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Behaviourism is a psychological theory that focuses on observable behaviors and reactions to stimuli rather than internal mental states. Some key behaviourist theorists include Ivan Pavlov, who discovered classical conditioning; Edward Thorndike, who introduced the law of effect and studied animal learning through puzzle boxes; John Watson, who promoted objective experimental methods and conducted controversial studies on humans; and B.F. Skinner, who developed operant conditioning and invented the Skinner box. Behaviourism views learning as occurring through conditioning processes involving stimuli, responses, and reinforcement or punishment.

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1 LEARNING THEORIES AND EDUCATIONALPSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIOURISM is a theory of learning that has been developed in psychology, especially in America, and it comes from the English term behaviour. The behavioural model is based on the idea that learning occurs through stimuli received by the subject from the environment. Once the subject receivesthe stimuli, he/she provides the answers or certain behaviours. What happens in the mind and what determines the response to a given stimulus is not the subject of the study. The focusof observation of behaviourists is rather to try to associate a person to a response to a given stimulus in a stable manner. In this way, the response of the subject to the stimulus is observable and can be studied scientifically. If it is stable, it can be said that the subject has learned to respond in a certain manner to the stimulus. Therefore, learning has occurred. THE MAINPRINCIPLES OF BEHAVIOURISM Pavlov was the first to carry outhis research on the connection between stimulus, response and conditioning, distinguishing an unconditional stimulus and response from conditional stimulus and response, i.e. induced from outside. The interest of Watson and Thorndike also focuses on the conditioning processesfrom which learning derives. In particular, Thorndike formulated the learning hypothesis based on trial and error. In order to reach a certain target, different behaviours are adopted, in sequence and in an almost random manner, until the behaviour considered satisfactory to reach the purpose has been identified. Skinner outlines two typesof behaviour: - the respondentbehaviour, which follows the paradigm stimulus-response and which can be defined as a behaviour induced by an external stimulus that generates a response in the subject; - the operative behaviour model in which the subject, even without special stimuli from outside, adopts a certain behaviour in order to receive rewarding effect thatcould be called positive reinforcement. Albert Bandura has formulated the theoryof social learning, which is of a behaviourist type. Through a series of experiments, Bandura established that an aggressive model tends to be justified and imitated by children when they are in a state of irritation. These results open the door to the concept of observational learning (or vicarious learning), a type of learning that is different from the paradigm of stimulus-response-reinforcement and occurs through the observation of a pattern of behaviour. APPENDIX EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCO-PEDAGOGICAL COMPETENCES AND BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE EDUCATIONSYSTEM
2 Behaviourism  refers to a psychological approach which emphasizes scientific and objective methods of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, and states all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment. The behaviourist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote an article entitled 'Psychologyas the behaviourist viewsit,' which set out a number of underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioural analysis:  All behaviour is learned from the environment: Behaviourism emphasizes the role of environmental factors in influencing behaviour, to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors. This amounts essentially to a focus on learning. We learn new behaviour through classical or operantconditioning (collectively known as 'learning theory'). Therefore, when born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate).  Psychology should be seen as a science: Theoriesneed to be supported by empirical data obtained through careful and controlled observation and measurementof behaviour. Watson (1913) stated that: 'Psychologyas a behaviourist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control.' (p. 158). The components of a theory should be as simple as possible. Behaviourists propose the use of operational definitions (defining variables in terms of observable, measurable events).  Behaviourism is primarilyconcerned with observable behaviour, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion: While behaviourists often accept the existence of cognitions and emotions, they prefer not to study them as only observable (i.e., external) behaviour can be objectively and scientifically measured. Therefore, internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioural terms (or eliminated altogether).  There is little difference between the learning that takesplace in humans and that in other animals: There's no fundamental (qualitative) distinction between human and animal behaviour. Therefore, research can be carried out on animals as well as humans (i.e., comparative psychology). Consequently, rats and pigeons became the primary source of data for behaviourists, as their environments could be easily controlled.  Behaviour is the result of stimulus-response:
3 All behaviour, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus-response association. Watson described the purpose of psychology as: 'To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction.' (1930, p. 11). The main influences of behaviourist psychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who investigated classical conditioning though often disagreeing with behaviourism or behaviourists; Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), who introduced the concept of reinforcement and was the first to apply psychological principles to learning; John B. Watson (1878-1958), who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods; and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), who conducted research on operant conditioning. The first of these, Ivan Pavlov, is known for his work on one important type of learning  classical conditioning. As we learn, we alter the way we perceive our environment, the way we interpret the incoming stimuli, and therefore the way we interact, or behave. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, actually discovered classical conditioning accidentally while doing research on the digestive patterns in dogs. During his experiments, he would put meatpowder in the mouth of a dog who had tubes inserted into various organs to measure bodily responses. Pavlov discovered that the dog began to salivate before the meat powder was presented to it. Soon the dog began to salivate as soon as the person feeding it entered the room. Pavlov quickly began to gain interest in this phenomenon and abandoned his digestion research in favour of his now famous classical conditioning study. Basically, Pavlov’s findingssupportthe idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. We do this instinctively with no learning involved. The reflex is merely a survival instinct. Pavlov discovered thatwe make associations that cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words, hot burner = ouch; stove = burner; therefore, stove = ouch. In his research with the dogs, Pavlov began pairing a bell sound with the meat powder and found that even when the meat powder was not presented, a dog would eventually begin to salivate after hearing the bell. In this case, since the meat powder naturally results in salivation, these two variables are called the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the unconditioned response (UCR), respectively. In the experiment, the bell and salivation are not naturally occurring; the dog is conditioned to respond to the bell. Therefore, the bell is considered the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the salivation to the bell, the conditioned response (CR). Many of our behaviours today are shaped by the pairing of stimuli. The smell of a cologne, the sound of a certain song, or the occurrence of a specific day of the year can trigger distinct memories, emotions, and associations. When we makethese types of associations, we are experiencing classical conditioning. Operantconditioning is another type of learning that refers to how an organism operateson the environment or how it responds to what is presented to it in the environment.
4 Figure 2.12 Operant Conditioning.  Examples of operant conditioning include the following: REINFORCEMENT means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For example, if you want your dog to sit on command, you may give him a treat every time he sits for you. The dog will eventually come to understand that sitting when told to will result in a treat. This treat is reinforcing the behaviour because the dog likes it and will result in him sitting when instructed to do so. There are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT involves adding something in order to increase a response. For example, adding a treat will increase the response of sitting; adding praise will increase the chances of your child cleaning his or her room. The most common typesof positive reinforcement are praise and reward, and most of us have experienced this as both the giver and receiver. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT involves taking something negative away in order to increase a response. Imagine a teenager who is nagged by his parents to take out the garbage week after week. After complaining to his friends about the nagging, he finally one day performs the task and, to his amazement, the nagging stops. The elimination of this negative stimulus is reinforcing and will likely increase the chances that he will take out the garbage next week. PUNISHMENT refers to adding something aversivein order to decrease a behaviour. The most common example of this is disciplining (e.g., spanking) a child for misbehaving. The child begins to associate being punished with the negative behaviour. The child does not like the punishment and, therefore, to avoid it, he or she will stop behaving in that manner.
5 EXTINCTIONinvolves removing something in order to decreasea behaviour. By having something taken away, a response is decreased. Research has found positive reinforcement is the most powerful of any of these types of operant conditioning responses. Adding a positive to increase a response not only works better, but allows both parties to focus on the positive aspects of the situation. Punishment, when applied immediately following the negative behaviour, can be effective, but results in extinction when it is not applied consistently. Punishment can also invoke other negative responses such as anger and resentment. Thorndike’s (1898) work with cats and puzzle boxes illustrates the concept of conditioning. The puzzle boxes were approximately 50 cm long, 38 cm wide, and 30 cm tall (Figure 2.13). Thorndike’s puzzle boxes were built so that the cat, placed inside the box, could escape only if it pressed a bar or pulled a lever, which caused the string attached to the door to lift the weight and open the door. Thorndike measured the time it took the cat to perform the required response (e.g., pulling the lever). Once it had learned the response he gave the cat a reward, usually food. Figure 2.13 Thorndike’s Puzzle Box. Thorndike found that once a cat accidentally stepped on the switch, it would then press the switch faster in each succeeding trial inside the puzzle box. By observing and recording how long it took a variety of animals to escape through several trials, Thorndike was able to graph the learning curve (graphed as an S-shape). He observed that most animals had difficulty escaping at first, then began to escape faster and faster with each successive puzzle box trial, and eventually levelled off in their escape times. The learning curve also suggested that different species learned in the same way but at different speeds. His finding was that cats, for instance, consistently showed gradual learning. From his research with puzzle boxes, Thorndike was able to create his own theory of learning (1932): - Learning is incremental. - Learning occurs automatically. - All animals learn the same way. Law of effect. If an association is followed by satisfaction, it will be strengthened, and if it is followed by annoyance, it will be weakened.
6 Law of use. The moreoften an association is used, the stronger it becomes. Law of disuse. The longer an association is unused, the weaker it becomes. Law of recency. The most recent response is most likely to reoccur. Multiple response. An animal will try multiple responses (trial and error) if the first response does not lead to a specific state of affairs. Set or attitude. Animals are predisposed to act in a specific way. Prepotency of elements. A subject can filter out irrelevant aspects of a problem and focus on and respond to significant elements of a problem. Response by analogy. Responses from a related or similar context may be used in a new context. Identical elements theoryof transfer. The more similar the situations are, the greater the amount of information that will transfer. Similarly, if the situations have nothing in common, information learned in one situation will not be of any value in the other situation. Associative shifting. It is possible to shift any response from occurring with one stimulus to occurring with another stimulus. Associative shift maintains that a response is first made to situation A, then to AB, and then finally to B, thus shifting a response from one condition to another by associating it with that condition. Law of readiness. A quality in responses and connections that results in readiness to act. Behaviour and learning are influenced by the readiness or unreadiness of responses, as well as by their strength. Identifiability. Identification or placement of a situation is a first response of the nervous system, which can recognize it. Then connections may be made to one another or to another response, and these connections depend on the original identification. Therefore, a large amount of learning is made up of changes in the identifiability of situations. Availability. The ease of getting a specific response. For example, it would be easier for a person to learn to touch his or her nose or mouth with closed eyes than it would be to draw a line five inches long with closed eyes. John B. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913), delivered at Columbia University. Through his behaviourist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behaviour, child rearing, and advertising while gaining notoriety for the controversial “Little Albert” experiment. Immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks, this experimentset out to show how the recently discovered principles of classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into Little Albert, an 11-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner (1920) first presented to the boy a white rat and observed that the boy was not afraid. Next they presented him with a white rat and then clanged an iron rod. Little Albert responded by crying. This second presentation was repeated several times. Finally, Watson and Rayner presented the white rat by itself and the boy showed fear. Later, in an attempt to see if the fear transferred to other objects, Watson presented Little Albertwith a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. He cried at the sight of all of them. This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses. Burrhus Frederic Skinner called his particular brand of behaviourism radical behaviourism (1974). Radical behaviourism is the philosophy of the science of behaviour. It seeks to understand behaviour as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. This applied behaviourism does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism’s behaviour. While a researcher at Harvard, Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, popularly referred to as the Skinner box (Figure 2.14), used to measure responses of organisms (most often rats and
7 pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the environment. The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat inside the box could get food delivered to the tray by pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was first put into the box, it would wander around, sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by accident, at which point a food pellet would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. Figure 2.14 Skinner Box. Negative reinforcement was also exemplified by Skinner placing rats into an electrified chamber that delivered unpleasant shocks. Levers to cut the power were placed inside these boxes. By running a current through the box, Skinner noticed that the rats, after accidentally pressing the lever in a frantic bid to escape, quickly learned the effects of the lever and consequently used this knowledge to stop the currents both during and prior to electrical shock. These two learned responses are known as escape learning and avoidance learning (Skinner, 1938). The operantchamber for pigeons involved a plastic disk in which the pigeon pecked in order to open a drawer filled with grain. The Skinner box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behaviour. RESEARCH FOCUS Applying game incentives such as prompts, competition, badges, and rewards to ordinary activities, or gamification, is a growing approach to behaviour modification today. Health care has also applied some early innovative uses of gamification — from a Sony PS3 Move motion controller used to help children diagnosed with cancer to the launch of Games for Health, the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the research and design of health games and behavioural health strategies. Gamification is the process of taking an ordinary activity (like jogging or car sharing) and adding game mechanisms to it, including prompts, rewards, leader-boards, and competition between different players.
