Umberto Margiotta

European Teacher Education: a fractal perspective tackling complexity

This article takes stock of the complex scenario of the European education space in its past, present and future developments, which highlights the priorities of the modernisation, improvement and convergence of the goals for education and training systems in the knowledge and learning society. The critical case of teacher education is then analysed within the European Higher Education Area, with its characteristic display of national and cultural features and constraints, often jostling with European recommendations about the competences and preparation of quality European teachers. This results in changes and reforms at a diverse pace, or even with contradictory trends, in different national contexts. An approach for tackling some of these issues has been devised by the European project EMETT (European Master for European Teacher Training), involving an academic network of eight universities within its Lifelong Learning Programme. The outcomes and reflections of this project work are thus reported, concerning the development and implementation of a European teacher education curriculum for a joint Masters degree. The key European priorities of mobility and intercultural, multilingual competences in teacher education have been taken into account within the framework of an integrated, flexible curriculum that can best be described by a fractal metaphor dealing with complexity from an ecological perspective.

Education and training in the knowledge society

Riflessioni sulla formazione nella societa dell’informazione e del cambiamento, con particolare riferimento ai ruoli e responsabilita dell’insegnamento ed il riordino della scuola.

Shaping the vision.Intergenerational Learning and Education

According to the research in the field of intergenerational learning, a wide range of skills are enhanced when they are developed in an intergenerational teaching and learning context. Language, literacy and numeracy skills can all be supported and extended by intergenerational models if they are facilitated effectively. Moreover, the intergenerational learning provides a non-threatening, reassuring learning environment and creates learning opportunities and activities that are relevant to the learner. In this theoretical contribution, the author discusses the form that learning takes in an intergenerational process, from implicit and informal learning, to enactive learning, which entails autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment and experience. Furthermore, the author envisages the changes and challenges to be tackled in order to promote intergenerational learning for the future.

O FENÔMENO DO ABANDONO ESCOLAR NA EUROPA DO NOVO MILÊNIO: Dados, políticas, intervenções e perspectivas

The essay discusses the phenomenon of Early School Leaving in the European Union in light of community educational policies and discusses the limits of the relation between human capital and competitiveness of the labor market that these policies propose. The approaches adopted to prevent and compensate for school dropouts, that is, Vocational Education and Training and Second Chance Schools, involve successes but also limits. Therefore, it is necessary to redefine the role of education and promote active learning based on the agency of young people through a transformation of the teaching profession and teaching strategies.

An Item Banking Service: Pre-Project for a National System of Evaluation Tools

In the framework of CEDE strategies in educational research work, the opportunity was considered to establish an Item Banking System. The System aims at promoting and coordinating the development of measurement, regulation and control tools and at disseminating their use, in a variety of institutional educational settings, as well as in different social contexts, where educational actions are required and particular attitudes towards self-assessment are the mainstream. The targets of the Service, generally speaking, are people working in situations in any way involved in processes of enlarged social reproduction and social change. CEDE’s National Item Bank is intended to operate as a System of evaluation tools which, as a consequence of a continuing inquiry into the existing needs, pursues user-defined educational goals and generally follows a user-centred orientation. It forms an integrated System for: storage and management of educational test items and related Statistical data, test construction, and analysis of the results of test administration. The project implies a non-centralized storage and processing System, but a networking of resources. It should Support local banks (schools, education and training agencies) as the usage and maintenance of test items and result analysis. A particularly enhanced technology will be used in order to optimize the potentialities of Item Banking. The management System and the interface module for user’s access will be of ‘object oriented’ design.