interactive whiteboards (LIM)), have reconsidered and transformed the learning environments of our schools.