8 When used in social marketing and online health-promotion campaigns, gamification can be used to encourage a new, healthy behaviour such as regular exercise, improved diet, or completing actions required for treatment. Typically, gamification is web-based, usually with a mobile app or as a micro- site. Behavioural change campaigns require an understanding of human psychology, specifically the benefits and barriers associated with a behaviour. There have been several campaigns using gamification techniques that have had remarkable results. For example, organizations that wanted employees to exercise regularly have installed gyms in their offices and created a custom application that rewards employees for “checking in” to the gyms. Employees can form regionally based teams, check in to workouts, and chart their team’s progress on a leader-board. This has a powerful effect on creating and sustaining a positive behavioural change. Similar game mechanics have been used in sustainability campaigns aimed at increasing household environmental compliance. Such sites use game mechanics such as points, challenges, and rewards to increase daily “green” habits like recycling and conserving water. Other behavioural change campaigns that have applied social gaming include using cameras to record speeding cars, which reduce the incidence of speeding, and offering products thatallow users to track their healthy behaviours through the day, including miles travelled, calories burned, and stairs climbed. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Behaviouristpsychology should concern itself with the observable behaviour of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds. • The main influences of behaviouristpsychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), John B. Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). • The idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are notnaturally occurring is called “classical conditioning.” • Operantconditioning refers to how an organism operates on the environmentor how it responds to whatis presented to it in the environment. • Reinforcementmeans to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus that strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. • There are four typesof reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. • Behaviourist researchers used experimental methods (puzzle box, operant conditioning or Skinner box, Little Albert experiment) to investigate learning processes. • Today, behaviourism is still prominent in applications such as gamification. THE GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY The German word Gestalt, which means form or configuration, refers to a psychological current, psychology of form, which was developed in Germany in the early twentieth century. Unlike behaviourism, according to this current, learning is based on cognitive processes and can be understood by going beyond the study of simple behaviour. In contrast to Thorndike's behaviourism, the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler observed that -especially in mammals closest to humans from an evolutionary standpoint, such as anthropomorphic monkeys, they can learn in a different way, by sudden enlightenment, called insight(intuition), which leads to the resolution of an unusual problem
9 thanks to a global and complete vision. The psychologist Max Wertheimer returns to the concept of insightintroduced byKöhler and focuses his studies on cognitive mechanisms that allow us to solve situations thatwe have never faced before or situations that have occurred in the past, but in a more immediate, brilliant and effective way. He defines productive thinking as the mental activitythat brings new knowledge to the individual as opposed to reproductive thinking, which, however, "mechanically" leads us to deal with new or previouslyexperienced situations, applying the same traditional solutions without considering the problem in an original way. Gestalt psychology, school of psychology founded in the 20th century that provided the foundation for the modern study of perception. Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. That is, the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the waya thing has been “placed,” or “put together.” There is no exact equivalentin English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual translations; in psychology the word is often interpreted as “pattern” or “configuration.” Gestalt theoryoriginated in Austria and Germany as a reaction against the associationistand structural schools’ atomistic orientation (an approach which fragmented experience into distinct and unrelated elements). Gestalt studies made use instead of phenomenology. This method, with a tradition going back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, involves nothing more than the description of direct psychological experience, with no restrictions on whatis permissible in the description. Gestalt psychology was in part an attempt to add a humanistic dimension to whatwas considered a sterile approach to the scientific study of mental life. Gestalt psychology further sought to encompass the qualities of form, meaning, and value that prevailing psychologists had either ignored or presumed to fall outside the boundaries of science. The publication of Czech-born psychologist Max Wertheimer’s “Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung” (“Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement”) in 1912 marks the founding of the Gestalt school. In it Wertheimer reported the result of a study on apparent movement conducted in Frankfurt, Germany, with psychologists Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. Together, these three formed the core of the Gestalt school for the next few decades. (By the mid-1930s all had become professors in the United States.) The earliest Gestalt work concerned perception, with particular emphasis on visual perceptual organization as explained by the phenomenon of illusion. In 1912 Wertheimerdiscovered the phi phenomenon, an optical illusion in which stationaryobjectsshownin rapid succession, transcending the threshold atwhich theycan be perceived separately, appear to move. The explanation of this phenomenon—also known as persistence of vision and experienced when viewing motion pictures—provided strong supportfor Gestalt principles.
10  PHI PHENOMENON The term phi phenomenon is used in a narrow sense for an apparent motion that is observed if two nearby optical stimuli are presented in alternation with a relatively high frequency. In contrast to beta movement, seen at lower frequencies, the stimuli themselves do not appear to move. Instead, a diffuse, amorphous shadowlike something seems to jump in front of the stimuli and occlude them temporarily. This shadow seems to have nearly the color of the background. Max Wertheimer first described this form of apparent movement in his habilitation thesis, published 1912, marking the birth of Gestalt psychology. In a broader sense, particularly if the plural form phi phenomena is used, it applies also to all apparent movements that can be seen if two nearby optical stimuli are presented in alternation. This includes especially beta movement, which is important for the illusion of motion in cinema and animation. HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING Human Information Processing, abbreviated HIP, can be translated Italian as "Elaborazione dell'Informazione nel'Uomo", This is a psychological theme thatstudies the human mind and its related processes, with an analogy to computers. The multi-warehouse model describes how the human mind functions using a three-warehouse or memory system that exchange information. The sensory memory (SM) is in contact with the external environment and receives stimuli from it. A first processing at the sensory level allow us to select only certain characteristics of the stimulus, which are stored in short-term memory (STM), also called working memory (WM). Afterwards, the transfer to the long-term memory occurs, which is presumed to have unlimited capacity, where information and programmes can be stored for very long periods of time.
11 METACOGNITION The meta-cognitive activity is a self-reflection activity thataccompanies cognitive activity with the purpose of making it more aware, monitoring and evaluating it in order to ensure more effective learning. The firstphase of a meta-cognitive activityconsists of understanding the nature of the task to be carried out. This phase leads to meta-understanding. If understanding is an indicator for knowing whatto do, the meta-understanding is an activity consisting of a consciousassessmentof the level of understanding of the task. The nextstep to understanding (and meta-understanding) of the taskto be carried out is choosing a strategy. When one talks about choice of strategy, one means the study of meta-memory or the ability to learn about the memory. it must be taken into account that during the performance of a task, in the implementation a strategy, it is also necessary to use the memory, recalling data memorised before the task. CONSTRUCTIVISM Constructivism hypothesises a series of psychic structures that allow one to build a personal way of interpreting reality.  Each individual, through his/her personal vision of reality, can decode it and give it a meaning, learning. therefore, how to interact with the environment. This interaction takesplace through a continuous exchange of information thatallow the individual to sortreality in a manner that he/she deems most functional. There are different types of constructivism: • the limited realism (or critical realism), according to which there is an objective external reality that can be known directly; • the epistemological constructivism, of which paradigm is the existence of an external reality independent of the observer, which is not known by the latter, except through a process of construction; • the hermeneutic constructivism. In this case, one does not believe in the existence of an independent and objective reality, external to the individual. Knowledge is the result of the mediation in language and interaction between different observers. WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIVISM? Constructivism is basically a theory -- based on observation and scientific study -- about how people learn. It says thatpeople construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing thingsand reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.
12 In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them. Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expertlearners." This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a well- planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN. You mightlook atit as a spiral. When they continuously reflect on their experiences, students find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and they develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this learning and reflection process. For example: Groups of students in a science class are discussing a problem in physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to the problem, she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each student to reflect on and examine his or her current knowledge. When one of the students comes up with the relevant concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore. They design and perform relevant experiments. Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what they have learned, and how their observations and experiments helped (or did not help) them to better understand the concept. Contrary to criticisms by some (conservative/traditional) educators, constructivism does not dismissthe active role of the teacheror the value of expert knowledge. Constructivism modifies that role, so that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Alwaysguided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather thanjust mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacheror the textbook. They become engaged by applying their existing knowledge and real-world experience, learning to hypothesize, testing their theories, and ultimately drawing conclusions from their findings. WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF CONSTRUCTIVISM? The concept of constructivism has roots in classical antiquity, going back to Socrates's dialogues with his followers, in which he asked directed questions that led his students to realize for themselves the weaknesses in their thinking. The Socratic dialogue is still an important tool in the way constructivist educators assess their students' learning and plan new learning experiences.
13 In this century, Jean Piaget and John Dewey developed theories of childhood development and education, what we now call Progressive Education, thatled to the evolution of constructivism. Piaget believed that humans learn through the construction of one logical structure after another. He also concluded that the logic of children and their modes of thinking are initially entirely different from those of adults. The implications of this theory and how he applied them have shaped the foundation for constructivist education. Dewey called for education to be grounded in real experience. Among the educators, philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists who have added new perspectives to constructivist learning theory and practice are Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and David Ausubel. Vygotsky introduced the social aspect of learning into constructivism. He defined the "zone of proximal learning," according to which students solve problems beyond their actual developmental level (but within their level of potential development) under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. Bruner initiated curriculum change based on the notion that learning is an active, social process in which students construct new ideas or concepts based on their current knowledge. DEVELOPMENTALPSYCHOLOGY JEAN PIAGET The starting point of Piaget's theory is the concept of knowledge as the continuous interactionbetween the environmentand the organism. Due to the fact that there is a conscience, the subjectmust act in an active manner upon the environment. Piaget identifies two types of action: real (physical) and internalised (mental). Observing the child's behaviour during the phases of its evolution. Piaget claims that there are functional invariants thatgovern all the actionsof individuals and thatthey do notchange their operational characteristics during the developmentof a person. Such invariants are the principle of organisation by which thinking is organised into coherentstructures and patterns, and the principle of adaptation, by which the continuous exchange between the subject and the external environment causes a variation of the structures of thought. ADAPTATIONOCCURS BY MEANS OF TWO PROCESSES:  ASSIMILATION, that is when new knowledge or experiences are assimilated, incorporated in the very same structures;  ARRANGEMENT that is when the new knowledge cannotbe consistently incorporated in the existing structures. Therefore, if the organisation tends to determine the creation of structures, adaptation, however, entails a modificationin the structures themselves.
14 Piaget identifies four stages of development, each of which can be divided into more sub-stages (or phases): • The sensorimotor stage, from 0 to 2 years and is divided into 6 sub-stages; • The pre-operative stage, from 2 to 7 years and is divided into 2 sub-stages; • The stage of concrete operations, from 7 to 12 years; • The stage of formal operations, from 12 to 16 years. Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities. Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was thatchildren are merely less competent thinkers than adults.  Piaget showed that young children thinkin strikingly differentways compared to adults. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. There Are Three Basic Components To Piaget's Cognitive Theory: 1. Schemas (building blocks of knowledge). 2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation). 3. Stages of Cognitive Development:  sensorimotor,  preoperational,  concrete operational,  formal operational.
15 SCHEMAS Imagine what it would be like if you did not have a mental model of your world. It would mean that you would not be able to make so much use of information from your past experience or to plan future actions. Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world. Piaget(1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: SCHEMA  "a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing componentactions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning." In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behaviour – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract(i.e., theoretical) concepts. When Piaget talked about the development of a person's mental processes, he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had learned. When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining whatit can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance. Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive developmentand described how they were developed or acquired. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed. For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behaviour which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill. This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script.' Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation. The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by infants. He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate. Piaget believed that new-born babies have a small number of innate schemas - even before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us. For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby's lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person's finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a 'sucking schema.' Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby's hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking. ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMMODATION Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through:  ASSIMILATION  Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
16  ACCOMMODATION  This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.  EQUILIBRATION  This is the force which moves development along. Piagetbelieved that cognitive development did not progress ata steadyrate, butrather in leaps and bounds. Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation). Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation). Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it. Example of Assimilation  A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003). Example of Accommodation  In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”. PIAGET'S 4 STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought. Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages. Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age - although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.
17 Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2 yrs) The main achievement during this stage is Object Permanence - knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years) During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing - a word or an object - stand for something other than itself. Thinking is still egocentric, and the infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years) Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child's cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world). Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes. Formal Operational Stage (11 yearsand over) The formal operational stage begins at approximately age eleven and lasts into adulthood. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses. Educational Implications Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget's theory can be applied to teaching and learning. DISCOVERY LEARNING – the idea thatchildrenlearn best through doing and actively exploring - was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.  Discoverylearning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is also referred to as problem-based learning, experiential learning and 21st century learning. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert. Jerome Bruner is often credited with originating discovery learning in the 1960s, but his ideas are very similar to those of earlier writers such as John Dewey. Bruner argues that "Practice in discovering for oneself teaches one to acquire information in a way that makes that information more readily viable in problem solving". This philosophy later became the discoverylearning movement of the 1960s. The mantra of this philosophical movementsuggests that people should "learn by doing". Discovery learning takes place in problem solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge and is a method of instruction through which students interact with their environment by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments. Discovery-based learning is typically characterized by having minimal teacher guidance, fewer teacher explanations, solving problems with multiple solutions, use of hand-on materials, minimal repetition and memorization. There are multiple essential components that are required for successful discovery-based learning which include the following:
18  Teacher guidance where the emphasis is on building upon students’ reasoning and connecting to their experiences  Classroom culture where there is a shared sense of purpose between teacher and students, where open-mindedness and dialogue are encouraged  Students are encouraged to ask questions, inquire through exploration and collaborate with teacher and peers 'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children's learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.' Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of 'readiness' is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught. According to Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development. According to Piaget(1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered. Within the classroom learning should be student-centred and accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition. Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom: o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it. o Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing "truths." o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other). o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child. o Evaluate the level of the child's development so suitable tasks can be set. CRITICAL EVALUATION Support  The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychologyhas been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.  His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: DiscoveryLearning). Criticisms  Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather nottalk aboutstages at all, preferring to see developmentas a continuous process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed. For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.
19  Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effectthat the social setting and culture mayhave on cognitive development. Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal children, between aged 10 and 13 ( as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample). However, he founds that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is notpurely dependenton maturation buton cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial fornomadic groupsof people. Vygotsky, a contemporaryof Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child's learning always occurs in a social context in co-operation with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides language opportunities and Vygotksy considered language the foundation of thought.  Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations. Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterward to checkif they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability). Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased. For example, children may not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannotexpress themselves very well and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such methodsmeant that Piagetmayhave formed inaccurate conclusions.  As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes, 1975). Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is capable of doing) and performance (whata child can show when given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piagetmighthave underestimated children’s cognitive abilities. For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it. However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not. Later, research such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported thatinfants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do whatit expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.  The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviourism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.  Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva in order to deduce general principles aboutthe intellectual development of all children. Not only was his sample
20 very small, butit was composed solely of European children from families of high socio- economic status. Researchers have therefore questioned the generalisability of his data.  For Piaget, language is seen as secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the developmentof language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning is more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world. LEV SEMËNOVIC VYGOTSKIJ According to Vygotskij psychic development is notonly influenced by biological factors, butalso by historical, social and cultural ones, Vygotskij addresses the issue of language as a tool for cognitive development. Language adds the following factors to the skills of the child: • The multiplication of stimuli; • The function of self-regulating. In solving a problem or in performing a task, human beings, unlike anime can use two types of mental functions • Lower mental functions, which are also typical of the animals and are characterised by the merging of the perceptual/mental functions with the motor function • Higher mental functions, which are active when symbolic systems or eves language is used. VYGOTSKY'S CAREER AND THEORIES Vygotsky was a prolific writer, publishing six books on psychology topics over a ten-year period. His interests were quite diverse but often centred on issues of child development and education. He also explored such subjects as the psychologyof art and language development.  THE ZONE OF PROXIMALDEVELOPMENT According to Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development is "[The] distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."— Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978 Essentially, this zone is the gap between what a child knows and what he does not yet know. The process of acquiring that information requires skills that a child does not yet possess or cannot do independently, but which they can do with the help of a more knowledgeable other. Parents and teachers can foster learning by providing educational opportunities that lie within a child's zone of
21 proximal development. Kids can also learn a great deal from peers, so teachers can foster this process by pairing less skilled children with more knowledgeable classmates.  THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER Vygotsky conceived the more knowledgeable other as a person who has greater knowledge and skills than the learner. In many cases, this individual is an adult such as a parent or teacher. Kids also learn a great deal from their interactions with their peers, and children often pay even greater attention to what their friends and classmates know and are doing than they do to the adults in their life. No matter who serves as the more knowledgeable other, the key is that they provide the needed social instruction with the zone of proximal development when the learner is so sensitive to guidance. Children can observe and imitate or even receive guided instruction to acquire new knowledge and skills.  SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY Lev Vygotsky also suggested that human development results from a dynamic interaction between individuals and society. Through this interaction, children learn gradually and continuously from parents and teachers. This learning, however, can vary from one culture to the next. It's important to note that Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the dynamic nature of this interaction. Societydoesn't just impact people; people also affect their society.  CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY Vygotsky's life was cut tragically short on June 11, 1934, when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 37. He is considered a formative thinker in psychology, and much of his work is still being discovered and explored today. While he was a contemporary of Skinner, Pavlov, Freud, and Piaget, his work never attained their level of eminence during his lifetime. Part of this was because the Communist Party often criticized his work in Russia, and so his writings were largely inaccessible to the Western world. His premature death at age 37 also contributed to his obscurity. Despite this, his work has continued to grow in influence since his death, particularly in the fields of developmental and educational psychology. It wasn't until the 1970s that Vygotsky's theories became known in the West as new concepts and ideas were introduced in the fields of educational and developmental psychology. Since then, Vygotsky's works have been translated and have become very influential, particularly in the area of education.  VYGOTSKY VS. PIAGET Piaget and Vygotsky were contemporaries, yet Vygotsky’s ideasnever became as well-known until long after his death. While their ideas shared some similarities, there were some significant differences, including:  Vygotsky did not break down development into a series of predetermined stages as Piaget did.  Vygotsky stressed the important role that culture plays, suggesting cultural differences can have a dramatic effect on development. Piaget’s theory suggests that development is largely universal.
22  Piaget’s theory focuses a great deal of attention on peer interaction while Vygotsky’s theory stresses the importance of more knowledgeable adults and peers.  Vygotsky’s theory heavily stressed the role that language plays in development, something that Piaget largely ignored. In His Own Words: "Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things."—Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978 JEROME BRUNER For Bruner, the cognitive development canbe defined using the representationconcept, by which he means a method of processing information received by the subject from the external environment, a coding system. There are three methods of representation: executive, iconic and symbolic. Each of them manifests itself in a given period in the evolution of the child/adolescent, which nevertheless persists evolves, without being completely replaced by the others. The executive representations are the first and develop in the first year of life. Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. Bruner's work also suggests that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists. BRUNER'S THREE MODES OF REPRESENTATION Modes of representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded in memory. Rather than neat age-related stages (like Piaget), the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they "translate" into each other.
23 ENACTIVE (0 - 1 YEAR) The first kind of memory. This mode is used within the first year of life (corresponding with Piaget’s sensorimotor stage). Thinking is based entirely on physical actions, and infants learn by doing, rather than by internal representation (or thinking). It involves encoding physical action based information and storing it in our memory. For example, in the form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby mightremember the action of shaking a rattle. This mode continues later in many physical activities, such as learning to ride a bike. Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks (typing, sewing a shirt, operating a lawn mower) that they would find difficult to describe in iconic (picture) or symbolic (word) form. ICONIC (1 - 6 YEARS) Information is stored as sensory images (icons), usually visual ones, like pictures in the mind. For some, this is conscious; others say they don’t experience it. This may explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany the verbal information. Thinking is also based on the use of other mental images (icons), such as hearing, smell or touch. SYMBOLIC (7 YEARS ONWARDS) This develops last. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as language. This mode is acquired around six to seven years-old (corresponding to Piaget’s concrete operational stage). In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems, such as music. Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified, etc. so the user isn’t constrained by actions or images (which have a fixed relation to that which they represent). THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE Language is important for the increased ability to deal with abstract concepts. Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the constraints of dealing only with appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible cognition. The use of words can aid the development of the concepts they representand can remove the constraints of the “here & now” concept. Bruner views the infant as an intelligent & active problem solver from birth, with intellectual abilities basically similar to those of the mature adult. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS The aim of education should be to create autonomous learners (i.e., learning to learn). For Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is not to impart knowledge, but instead to facilitate a child's thinking and problem-solving skills which can then be transferred to a range of situations. Specifically, education should also develop symbolic thinking in children. In 1960 Bruner's text, The Process of Education was published. The main premise of Bruner's text was that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge.
24 READINESS Bruner (1960) opposed Piaget's notion of readiness. He argued that schools waste time trying to match the complexity of subject material to a child's cognitive stage of development. This means students are held back by teachers as certain topics are deemed too difficult to understand and must be taught when the teacher believes the child has reached the appropriate stage of cognitive maturity. THE SPIRAL CURRICULUM Bruner (1960) adopts a different view and believes a child (of any age) is capable of understanding complex information: 'We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.' (p. 33) Bruner (1960) explained how this was possible through the concept of the spiral curriculum. This involved information being structured so that complex ideas can be taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on. Therefore, subjects would be taught at levels of gradually increasing difficultly (hence the spiral analogy). Ideally, teaching his way should lead to children being able to solve problems by themselves. DISCOVERY LEARNING Bruner (1961) proposesthat learners constructtheir ownknowledge and do this by organizing and categorizing information using a coding system. Bruner believed that the mosteffective way to develop a coding system is to discover it rather than being told by the teacher. The concept of discovery learning implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist approach). The role of the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead to facilitate the learning process. This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help students discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them. The use of the spiral curriculum can aid the process of discovery learning. BRUNER ANDVYGOTSKY Both Bruner and Vygotsky emphasize a child's environment, especially the social environment, more than Piaget did. Both agree that adults should play an active role in assisting the child's learning. Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding. '[Scaffolding] refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring' (Bruner, 1978, p. 19). He was especially interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as individuals. The term scaffolding first appeared in the literature when Wood, Bruner, and Ross described how tutors' interacted with a pre-schooler to help them solve a block reconstruction problem (Wood et al., 1976). The concept of scaffolding is very similar to Vygotsky's notion of the zone of proximal development, and it's not uncommon for the terms to be used interchangeably. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal. The purpose of the support is to allow the child to achieve higher levels of developmentby:
25  Simplifying the task or idea.  Motivating and encouraging the child.  Highlighting important task elements or errors.  Giving models that can be imitated. SIGMUND FREUD Freud distinguishes three essential elements of the individual's personality: conscious, unconscious and preconscious. The unconsciouspart of the psyche represents everything that the individual is conscious of. It includes perceptions, feelings, thinking processes and the willingness that we feel and are aware and conscious of. All that belongs to the unconscious mind and migrates easily from a state of unconsciousnessto a state of consciousness(and vice versa) is part of the pre-conscious which is a communication line, a border between the conscious and the unconscious partof the mind. However, there are other mental processes or contents of our mind that are very difficult to bring to consciousness and which form the unconscious, strictly speaking. Mostly, they include experiences that happened during childhood, which were often unpleasant and surrounded by guilt. Sometimes, these experiences are very painful and intolerable to the subject, who cancels them through a mechanism thatFreud calls removal. To better define the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mental processes and the mechanisms that allow the transfer of content from one area to another of the psyche, Freud identifies three elements that perform different functions in the human psyche: • The Id, which is the most inaccessible partof the personality and includes our instincts and impulses; • The Ego, which has the task of observing the outside world and preserving a true image of it in the memory through perceptions; • The Superego, which consists in the internalisation of the child's psyche of rules, prohibitions, precepts and laws that are imposed by parents, teachers and, more generally, by the members of the society to which he/she belongs. Starting from his studies on the psyche, Freud developed a staged theory of the child's development. ERIK H. ERIKSON Starting from the stage of Freud's psychosexual development, Erik elaborates a pattern consisting of differentstages of psychosocial development that characterise the life of every individual, from birth to old age. Each phase is characterised by the following principles: • in each stage, the subject under development is confronted with opposing forces that form an antinomian pair marked by a positive and a negative quality, which identifies the conflict to be overcome in that
26 particular period of life; • each stage is characterised by a basic virtue; • each stage has two underlying conditions, which are determined if the identity crisis of the stage is not resolved in a positive way.  ERIKSON DEVELOPED HIS EIGHT STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIALDEVELOPMENT BASED ON FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY. STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT Erikson’s stages of psychosocial developmentare based on (and expand upon) Freud’s psychosexual theory. Erikson proposed that we are motivated by the need to achieve competence in certain areas of our lives. According to psychosocial theory, we experience eight stages of developmentover our lifespan, from infancy through late adulthood. At each stage there is a crisis or task that we need to resolve. Successful completion of each developmental task results in a sense of competence and a healthy personality. Failure to master these tasks leads to feelings of inadequacy. Erikson also added to Freud’s stages by discussing the cultural implications of development; certain cultures may need to resolve the stages in different ways based upon their cultural and survival needs. TRUSTVS. MISTRUST From birth to 12 months of age, infants must learn that adults can be trusted. This occurs when adults meet a child’s basic needs for survival. Infants are dependent upon their caregivers, so caregivers who are responsive and sensitive to their infant’s needs help their baby to develop a sense of trust; their baby will see the world as a safe, predictable place. Unresponsive caregiverswho do not meettheir baby’s needs can engender feelings of anxiety, fear, and mistrust; their baby may see the world as unpredictable. If infants are treated cruelly or their needs are not met appropriately, they will likely grow up with a sense of mistrust for people in the world. AUTONOMY VS. SHAME/DOUBT As toddlers (ages 1–3 years) begin to explore their world, they learn that they can control their actions and act on their environment to get results. They begin to show clear preferences for certain elements of the environment, such as food, toys, and clothing. A toddler’s main task is to resolve the issue of autonomy vs. shame and doubtby working to establish independence. This is the “me do it” stage. For example, we might observe a budding sense of autonomyin a 2-year-old child who wants to choose her clothes and dress herself. Although her outfits might not be appropriate for the situation, her input in such basic decisions has an effect on her sense of independence. If denied the opportunity to act on her environment, she may begin to doubther abilities, which could lead to low self-esteem and feelings of shame. INITIATIVE VS. GUILT Once children reach the preschool stage (ages 3–6 years), they are capable of initiating activities and asserting control over their world through social interactions and play. According to Erikson, preschool children must resolve the task of initiative vs. guilt.By learning to plan and achieve goals
27 while interacting with others, preschool children can master this task. Initiative, a sense of ambition and responsibility, occurs when parents allow a child to explore within limits and then support the child’s choice. These children will develop self-confidence and feel a sense of purpose. Those who are unsuccessful at this stage—with their initiative misfiring or stifled by over-controlling parents—may develop feelings of guilt. INDUSTRY VS. INFERIORITY During the elementary school stage (ages 6–12), children face the task of industry vs. inferiority. Children begin to compare themselves with their peers to see how they measure up. They either develop a sense of pride and accomplishmentin their schoolwork, sports, social activities, and family life, or they feel inferior and inadequate because they feel that they don’t measure up. If children do not learn to get along with others or have negative experiences at home or with peers, an inferiority complex might develop into adolescence and adulthood. IDENTITY VS. ROLE CONFUSION In adolescence (ages 12–18), children face the task of identity vs. role confusion. According to Erikson, an adolescent’s main task is developing a sense of self. Adolescents struggle with questions such as “Who am I?” and “What do I want to do with my life?” Along the way, most adolescents try on many different selves to see which ones fit; they explore various roles and ideas, set goals, and attempt to discover their “adult” selves. Adolescents who are successful at this stage have a strong sense of identity and are able to remain true to their beliefs and values in the face of problems and other people’s perspectives. When adolescents are apathetic, do not make a conscious search for identity, or are pressured to conform to their parents’ ideas for the future, they may develop a weak sense of self and experience role confusion. They will be unsure of their identity and confused about the future. Teenagers who struggle to adopt a positive role will likely struggle to “find” themselves as adults. INTIMACYVS. ISOLATION People in early adulthood (20s through early 40s) are concerned with intimacyvs. isolation. After we have developed a sense of self in adolescence, we are readyto share our life with others. However, if other stages have not been successfully resolved, young adults may have trouble developing and maintaining successful relationships with others. Erikson said that we must have a strong sense of self before we can develop successful intimate relationships. Adults who do not develop a positive self- concept in adolescence may experience feelings of loneliness and emotional isolation. GENERATIVITY VS. STAGNATION When people reach their 40s, they enter the time known as middle adulthood, which extends to the mid-60s. The social task of middle adulthood is generativity vs. stagnation. Generativity involves finding your life’s work and contributing to the development of others through activitiessuch as volunteering, mentoring, and raising children. During this stage, middle-aged adults begin contributing to the next generation, often through childbirth and caring for others; they also engage in meaningful and productive work which contributes positively to society. Those who do not master this task may experience stagnation and feel as though they are not leaving a mark on the world in a
28 meaningful way; they may have little connection with others and little interest in productivity and self- improvement. INTEGRITY VS. DESPAIR From the mid-60s to the end of life, we are in the period of development known as late adulthood. Erikson’s task at this stage is called integrity vs. despair. He said that people in late adulthood reflect on their lives and feel either a sense of satisfaction or a sense of failure. People who feel proud of their accomplishments feel a sense of integrity, and they can look back on their lives with few regrets. However, people who are not successful at this stage may feel as if their life has been wasted. They focus on what “would have,” “should have,” and “could have” been. They face the end of their lives with feelings of bitterness, depression, and despair. JOHN BOWLBY ANDMARY AINSWORTH Focusing on the positive aspects thatcharacterise the connection of the child with his mother, Bowlby stresses that it is expressed through a series of primaryinstinctual responses, i.e. innate or inherited (distinguished from the secondaryresponses, which are acquired through a learning process), and independent of each other, in the sense that the frequency, the intensity, the development of a response does not influence the frequency, intensity or the developmentof the others. Such responses are essentially behaviours that the child adopts to make sure thatthe mother is in touch with him/her or remains in his/her vicinity. Bowlby identifies five main behaviours: sucking, clinging, following, crying and smiling. Subsequently, Bowlby comes to define four phases of attachment: • Guidance and warning without discrimination; • Guidance and warning with discrimination; • Maintaining proximity, by warning and execution; • Creation of a mutual relationship. Ainsworth continued to deepen Bowlby's studies on the mother-child Dona focusing mainly on the Strange Situation procedure, which takes place in a no familiar context to the child (strange = unusual) and requires the presence of another adult and a series of separations and a reconnection with the mother. Based on the behaviours adopted by children as part of the experiment psychologist has identified three types of attachment: • safe; • insecure-avoidant; • insecure-ambivalent.
29 Attachmentis a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space (Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969). Attachmentdoes not have to be reciprocal. One person may have an attachment to an individual which is not shared. Attachment is characterized by specific behaviours in children, such as seeking proximity to the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969). Attachment behaviour in adults towards the child includes responding sensitively and appropriately to the child’s needs. Such behaviour appears universal across cultures. Attachment theory explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development. Attachmenttheory in psychology originates with the seminal work of John Bowlby (1958). In the 1930s John Bowlby worked as a psychiatristin a Child Guidance Clinic in London, where he treated many emotionally disturbed children. This experience led Bowlby to consider the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional and cognitive development. Specifically, it shaped his belief about the link between early infant separations with the mother and later maladjustment, and led Bowlby to formulate his attachment theory. John Bowlby, working alongside James Robertson (1952) observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers. Even when such children were fed by other caregivers, this did not diminish the child’s anxiety. These findings contradicted the dominant behavioural theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller, 1950) which was shown to underestimate the child’s bond with their mother. The behavioural theoryof attachmentstated that the child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant. Bowlby defined attachmentas a 'lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.' Bowlby (1958) proposed that attachmentcan be understood within an evolutionarycontext in that the caregiver provides safety and security for the infant. Attachmentis adaptive as it enhances the infant’s chance of survival. This is illustrated in the work of Lorenz (1935) and Harlow (1958). According to Bowlby infants have a universal need to seek close proximity with their caregiver when under stress or threatened (Prior & Glaser, 2006). Most researchers believe that attachment develops through a series of stages. STAGES OF ATTACHMENT Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (this is known as a longitudinal study). The children were all studied in their own home, and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment. The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed. A diary was kept by the mother to examine the evidence for the development of attachment. Three measures were recorded: Stranger Anxiety - response to the arrival of a stranger.
30 Separation Anxiety - distress level when separated from a career, the degree of comfort needed on return. Social Referencing - the deree a child looks at their carer to check how they should respond to something new (secure base). They discovered thatbaby's attachments develop in the following sequence: Asocial (0 - 6 weeks) Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favorable reaction, such as a smile. Indiscriminate Attachments (6 weeks to 7 months) Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company, and mostbabies respond equally to any caregiver. They get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them. From 3 months infants smile more at familiar faces and can be easily comfortable by a regular caregiver. Specific Attachment (7 - 9 months) Special preference for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort, and protection. It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person (separation anxiety). Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, nevertheless, they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment. This has usually developed by one year of age. Multiple Attachment (10 months and onwards) The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments. By 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments. The results of the study indicated that attachments were mostlikely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness. Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact. Many of the babies had several attachments by ten months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and neighbours. The mother was the main attachmentfigure for about half of the children at 18 months old and the father for most of the others. The most important fact in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her. Therefore, responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment. LAWRENCE KOHLBERG Kohlberg has formulated a theory of the moral development of the individual through successive stages. For Kohlberg, the moral development of a person cannot be simply represented by an increase in the knowledge of the values of a given culture, because this leads to an ethic that is solely related to that culture. The moral development of a person is represented by the transformations that occur in the person's way of thinking: an individual evolves morally when his/her thinking structure
31 changes. Therefore, studying how a person interacts with the social environmentand how he/she solves social issues should be done in the light of the development of moral judgement structures that are universal and that develop in the same way across all cultures. Kohlberg identifies three levels of moral development: • Pre-conventional level (from about 4 years to about 10 years); • Conventional level (adolescents and adults); • Post-conventional level (or autonomous or principle level). ROBERTL. SELMAN Selman tried to describe the abilities of children to place themselves in the perspective of others in order to understand their different points of view. His studies have been mainly applied in education, with the intention of establishing a school curriculum that by leveraging the social skills of the students, could also include specific activities of peer learning. SELMAN'S THEORY OF ROLE-TAKING DEVELOPMENT One example of Selman's stories is that of Holly and her father.Children are told about Holly, an avid 8-year-old tree climber. One day, Holly falls off a tree, but does not hurt herself. Holly's father sees this and makes Holly promise that she will stop climbing trees, and Holly promises. Later, however, Holly and her friends meet Shawn, a boy whose kitten is stuck in a tree. Holly is the only one amongst her friends who can climb trees well enough to save Shawn's kitten, who may fall at any moment, but she remembers the promise she made with her father. Selman then goes on to ask children about the perspectives of Holly and her father, and each stage is associated with typical responses. STAGES Level 0: Egocentric Role Taking (ages 3–6, roughly) This stage is characterized by two lacking abilities. The first is the failure to distinguish perspectives (differentiation). More specifically, the child is unable to distinguish between his perspective, including his perspective on why a social action occurred, and that of others. [1] The second ability the child lacks is relating perspectives (social integration). In the Holly dilemma, children tend to respond that Holly will save the kitten and that the father will not mind Holly's disobedience because he will be happy and he likes kittens. In actuality, the child is displaying his/her inability to separate his/her liking for kittens from the perspectives of Holly and her father. Level 1: Subjective role taking (ages 6–8, roughly) Children now recognize that they and others in a situation may have different information available to them, and thus may differ in their views. In other words, children have matured in differentiation. The child still significantly lacks integration ability, however: he/she cannot understand thathis views are influenced by the views of others, and vice versa, ad infinitum.In addition, the child believes that the sole reason for differing social perspectives is because of different information, and nothing else. In the Holly dilemma, when asked if the father would be angry if he found out that Holly climbed the tree again, children might respond, “If he didn’t know why she climbed the tree, he would be angry. But if he knew why she did it, he would realize that she had a good reason,” not recognizing that the father may still be angry, regardless of her wanting to save the kitten, because of his own values, such as his concern for his daughter's safety.
32 Level 2: Self-reflective role taking (ages 8–10, roughly) The child's differentiation ability matures at this age enough so that he/she understands that people can also differ in their social perspectives because of their particularly held and differing values and set of purposes.[1][4] In turn, the child is able to better put him/herself in the position of another person. In terms of integration, the child can now understand that others think about his/her point of view too. This allows the child to predict how the other person might reactto the child's behaviour. What is still lacking, however, is for the child to be able to consider another person's point of view and another person's point of view of the child simultaneously. In the Holly dilemma, when children are asked if Holly will climb the tree, they will typically respond, “Yes. She knows that her father will understand why she did it.” This indicates the child is considering the father's perspective in light of Holly's perspective; however, when asked if the father would want Holly to climb the tree, children typically respond that he would not. This shows that the child is solely considering the father's point of view and his worry for Holly's safety. Level 3: Mutual role taking (ages 10–12, roughly) In this stage, the child can now differentiate his/her own perspective from the viewpoint likely for the average member of the group. In addition, the child can take the view of a detached third-person and view a situation from that perspective.[1] In terms of integration, the child can now simultaneously consider his/her view of others and others’ view of the child, and the consequences of this feedback loop of perspectives in terms of behaviour and cognition. In describing the result of the Holly dilemma, the child may take the perceptive of a detached third party, responding that “Holly wanted to get the kitten because she likes kittens, but she knew that she wasn’t supposed to climb trees. Holly’s father knew that Holly had been told not to climb trees, but he couldn’t have known about [the kitten].” Level 4: Societal role taking (ages 12–15+, roughly) The adolescent now considers others’ perspectives with reference to the social environment and culture the other person comes from, assuming that the other person will believe and act in accord to their society's norms and values. When asked if Holly deserves to be punished for her transgression, adolescents typically respond that Holly should not as her father should understand that we need to humanely treatanimals. Evidence for Selman's Stages Three studies have been conducted to assess Selman's theory, and all three have shown support for his developmental outline of role taking ability progression. Selman conducted the first study of his own theory using 60 middle-class children from ages 4 to 6. In this experiment, the children were asked to predict and explain their predictions about another child's behaviour in a certain situation. The child participants were given situational information not available to the child they were making behavioural and cognitive predictions about. Results implied a stage progression of role taking ability as a function of age, as theorized by Selman. In a second assessment of the theory, Selman and Byrne interviewed 40 children, ages 4, 6, 8, and 10, on two socio-moral dilemmas. Children were required to discuss the perspectives of different characters in each dilemma, and results again showed thatrole taking ability progressed through stages as a function of age. The third study assessing Selman's theory was a 5-year longitudinal study of 41 male children on their role taking ability.Results showed that 40 of the 41 children interviewed followed the stages as outlined by Selman and none skipped over a stage.
33 PSYCHO-PEDAGOGICAL SKILLS THE ACTIVE SCHOOLS ANDDEWEY Planning in active schools (ornew schools) is distinguished by the degree of involvement of the pupil in the teaching activity. He/she should not have a passive behaviourand should critically absorb all the knowledge that the teacher suggests. The pupil must instead experience and understand first- hand, through experience and practical activity. Starting from the concept of experience and school activity, Dewey claims that in order to effectively contribute to social growth, the school must start from the needs, impulses and interests of the pupils, which should be oriented towards educational activities to be carried out in an interesting and participative manner in order to encourage learning. According to Dewey, the method of learning by doing helps the child to organise his knowledge and it cannot be replaced with frontal lessonsor learning from a text. Of course, books are a useful tool to learn, but experience mustbe combined with texts, as it favours the active vocation of the child. BURRHUS F. SKINNER AND THE TEACHINGDEVICES Skinner suggestsdesigning teaching devices, capable of organising their applications in order to create learning sequences aimed atacquiring specific knowledge. These devices can be programmed with multiple objectives have the ability to change their behaviour based on the student's answers. BENJAMINS. BLOOM AND THE MASTERY LEARNING Bloom is responsible for the learning procedure called Mastery Learning  It is a procedure that aims to bring the majority of students to master the discipline that they are taught, taking into account the individual differences in the student rate and timing of learning. Five variables are defined, which influence learning: attitude, quality of education, ability to understand education, perseverance, and the time available. MASTERY LEARNING (or, as it was initially called, "learning for mastery") is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy, first formally proposed by Benjamin Bloom in 1968. Mastery learning maintains that students must achieve a level of mastery (e.g., 90% on a knowledge test) in prerequisite knowledge before moving forward to learn subsequentinformation. If a student does not achieve mastery on the test, they are given additional supportin learning and reviewing the information and then tested again. This cycle continues until the learner accomplishes mastery, and they may then move on to the next stage. Mastery learning methods suggest thatthe focus of instruction should be the time required for different students to learn the same material and achieve the same level of mastery. This is very much in contrast with classic models of teaching, which focus more on differences in students' ability and where all students are given approximately the same amount of time to learn and the same set of instructions.
34 In mastery learning, there is a shift in responsibilities, so that student's failure is more due to the instruction and not necessarily lack of ability on his or her part. Therefore, in a mastery learning environment, the challenge becomes providing enough time and employing instructional strategies so that all students can achieve the same level of learning. Mastery learning is a set of group-based, individualized, teaching and learning strategies based on the premise that students will achieve a high level of understanding in a given domain if they are given enough time. LEV S. VYGOTSKIJ Research on the degree of cognitive maturation of children is always directed towards the observation of what they are able to do individually and independently (current development). However, this does not provide an indication of their learning skills in the short or long term. Therefore, Vygotskij focuses on the area of proximal development, which corresponds to the level of potential developmentof the child, determined by the ability to solve a problem with the help of a more competentadult or a peer. In primary school, an education that is directed towards making the children work in their proximal development area is needed. As part of the cognitive development, Vygotskij distinguishes two types of concepts: scientific and spontaneous. The former are formal concepts, often detached from the personal experience of the child, where usually, it is not possible to make spontaneous and empirical use of them and are acquired by children at school. The spontaneous (or daily) concepts are instead generated by everyday experience and are not organised into a coherent knowledge system; they do not have punctual and strict relationships that connect them. They are easily attributable to an empirical use. The connection between spontaneous and scientific concepts is identified by the proximal development area. When the level of maturation of a spontaneous conceptis in the proximal development area, then the pupil should have a activity suggested, guided by the teacher, who can lead the conceptback to an organic arrangement, towards a profound understanding and awareness towards a more scientific based concept. JEROME BRUNER The researcher says that the fundamental aspects of each discipline canbe taught to anyone, of any age, provided they are presented in a certain form. Starting from this assumption, one can define a spiral curriculum, so-called as it initially presents the keyideas in a simple and intuitive manner, but periodically returns to such ideas, considering them in a different form, more elaborate and relying on more formal and symbolic modes of representation. The researcher distinguishes between the theory of education, of prescriptive type, with the aim of reaching the objectives in an optimal way, and the learning theory, of descriptive type, which describes and interprets whatis going on when learning takes place or what happened when it was finished. Bruner incorporates the conceptof problem solving and links it to the scaffolding concept.
35 THE SCAFFOLDING  is a process that allows a studentto solve a problem or reach an objective that would go beyond his/her capabilities, if not assisted. VON GLASERSFELD Knowledge is notacquired passively. When the studenthas an encounter with a new experience, he perceives it as a disturbance compared to what was expected from his/her cognitive structures. Actively, this new experience must be assimilated or accommodated in the existing structures in order to create new knowledge. Only in this way the individual returns to a balance with the external environment. For this reason, it is necessary to put the student in front of elements that could disturb his cognitive structures. This takes place especially in comparison and interaction with other students. Under this paradigm, the teacher often favours the creation of learning groups or study groups. VON FOERSTER The student analyses the education system focusing on the usual specific teaching practices and highlighting the trivialisation issue of the teaching-learning process. The education system welcomes children who are, in some ways, unpredictable. The education system gradually tends to dumb down students, making them provide predictable and expected responses to questions. Another importantdifference is between legitimate and illegitimate questions. The education system is based on illegitimate questions, i.e. questions for which the answer is known and add nothing to the overall knowledge of humanity, but simply pass on the knowledge to the future. The focus should be on the legitimate questions, i.e. those that deserve to be asked, because the answer is yet unknown or, even better, no one knows if there is a possible answer. EDGAR MORIN The pedagogical beliefs of Morin are closely related to his global view of the current reality, the complexity of the problems and relationships established between the environment, culture and education, Therefore, the challenge of modern knowledge is focused on the effort of being able to clarify, define and interpret the complexity, Educational systems base their training action on the knowledge and explanation of clear and articulate content, One can learn what is clear and reliable. For Morin, the first critical point is the fragmentation and isolation of knowledge. The complexity theory helps forming a global vision of reality. A greater global perspective helps in recognising the interconnection of cultures and the interconnection of the destinies of different communities. Therefore, it encourages greater responsibility and greater solidarity.
36 TEACHING SKILLS OF THE TEACHER ACTIVE LEARNING Active learning has become a generic term for differenteducational methodologies thatfocus attention on the activitiesperformed by studentsthemselves. The objective is to actively involve the students in the learning process. In particular, there are three types of active learning:  Think-pair-share. An activity is proposed and students are asked to fem individually on the stimulus proposed, then share their answers,  Concept test. A multiple choice test is given to the students, who then into pairs and discuss their answers, trying to come to an agreementon the correct answer;  Thinking-aloud pair problem solving TAPPS. An activity thatcan be divided into two parts is suggested and the first part is started before asking the students to gettogether in pairs. In cach pair, an explainer (who explains) and a questioner (who asks questions) must be chosen. Then, the teacher hears the pairs to see what kind of solution they found. In the second part of the activity, the roles in the pair are reversed. PEER LEARNING This takes place mainly among students who support each other in mutual Learning. Peer learning is divided into two large categories: • Cooperative learning, based on a positive interdependence that is established in a group of students working together to achieve a common goal; • Peer tutoring, based on a specific division of roles by students: one plays the role of tutor (the helper, i.e. the one who helps the peer in learning, the one who teaches) and the other the role of tutee (the one who is helped, i.e. the one who is helped to learn, the learner). In cooperative learning, teachers must: 1. clearly set out the objectives of the lesson; 2. make decisions about putting the students in groups, before the class begins; 3. clearly explain to students the tasks to be performed, the targets to be obtained and the learning activities; 4. monitor the effectiveness of cooperative learning in groups and take action to help solve the tasks or to improve the skills of the students and the groups; 5. evaluate the results achieved by the students and help them discuss the progress of the group work. Below, the most common types of peer tutoring: • Peer learning of different ages; • Peer learning of similar age; • Mutual peer learning;
37 • Peer learning spread throughout the class; • Learning strategies with the assistance of peers. INDUCTIVE TEACHING The teaching of science subjects is typically deductive. The teacher explains principles and general ideas and then presents practical exercises that concern the theoretical principles just introduced.  An inductive path starts from practical application, from the real problem, from the analysis and interpretation of certain data, from the studyof a specific case in order to reach general and abstract concepts. In this way, students are more motivated to face the necessary formalisation of the concepts and gain a better understanding of abstract general principles, without which no one could handle the problem presented. A practical application of the theoretical paradigm of inductive teaching is a teaching method called inductive learning based on inquiry (Inquiry-based Learning). In particular, we following methodologies: • Discovery Learning: • Problem-based Learning: • Project-based Learning; • Case-based Teaching; • Just-in-time Teaching; • Flipped classroom. RECIPROCAL TEACHING Reciprocal teaching began as a reading activity that was performed in groups. Reciprocal teaching activates meta-cognitive processes highlighted by carrying out the four activities listed below: 1. Summarising: 2. Asking questions; 3. Clarifying; 4. Predicting. The basic procedure involves the interaction between a teacher and a pupil Initially the teacher shows the part to be read. Before starting to read, the teacher communicates which of the two, the teacher or the student, will be the "teacher". Then, they both start to read in silence. After reading, the chosen teacher has to ask a possible question on the text read in order to check for comprehension: summarise the text; clarify certain aspects that he/she thinks may be difficult for the students; predict a possible continuation of what occurs in the text read. When the next part for the text is read, the roles are exchanged. Several versions of this method have been suggested, which made it more like a cooperative learning activity. Students are divided into groups within which one student reads a text; each member has one of the a tasks to carry out (summarising, asking questions, clarifying and
38 predicting). In this way, a community of learners is created. PLANNING OF THE CURRICULA  Knowledge = possession of factual data, notions, ideas and concepts acquired through study, research, observation and experience. It is a body of information of which the meaning is understood.  Skill = appropriate, conscious and effective use of knowledge.  Competence = a requirementthat allows performing a task or a request t is rather articulate and complex, thanks to having the disposition, motivation, emotions, social relationships, behaviours and attitudes that are necessary performing the task. SCHOOL AUTONOMY School autonomy, introduced by Presidential Decree 275/1999 is the medium that schools have in order to ensure the educational success of students. This term refers to the full developmentof the student's potential and to the maturation of skills they will use in the real world. The autonomy of individual schools is embodied in a document called the Three-Year Program of Studies (TYPS), which outlines the school's planning of the curriculum. MIDDLE SCHOOLCURRICULUM The Guidelines for the preschool and primary school curriculum are issued by Ministerial Decree of 31 July 2007, with furtherreformulated Guidelines in 2012(M.D. 254 of 16 November 2012). For the first cycle (primary and secondary school), the curriculum is divided into subject areas and disciplines. For each discipline, "goals for competence development" are set at the end of each training session, i.e. at the end of preschool, primary school and secondary school. In addition, "intermediate stages" are established, indicated by the learning objectives within the formative segments and, again, at the end
39 of some of the training segments. The learning objectives are expressed by organically integrating knowledge and skills in statements related to mental and physical activities of the child. These objectives are considered strategicfor the achievement of the skills listed in the goals. They represent those objective behaviours that can be detected by appropriate verification tests or observations in specific situations. HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM The high school courses provide students with the knowledge, skills and competencies that allow them to effectively continue their studies or to coherently adapt to social life and the world of work. At the end of high school, the student must have achieved certain learning outcomes (LO) that can be divided into: • development of knowledge and skills; • maturation of skills; • acquisition of tools. In addition, based on their generality, the learning outcomes can be divided into: • common LO, which are achieved by the end of any high school period and are divided into five categories: methodological, logical argumentation, language and communication, historical-humanistic, science, mathematics and technology; • specific LO, for individual high school periods. They have a definitely disciplinary valence; in particular, they are related to specialised disciplines, which are characteristic of the high school. The common and the specific LO form the ECVP (Educational, Cultural and Vocational Profile) of high schools. CURRICULUMOF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS The Cultural, Educational and Vocational Profile of the student that graduates from a vocational or technical institute consists of two complementary aspects: • activities and general education teaching common to all specialisations that are intended to provide a basic preparation; • activities and compulsory specialisation courses that aim to provide students with specific skills of the study module undertaken. These teaching help to determine competencies to be used in different contexts of work production life. The ECVP of the student is expressed in terms of learning outcomes. These are related to competencies that the student must acquire at the end of his studies. Both the general education teachings and the specialisation teaching contribute to obtaining the learning outcomes. In fact, the ECVP includes two types of learning outcomes: Common and Specific LO. that are both fundamental:
40 TEXTBOOKS AND NEW TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES Annex I to M.D. 781/2013presents the system thatallows enjoying digital books in an educational context. The elements that make up this system are the following: • Textbooks and, in particular, digital textbooks; • Integrative Learning Content (ILC) and, in particular, Integrative Digital Content (IDC); • Platforms for use, in reference to software that allows using digital book and IDC; • Devices for use, in reference to hardware devices that allow the use of digital books and IDC. The legislation provides for three ways to adopt the textbooks and integrate digital resources: • type a mixed version, i.e. printed textbook accompanied by IDC; • type b mixed version, i.e. printed and digital textbook accompanied by IDC: • type e digital version, i.e. digital textbook accompanied by IDC. MIWB: TRADITIONAL TEACHINGAND INNOVATIVE TEACHING The Multimedia Interactive Whiteboard (MIWB) is an input device, namely a device capable of entering information into the computer. Generally, for each whiteboard model, there are two main applications: • the management software of the MIWB, which includes the drivers necessary for the operating system to run the whiteboard; • the author software of the MIWB, which in many ways resembles a presentation software. The MIWB can be used either in a very "traditional" or "innovative" way. In the first case, it means a teaching method characterised by the transmission of content and skills by the teacher to the pupil, who has to reproduce in a rather faithful manner the content assimilated and must use the skills acquired in a rather loyal way. Conversely, an innovative teaching method is characterised by the following aspects:  is oriented on the maturation of skills;  it uses, for the presentation of content and maturation of skills, all communication channels that the technologies provide;  it presents reticular and ot sequential learning paths, in which each student follows a target and builds his own knowledge;  it is organised so that the student actively participates in lessons, interacting with other students and with the teacher, creating meaning, stimulating curiosity, being able to be motivated, and producing materials. LEARNING OBJECT The Learning Object has the following characteristics: • it is a self-consistent, coherent and complete learning unit, consisting of essential contents, small follow-ups and tests. It often allows tracking the activity of the student and is focused on a quite specific concept;
41 • it is a closed and rigidly structured objectthat is not meant to be enriched or fed with other content. It is conceived for self-study, in an e-learning and distance learning context. rather than an object underpinning collaborative learning. DIGITAL ASSET Digital Assets can be understood as fragments of digital content, as basic units information that can be individually modified and subsequently assembled. O ill, Their purpose is to give shape, from time to time, to a learning unit (1 learning Object), so it becomes customised and the result of research and knowledge-building. 2.0 CLASSES The Digital School Programme promoted by the Ministry of Education plan is to create classrooms that are learning environments that combine different technological devices (fixed, such as MIWB, printers, and scanners, and mobile devices, such as notebooks, netbooks, tablets, and smartphones), which are normally used to create a new teaching approach and new learning processes. These classrooms are called 2.0 Classes. In these classrooms, the strong integration between the information and communication technology (ICT) and the school environment opens the door to the socio- constructivist pedagogical approach in which learning is favoured mainly by experience the know- how, the comparison with others, and the personalisation of education interventions.In a 2.0 Class, each student works on his device, but he can share the work with the classmates and the teacher via the network. As a result, each individual can provide help, make correction observations and help improve the workof others LEARNING ENVIRONMENT The Learning Environment concept is widely used with the constructivist approaches, In its minimum configuration, a learning environment includes: a learner and a space in which he works, uses tools and devices, collects and interprets messages and information, and interacts with other individuals. Learning environments can be divided in the three following categories: • classroom learning environments, which mostly include physical environments; • Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), on-line platforms to which web users can subscribe; • immersive environments, a category of a virtual learning environments, such as Serious Games and immersive games within which each user with an alter ego makes experiencesand carries out activities on his own or interacting with other users.
42 SOCIAL SKILLS OF THE TEACHER WAYS OF COMMUNICATION The communication between two subjects can be divided into: • Verbal communication, consisting in the language (written or spoken) • Paraverbal communication, based on the use of voice (tone, rhythm); spoken • Non-verbal communication, based on the use of the body (facial expressions. posture). COMMUNICATION STYLE The communication style of an individual is the way in which he/she interacts with others, using verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal communication. It is defined by means of a core of variables, each of which is linked to a characteristic of the person. In particular, Norton identifies the following variables: dominant, friendly, attentive, relaxed, argumentative, dramatic, animated, open, striking and precise. For this purpose, Norton uses a questionnaire that he calls Communicator Style Measure and identifies the three following styles: • the human teacher, characterised by the simultaneous presence of the "open, attentive and friendly" attributes. It is considered a rather positive style by the students; • the actor teacher, characterised by the presence of the "striking, dramatic and animated" attributes; • the authoritarian teacher, having the "dominant, precise and argumentative" attributes. This style is not appreciated by students. THE MODEL FOR INTERPERSONAL TEACHER BEHAVIOUR The Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (MITB) is defined by two main dimensions around which interpersonal relations between the teacher and the student develop: • The Influence dimension, which is characterised by an axis indicated by a pair of opposites terms Dominance-Submission. This axis represents the control level that the teacher has with regard to the communication adopted in the classroom; • The Proximity dimension, which corresponds to an axis indicated by a pair of opposite terms Opposition-Cooperation. It indicates the proximity and cooperation level that the teacher and the students show in educational activities. Based on the MITB, eight recurring interpersonal profiles were identified. In particular, it appears that the Authoritative and Tolerant/Authoritative profiles are the ones that get the best results on the cognitive and affective level. The Uncertain/Aggressive profile is the one that presents most critical Issues. MOTIVATION AND FLOW THEORY An intrinsic motivation is when one perceives an activity as challenging and rewarding in itself, no matter how desirable the ultimate goal may be and which can be attained by carrying out the activities. In other words, the motivation originates from within the individual, from feelings and
43 perceptions that he experiences first-hand in performing the particularly motivating task. Conversely, we talk about extrinsic motivation when the motivation to perform the task arises primarily from the objective and from the result that shall be obtained in the end. This constitutes the extrinsic reward. Usually, this objective depends on the others, on a reward or remuneration thatmay The conditions that determine the State of Flow, the experience of total involvement of the person engaged in an autotelic activity, i.e. intrinsically be offered for the task performed. motivating, are essentially two: 1. the individual must take the task or activity as a challenge; 2. the task must have tangible, forthcoming, at hand, clearly perceptible ad concretely reachable goals. During a flow experience, the individual shows the following behaviour • is very focused on what he/she is doing; • has the feeling of having everything under control; • is aware of the consequences and objectives of each action he/she takes. • effectively integrates action and awareness; • loses self-consciousness, i.e. is no longer concerned about himself/herself and forgets his/her own needs; • loses track of time; • feels inherently gratified by what takes place. In the school context, the cooperative learning and peer tutoring can trigger flow experiences. AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR By observing the behaviour of pupils and their interaction with the classmates, the teachers can decide if a particular person is suffering from a conduct disorder. In this case, it is important to report the situation to the school manager, contact the family and direct the student towards specialists in the health or social services (psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers). The conduct disorders of particular interest to the school environment are those identified in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) developed by WHO, such as conduct disorder with reduced socialisation, conduct disorder with normal socialisation and oppositional defiant disorder. The conduct disorder may be associated with the bullying phenomenon, of which clinical features can mix with social and cultural causes. There are two types of bullying: • direct, which can be physical or verbal; • indirect, in which the bully does not directly address the victims, but tends to isolate them or put them in difficult situations, through premeditated and studied behaviour (slander and gossip). Each school must have a policy that is aimed at preventing and timely detecting bullying phenomena. Therefore, the head teacher must promote the Code of Conduct Rules that are effective and shared by the entire school community (teachers, parentsand pupils) usually described in the School Regulations. CO-TEACHING Co-teaching is defined as the "action of two or more professionals engaged in educating a
44 heterogeneousor mixed group of students, in one place." This definition identifies four key components thatcharacterise co-teaching: 1. the presence of two teachers; 2. teaching of significant concepts; 3. the presence of groups of students with different educational needs; 4. a set of common teaching approaches. There are four major areas in which the co-teaching practises can be used: • to provide education jointly with a heterogeneous group of students, including those with disabilities or other special needs; • to provide education to a group of foreign students; • to provide education to a group of gifted or talented students; • as an alternative and experimental teaching approach for students in order to promote customised learning. MANAGEMENT OF THE GROUP The advantages of working in groups are as follows: • ambitious and articulated goals can be reached, which with individual efforts and a little coordination would be impossible to obtain; • thanks to mutual comparison, the real opportunities for professional development for each member of the group are multiplied. In other words, working in groups allows for greater professional capital growth of organisations. However, within a group, there can be negative phenomena such as antagonism, narcissism, hoarding, marginalisation, lack of organisation, and the formation of subgroups, herd instinct and free-riding. One of the ways to convey information in an organisation is by holding assemblies or meetings. The following types can be identified: • descending information meetings; • ascending information meetings; • meetings to exchange points of view. Decision making and agreement assemblies are also important. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE Wenger defines the community of practice as a group of people who share a commitmentor a passion for something they are dealing with actively. It has three fundamental aspects: • the community of practice shares a domain of interest;
45 • it consists of people who interact by carrying Out activities in common, discussing and exchanging ideas, learning from comparison; • it consists of practitioners, i.e. people who try to put into practice what they learn in the community. The three dimensions of the practice associated with the community are: • mutual engagement, i.e. the possibility of interaction between the members: • the joint venture, the ultimate goal that the community wants to reach, the task it wants to perform; • the shared catalogue, a set of aspects and knowledge that act as link in the community. LEARNING STYLES AND TEACHING STYLES LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO DAVID KOLB In his theory of experiential learning, David Kolb defines a learning cycle that is divided into four phases: • concrete experience, linked to the real experience; • reflective observation, the next phase in which the subject makes observations and reflections trying to find one or more meanings of the experience; • abstract conceptualisation, phase in which the subject creates an abstract model of what he has experienced in practice; • active experimentation, phase in which the theory (learning) of the previous stage serves as a guide for the planning of a new concrete experience. According to Kolb, every person has a certain inclination towards one of the four phases of the cycle and based on it develops a particular learning style. LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO THE DUNNS The learning style is the result of a series of factors that affect the effectiveness and ways of learning of a student. When the factors have a certain configuration, i.e. take on a set of specific values, then the learning of a particular student is favoured. The set of values of the factors, which in this case are particularly favourable, identify the learning style of the student In the final version of the theory, the factors identified by the two researchers are grouped into 5 areas (environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological). It should be emphasised that not all the factors that influence learning have the same origin. Dunn identifies two of them, one of biological nature and the other evolutionary. THE VARK MODEL The VARK learning model of Neil Fleming takes perceptual factors from the model developed by the
46 Dunn couple, and studies them further. Fleming believes that the way in which students receive or transmit information effectively is the real critical parameter of their learning style. (VARK is the acronym of the words Visual, Aural, Read/write and Kinaesthetic. These terms refer to four learning styles. Thus, a Visual learner has a highly developed visual-spatial intelligence and learns in a simple and straightforward way when the information is presented visually, while an Aural learner has the advantage of listening, therefore, his/her ideal lesson is the oral lesson, characterised by discussions and exchanges of ideas between teachers and students. Finally, for the Reader/writer the text is the best means to approach knowledge, and a Kinaesthetic learner naturally learns by direct experience and practice. LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO RICHARD FELDER According to Felder, based on how a student handles the receiptand processing of information, one can classify his/her learning style. In particular, the student identifies four dimensions of the learning style, which are the coordinates used to get oriented in a rather well-structured group of styles. Each dimension has 2 complementary styles, which have different and alternative characteristics: • perception dimension " sensory or intuitive style; • input dimension " visual or verbal style; • processing dimension " active or reflexive style; • comprehension dimension " sequential or global style. The first two dimensions are related to the reception phase of the information. while the other two to the processing phase. FROM DISABILITY TO SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS ICIDH, ICFAND DISABILITY The ICIDH classification system has three fundamental aspects: - IMPAIRMENT  is related to an anomaly that may occur in the structure of the body or in its appearance and can be caused by anything. - DISABILITY  is the result of the persona’s impairment in terms of functional performance and the activities that he/she carries out. - HANDICAP  is related to the disadvantage of the individual, experienced as a result of his/her impairment, which caused the disability. There aspects are set out in Law 104/1992. In fact, the person with a handicap is defined as "one who has a physical, mental or sensory impairment, stable or progressive, which leads to learning, relationship or work integration difficulties and the outcome is a process of social disadvantage or
47 marginalisation." The ICIDH classification has been replaced by another classification system developed in 2001 by WHO and called ICF. This classification takes as reference the health condition of a person considering his level of functioning; therefore, unlike ICIDH, it is not only applicable to individuals with disabilities, but to any person with a certain health condition. In the ICF classification the term handicap disappears and is replaced by the term disability, which indicates the level of impairment of the subject, the limitations that his health condition creates in carrying out activities and in what way it can restrict the participation of the individual in social life. The importance of the ICF classification is that it also considers the factors determined by the physical and social environment in which the person lives, which have an impact on the individuals' participation in activities in the social context In other words, they affect the function or the disability. When the environmental factors are positive, then they act as facilitatorsand favour the functioning of the individual. When they are negative, they are obstacles or barriers to the functioning and determine a disability. Therefore, we speak about the functioning or disability of a person based on what emerges from the level of health of the functions and of the body structure, the level of effectiveness for carrying out the activities, the level of participation to social 1life, in a specific context which influences these factors. It follows that the ICF model does not classify the health condition of an individual, but the health condition of an individual that is part of a context. In 2008, based on the new criteria set by the ICF, the documents for the integration of the disabled were revised in the school context, so that they would mirror the basic planning. These documents are the Functional Diagnosis (FD), the Functional Dynamic Profile (FDP) and the Individualised Education Plan (IEP). SLD – DSA The specific learning disabilities (SLD) are developmental disorders, which affect skills involved in school activities, such as reading, writing and calculating. Law 170/2010identifies: - DYSLEXIA "specific disorder that manifests as a difficulty in learning how to read, especially in deciphering linguistic signs, or in the correctness and fluency of reading (Article 1, par. 2)"; - DYSGRAPHIA "specific writing disorder that manifests as the inability (Article 1, par. 3)". Therefore, this disorder affects the writing (and not the spelling) and is connected to the motor-executive moment of performance - DYSORTHOGRAPHY "specific writing disorder that manifests as the inability to transcode linguistic processes (Article 1, par. 4)". It is a disorder the concerns the correctness of writing according to the rules of the linguistic code (spelling rules) and not according to the graphic aspect of writing: - DYSCALCULIA "specific disorder that manifests as the inability to calculate and process numbers (Article 1, par. 5)." The Guidelines for the integration of students with disabilities in schools outline two components of the calculation ability that are affected by dyscalculia: the organisation of numerical cognition and the executive and calculation procedures. For pupils with SLD, Law 170/2010demands
48 schools to adopt a customised and individualised teaching approach with compensatory tools and dispensatory measures. SEN – BES The Directive of 27 December 2012 identifies the categories of studentswho have special educational needs (SEN), claiming thatthere is an area of educational disadvantage. Therefore, the following categories of students with SEN have been identified, which include: • students with disabilities; • students with SLD; • students with other specific developmental disorders that are notSLD or studentswith other disorders (non developmental and/or not specific); • students with socio-economic, linguistic and cultural disadvantages. The students with disabilities are those who can access aid provided for by Law 104/1992, including the assignmentof a specialistteacher (support teacher) that supportsthe learning activities of the student. Students with specific learning disorders benefit from the provisions of Law 170/2010. Students with other specific developmental disorders have: • language disorders; • motor abilities disorders; • hyperkinetic disorders; • mild forms of autism; • limited intellectual activity. Finally, there are the students with socio-economic, linguistic and cultural disadvantages or students who live in very problematic families and social environment, who have social and economical difficulties. CONTINUITY, ORIENTATION ANDEVALUATION DIDACTIC CONTINUITY Steps from one education segmentto another introduce the discontinuity factors that can be a source of confusion and loss to the studentand, if handled infectively, can lead to school failure. The term didactic continuity is used to indicate the initiatives thatthe educational institutions implement to mitigate the discontinuity of the curriculum, teaching methodological and evaluate. In particular, we talk about vertical continuity, characterised by the elaboration of the curriculum by teachers of different education segments in synergy and in close collaboration with each other Horizontal continuity is based on the way in which educational institutions develop a curriculum that is effective in the social, civil, cultural and economic reality, which characterises the contextin which the school operates. ORIENTATION The orientation is defined as "a series of activities thatenable citizens at any age and in any moment of their lives to identify their capacities, competencies and interests, to make decisions regarding
49 education, training and vocation and to manage their individual life paths in the training activities, in the professional world and in any otherenvironment in whichsuch skills and competenciesare acquired and/or used". The guidance skills allow the person to accompany their own orientation process throughout life and to make a personal plan for which he/she can make more specific progressive choices. BLOOM'S TAXONOMY For Bloom, the taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive field is a support tool for teachers, educators and scholars. The basic level skills are also called Lower Order Thinking Shills and are indicated by the acronym LOTS. The more complex skills are instead called Higher Order Thinking Skills and are indicated by the acronym HOTS, The teacher has to identify, om the taxonomic scale of these competencies, the starting level of the student, presenting a goal to be achieved, in terms of more complex competence, Then, an adequate educational program need to be set that leads the learner from the proper initial condition to the goal set for him/her by the teacher. THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTIONOF THE ITALIAN SCHOOL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In 1861 the school model of the Kingdom of Sardinia was extended to the newly established Kingdom of Italy. The Casati Legislation in 1859 outlined a school system divided in three sections: Higher education; Classical secondary education; Technical and primary education. Primary school lasted a period of four years, with the first two mandatory for everyone. The Coppino Legislation of 1877 extended the mandatoryperiod to three yearsand the total period of primaryschool to 5 years. THE FIRSTHALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The main problem was illiteracy. At the census in 1901, 56% of the Italian population was illiterate, especially women and people in rural areas, while the situation in the industrial areas was a little better. In 1904, the Orlando Reform extended mandatory education until the age of 12 and changed the structure of the course of studies, At the end of the fourth year, the pathways were divided between those who continued to the fifth and sixth year of primary school (in preparation for professional training) and those who went to secondary school. In 1911, with the Daneo-Credaro legislation, primary schools passed under the directmanagement of the State through the Provinces and the school patronage became mandatory to provide assistance to families in need. In 1923, with the Gentile Reform, the education system wasdefinitively centralised and governed by a hierarchical structure. Underlying the reform, there was an aristocratic conception of culture and education, seen as tools for selecting the best. Primary school education returned to an extension of five years divided into tWo cycles (lower grade of three years and upper grade of two years), Education was mandatory until the fourteenth year of life, even if implementation was conditioned by the massive lack of school
50 attendance in the poorest areas of the country. SCHOOL IN THE REPUBLICANCONSTITUTION With the approval of the Constitution, which came into force on 1st January 1948, the fundamental principles on which the education system is based were identified. The articles that are more directly related to instruction are the: • Articles 2 and 3 set out the fundamental human rights, equality and equal dignity of all citizens, the commitmentof the Republic to remove obstacles to the full developmentof the human person; • Article 7 constitutionalises the Lateran Treaty of 1929; • Article 9 entrusts the Republic with the task of promoting the development of the culture and scientific and technical research; • Article 29 states the rights of the family as a natural society founded on marriage; • Article 29 proclaims the duty and the right of parents to support, instruct and educate their children; • Article 31 demands to the Republic the task to support families and protect maternity, childhood and youth; • Article 33 introduces the principle of freedom of education. Commits the Republic to set down general education standards and establish state schools at all levels. It gives the right to private entities to establish schools at no cost for the State; • Article 34 affirms that the school is open to everyone, It establishes mandatory education for at least eight years (later legislation has extended the period to ten years), It sets the duty of the Republic to ensure that all worthy and capable citizens are enabled to reach the highest levels of education, even if they lack financial means; •Article 35 recognises the professional training of workers; •Article 117 sets out the powers of the State and the Regions in terms of education and vocational training. This article was amended in 2001 by Constitutional Law No. 3 and is now under process of rewriting following the constitutional reform project to be approved during 2016. THE SECONDHALF OF THE TWEENTIETH CENTURY In 1962 the Government established the unique mandatory schools, implementing Article 34 of the Constitution (mandatoryeducation of a period of 8 years). After the protests in 1968, the Enabling Act 477 of 1973 and the implementing decrees (enabling decrees): • introduced the participation of families and students to school life; • established the boards of the school and redefined the legal status of the school personnel; • allowed the realisation of innovative experiments with the observance of the laws in force. The Nineties had a series of sectoral reforms, such as the reform of the primary school, the adoption
51 of the Consolidated Law on school regulations the establishmentof the Comprehensive Institute, and the extension of compulsory education to 10 years. Law 59/1997 introduced school autonomy (Article 21). School equality was introduced by Law 62 of 2000, which established the public education and training system, including state schools and charter schools. FROM THE MORATTI REFORMTO GOOD SCHOOL With Law 53/2003 (the Moratti reform) a new reform of the non-university educational system was introduced, restructuring: • Nursery schools; • The first school cycle (primary school and lower secondary school); • The second school cycle (secondary school divided into two subsystems, grammar schools and vocational schools). In 2015, Law 107 (the so-called Good School Law or Buona Scuola) introduced a total "Reform of the national system of education and training" to be implemented (in particular) through a series of delegated legislative acts in approval within 18 months after the Law (16 July 2015) came into force. Certain provisions entered immediately into force, which relate to: • The extraordinaryPlan to recruit about 100,000 teachers: • The transformation of the Training Offer Plan to a Three-Year Plan; • The employment by schools of new personnel; • Different procedures to evaluate the test year of new teachers; • Different system of territorial placement of in-house and supply teachers for three-year offices. NURSERY SCHOOLS AND FIRSTCYCLE NURSERY SCHOOLS REGULATIONS Nursery schools were established by Law 444 of 18 March 1968. The current nursery school is a pre- school path, recommended but not mandatory, for children from 3 to 6 years of age. The normal schedule is of forty hours per week, for five or six days, which can be extended to a maximum of fifty hours a week and reduced to no less than twenty-five hours. The sections of primary school have, usually, a number of children that is not less than 18 and not higher than 26. For children from 24 to 36 months, the spring sections can be activated, based on school projects underlying agreements between the Regional School Offices and the Regions. The National Guidelines for nursery schools are included in the National Guidelines for nursery schools and first cycle, issued in 2012.
52 PRIMARY SCHOOL The primary school is the first step of the first cycle of education. The condition to enrol in the primary school is to come to the age of 6 years. Upon registration, parents or tutors express their options regarding the weekly timetable, which includes four models: • 24 hours per week, introduced by Law 169/2008; • 27 hours per week, introduced by Legislative Decree 59/2004 (Article 7); • 30 hours per week. To the 27 hours option another 3 hours of optional activities are added, at parent's choice and based on the availability of the personnel (models 2 and 3 are derived from Law 53/2003, the so-called "Moratti reform"); • 40 hours per week (full-time), with 8 hours per day for 5 days a week, including a lunch break, the duration of which (one to two hours) is decided by the Board of the Institute at the proposal of the Board of teachers. The classes of primary schools have, usually, a number of children that is not less than 15 and not higher than 26. Teaching English language was compulsory as a result of the Law 53/2003. The weekly timetable is different depending on the year group: one hour in the first grade, two in the second, and three in the following grades. The National Guidelines for primary school are included in the National Guidelines for nursery schools and first cycle, issued in 2012. The periodic and annual evaluation of the pupil's academic performance, as well as the related certification, is expressed in grades with tenths. The evaluation of the behaviour is instead expressed via a judgement, delivered in the manner approved by the Board of teachers. Even for the Catholic religion, the assessment is made through synthetic judgement. Support teachers assigned to classes in which pupils with certified disabilities are included, participate in the evaluation of all pupils. Teachers may unanimously decide not to admit a pupil to the next grade, only in exceptional and duly motivated cases. The frequency criterion of atleastthree quarters of the customised annual timetable does notinvolve primary school. LOWER SECONDARYSCHOOL After primary school the lower secondary school, which lasts for three years, has two models of weekly timetable: • Basic timetable of 30 hours per week (normal time); • Prolonged time of 36 hours per week, which can rise to 40 hours upon authorisation of the Regional School Office. The timetable includes the time spent in the school canteen. The parents or tutors are responsible for choosing the option at the time of registration. The first classes are made up, as a rule, with no less than 18 and no more than 27 pupils, and can reach 28 in case of pupils extra registered. The teaching of two European languages was provided: the first is necessarily English, with three hours per week. The second language has two hours per week and, based on the
53 Programme of Studies, it normally provides a choice between French, Spanish or German. NATIONAL GUIDELINES FOR THE FIRSTCYCLE The National Guidelines of 2012 point out that the primary school and the lower secondary school should be able to jointly make up the first cycle of education. Hence, the choice of the vertical curriculum, built through school autonomy within the framework offered by the Specifications. The starting point is the Profile of the student, which describes the skills related to the teaching disciplines and the full exercise of citizenship that a student must have at the end of the eight years of the first cycle of education. Then, there are the curricula of disciplines (in order Italian, English and a second European community language, history, geography, mathematics, science, music, arts and image, physical education, and technology). For each of these disciplines, the learning objectives are identified: • At the end of the third grade of primary school; • At the end of the fifth grade of primary school; • At the end of the third grade of lower secondary school. PERIODIC AND FINAL EVALUATION. THE FINAL STATE EXAM IN THE FIRSTCYCLE OF EDUCATION In secondary school (lower and upper), the school year is valid when the pupil has attended at least three quarters of the customised annual timetable. The class council is responsible for the periodic and final evaluation, chaired by the head teacher or a delegate. Pupils must be assessed for each discipline and behaviour with grades expressed in tenths. Teaching Catholic religion is evaluated using synthetic judgement. In case of deficiencies in one or more disciplines, the class council may approve admission by majority. In this case, it makes a specific note in the evaluation document to call for the responsibility of the family and the student to catch up. The State exam is the sum of the activity performed by the pupil during the three years and a final verification of achieving the objectives identified by the Profile of competencies at the end of the first cycle of education, included in the National Guidelines. Admission to exam takes place after the final meeting in the third grade and consists in assigning the eligibility grade, expressed in tenths, based on the following rules: • Preliminary checks on the frequency of attendance, in order to ascertain the validity of the year (frequency of at least three quarters of the annual customised timetable); • A grade not lower than six tenths for each discipline; • A grade for behaviour of not less than six tenths; • Verification of the guiding council expressed prior to the deadline for entries to the pathways of the second cycle or EPT (education and professional training). The examination board will consist of all teachers of the third grades of the school, including support teachers. The chairman is appointed by the Regional School Office. The State exam consists in five written tests (four of the Institute and a national one) and an oral exam. The written tests of the Institute are: Italian, mathematics and science, English, and second Community language. A national written test is then added with texts chosen by the Ministry among those prepared annually by INVALSI. It
54 consists of two tests, one for Italian and one for mathematics, to be taken consecutively during one morning determined on national scale. The oral test consists in a multidisciplinary interview, taken in the presence of the entire examining subcommittee. The final mark is made up of the arithmetic average of the following grades in tenths: • The admission grade to exam; • The five grades obtained in the written tests; • The grade obtained in the oral examination. Candidates who obtain a score of ten tenths will receive honours from w commission and the decision will be taken unanimously. Graduate candidates shall be given the certificate of competencies: from 2015/2016 the model is provided by the Ministry. The certificate include the confirmation or revision of the guiding council released during the examinations. SECOND CYCLE OF EDUCATION THE EQUALSTATUS OF "EDUCATION" AND "EDUCATION ANDPROFESSIONALTRAINING" The Moratti reform stated the equal status of the two pathways after the first school cycle: the five year education by the State and the education and professional training by the Regions. Prior to the reform the professional training courses were organised as practical technical courses that lasted two years. The official legislative recognition of the two pathways meantthat the so-called second channel was implemented with objectives and cultural content, so that it was named "education and professional training" (EPT), extended to three years with the possibility to graduate in the fourth year; it allows entering the fifth year of the second cycle and gives access to the final State exam. The first two years of both channels are useful to accomplish the mandatory ten years of education. REGULATIONS OF THE UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL In line with Law 40/2007, the second cycle of education returned to the traditional structure of a "three-point system": vocational schools, technical schools, and high schools. After the reorganisation of 2010, the upper secondary school is regulated by: • P.D." (*) 87 of 15 June 2010  Regulations concerning the reorganisation of vocational schools • P.D. 88 of 15 March 2010  Regulations concerning the reorganisation of technical institutes • P.D. 89 of 15 March 2010  Regulations concerning the revision of the administrative , organisational and teaching procedure of high schools.
55 CLASS STRUCTURE The classes of the first year of study of institutes and schools of secondary and upper secondary education have, usually, no less than 27 students. As a rule, the number of intermediate classes formed is equal to that of the classes from where the students come from, provided that they have no Tess than 22 pupils. The number of terminal classes is equal to that of the Corresponding penultimate classes in the previous school year, provided that there are at least10 pupils enrolled. CLIL: TEACHING AND LEARNING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE The Content and language integrated learning, CLIL, involves the use of a foreign language as a means of learning content. CLIL was implemented in 2010 with the reorganisation of technical schools and high schools: In the last year of high schools and technical schools, the teaching of a non- linguistic discipline is taught in a foreign language. In language high schools, teaching of a non- linguistic discipline in a first language begins in the third year; from the fourth year, a second discipline is conveyed in another language. As for the vocational schools, CLIL is not provided in the Regulations, although it is possible to use the autonomy quota to consolidate the experiences already initiated. CLIL needs teachers that are prepared and who possess not only disciplinary skills, but also intercultural, linguistic and communication skills in a foreign language. THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES AND THE EUROPEAN LANGUAGE PORTFOLIO The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is the system that qualifies the skill level achieved by those who study a European language. Developed by the Council of Europe between 1989 and 1996, it distinguishes three groups of competence, mentioned below starting with the highest level: • Level C-"Mastery"; • Level B- "Autonomy"; • Level A- "Basic". Each group is divided in turn in two levels, for a total of six levels. The European Language Portfolio is the document that accompanies those who study a language in their learning path throughout their life. It consists in three different sections: the Language passport, the Linguistic biography and the Dossier. SCHOOL-WORK RELATED LEARNING The school-work related learning, or vocational learning, is a way of training 15 to 18 year olds, in order to ensure that young people acquire skills they can use in the job market. The vocational pathways are the responsibility of the school, based on the agreements with the
56 companies, associations, Chambers of Commerce, public and private institutions, professional associations, museums and other public or private institutions willing to accept the students. These pathways, which do not imply an employment, have an overall duration of: • At least 400 hours in the final three years of technical and vocational schools; • At least 200 hours in the final three years of high school. STUDENT EVALUATION For the evaluation of pupils in the second cycle schools, the rules are set by Presidential Decree 122/2009. The periodic and final evaluation is made by the class council, chaired by the head tecacher or a delegate, with decision taken, where necessary, by the majority. The support teachers, also responsible for the class and participate in the evaluation of all pupils. The evaluation of pupil's behaviour is expressed in decimals and the numeric grade is also written in letters in the evaluation document. Even in the upper secondary school, the validity of the school year is subordinated to the frequency of at least three quarters of the customised annual timetable (the Board of teachers may provide motivated and extraordinary exemptions for exceptional cases). For admission to the next class, pupils must obtain the following grades in the final exam: • The grade for behaviour of not less than six tenths; • The grade for each discipline of not less than six tenths. In the event of students who have not acquired sufficient knowledge at one or more disciplines, the class council suspends the judgement and prepares educational interventions to catch up, setting them for no later than the start date of classes of the next school year. At the end of the interventions, the class council shall verify the results obtained and shall give the final judgement which, in case of positive outcome, allows for the admission to the next class. SCHOOL CREDIT AND TRAINING CREDIT The school credit takes into account the average of the grades, the attendance record, the interest, the commitment and the behaviour, as well as any training credits. The class council gives to the pupil who is worthy, at the final exam of each of the last three years of high school, a special score: the sum of the scores obtained during the three years is the school credit that is added to the granes obtained by the candidates in the exams, The maximum credit attributable during the three year period amounts to 25 points. The training credit consists in qualified educational experience that generate skills consistent with the type of course referred to in the State Examination. THE STATE EXAMINATION The State examination is aimed to assess the knowledge and skills acquired in the last year of studies in relation to the general and specific objectives of each of the specialisations and general cultural
57 bases, as well as the critical capacity of the candidate. The examination procedures are the responsibility of the Committee, composed of a Chairman external to the school and no more than six members, of which half internal and half external to the school. The examination consists of three written tests and an interview. The firstwritten test aims at verifying the mastery of the Italian language, as well as the expression, logical and linguistic, and critical skills of the candidate. The object of the second test is one of the subjects' specific to the course of study. The third test is an expression of the school autonomy. Therefore, it is closely related to the POF adopted by each of them. It is structured in order to allow the assessmentof knowledge in a foreign language. The texts related to the first and second written tests are chosen by the Ministry. The text of the third written test is prepared by the examination board. The interview shall deal with multidisciplinary subjects related to educational programs and work of the last year. It takes place at the presence of the entire commission. A discussion on the written tests is expected to take place. At end of the State examination, each candidate shall be given a final grade expressed in cents, the result of the sum of the scores given by the examination board for the written tests (max. 45 points) and for the interview (max. 30), as well as the points for the school credit (max. 25) obtained by each candidate. The minimum score to pass the exam is 60/100. Notwithstanding the maximum score of 100, the examination board may, for worthy students, raise the score up to a maximum of 5 points. Those who obtain the maximum score of 100 points without getting the raise, subject to certain conditions, may receive the honours. Regulations of vocational schools, technical schools, and high schools VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS Vocational schools are an articulation of the second cycle of the education system. They belong to a unitary technical and professional area aimed at issuing final diplomas and they have their own regulations. They have as reference the production chains, unlike technical schools that have as reference the technological chains. The study courses at vocational schools have a duration of five years. They are divided into two-year periods and a fifth year, at the end of which students take the State examination in order to obtain the diploma of vocational education. The first two years, valid for the performance of the mandatory education, provides for each year: • 660 hours of activities and general education teachings (20 hours per week); • 396 hours of activities and mandatory specialised teachings (12 hours per week); The next two years and the last year provide for each ycar: • 495 hours of activities and general education teachings (15 hours per week); • 561 hours of activities and mandatory specialised teachings (17 hours per week); Vocational schools are divided into two sectors, each of which is divided into specialisations.
58 The industry and crafts sector is divided into two specialisations: • Industrial production and handicraft, with the branches Industryand Handicraft; • Maintenance and technical assistance. The Services sector includes four specialisations: • Services for Agriculture and Rural Development; • Health and Social Services with the related branches: Health and Social Services, Dental Services and Optical Services; • Services for food and wine and hotel services, with the following branches: Food and wine, Room services and Sales, Tourism; • Commercial services. The educational and teaching program refers to the Guidelines issued in 2010 (for the first two years) and in 2012 (for the next two years and the last year). After passing the final State examination, the graduates of vocational schools, besides the work opportunities and college enrolment opportunities, have the following options: • Short pathways of 800/1000 hours to obtain a higher technical specialisation (IFTS); • Biennial pathways to obtain a higher technical diploma in the most advanced technology areas at the Higher Technical Schools (HTS). TECHNICALSCHOOLS Technical schools provide basic technical and scientific training necessary to those who seek to enter a qualified sector in the employmentor freelance occupations market. The courses of technical schools last for five years, divided into two two-year periods and one last year, after which the students take the State examination and obtain the technical education diploma. There are 1,056 annual hours corresponding to an average of 32 hours per week. In the last year, a new technical and professional discipline is introduced, in a foreign language. The economic sector is divided into two specialisations: Administration, and marketing; tourism. The technology sector is divided into nine specialisations: Mechanics, mechatronics and energy; Transportand logistics; Electronics and electrical engineering; IT and telecommunications; Graphics and communications; Chemistry, materials and biotechnology; Fashion system; Agriculture, food processing and agro-industry; Construction, environmentand territory. In the last year of study, a foreign language is introduced in non-linguistic discipline (CLIL). The educational and teaching program refers to the Guidelines issued in 2010 (for the first two years) and in 2012 (for the next two years and the last year). After passing the final State examination, the graduates of vocational schools, besides the work opportunities and college enrolment opportunities, have the possibility to obtain a higher technical specialisation mentioned above for the vocational schools. HIGH SCHOOLS High schools provide students with cultural and methodological tools for a deeper understanding of reality, so that they are able, using a rational, creative, planning and critical attitude to face situations,
59 phenomena and problems, and acquire knowledge, skills and competencies consistent with the skills and personal choices appropriate to further follow higher studies, in order to integrate in the social life and the work market. The high school area includes six major branches, with additional internal branches: • arts high school, with six specialisations; • classical high school; • language high school; • music and dance high school, with the "music" and “dance" sections; • science high school, with the option of applied sciences and the sports high school section; • humanities high school, with the economic and social option. The high school lasts for five years and is divided into two two-year periods and a fifth year, after which the students take the State examination. The weekly timetable in the two-year period is of 27 hours, except for the high school (34 hours) and the music and dance high school (32 hours). In the following years, the hours increase based on the specialisation below In the last year of study, a foreign language is introduced in non-linguistic discipline (CLIL). The educational and teaching program refers to t National Guidelines. The educational and teaching program refers to the National Guidelines issued in 2010. EUROPEAN UNION ANDTHE SUBSIDIARITY TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF THE MEMBER COUNTRIES In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, higher education policies are decided at the level of the individual Member States. The role of the EU is therefore mainly a supporting and coordinating one. The main objectives of Union action in the field of higher education include encouraging mobility of students and staff, fostering mutual recognition of diplomas and periods of study, and promoting cooperation between higher education institutions. Legal basis EDUCATION— and in this context also higher education — was formally recognised as an area of EU competency in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The Treatyof Lisbon amending the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) did not change the provisions on the role of the EU in education and training. Under Title XII, Article 165(1) states that ‘the Union shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity’. In Article 165(2) of the TFEU, it is stated that Union action is to be aimed at ‘developing a European dimension in education; encouraging mobility of students and teachers, by encouraging, inter alia, the academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study; promoting cooperation between educational establishments; developing exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the education systems of the Member States; and encouraging the developmentof distance education’.
60 In addition, the Treaty of Lisbon contains a provision that can be described as a horizontal ‘social clause’. Article 9 of the TFEU states: ‘In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against social exclusion, and a high level of education, training and protection of human health’. Moreover, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which has the same legal value as the Treaties (Article 6 of the TEU), states: ‘Everyone has the right to education’ (Article 14). OBJECTIVES A. ‘Europe 2020’ and ‘Education and Training 2020’ The Europe 2020 strategyraised European political interest in higher education (COM(2010) 2020). Focused on ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ growth, the goals of Europe 2020 are to be achieved through more effective investment in education, research and innovation. The Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET 2020) was adopted by the European Council in May 2009[1]. It set several objectives to be reached by 2020, among them:  The proportion of 30 to 34-year-olds with tertiary educational attainment should be at least 40%;  At least 20% of higher education graduatesand 6% of 18 to 34-year-olds with an initial vocational qualification should have spent some time studying or training abroad;  At least 82% of 20 to 34-year-olds having successfully completed upper secondaryor tertiary education who left education one to three years ago should be in employment. B. The Bologna Process In addition to the Member States’ own political initiatives, the EU actively supports the priorities of the Bologna Process, which, since its inception in 1999, has worked towards more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe, culminating in the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with the Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference Declaration of March 2010. C. The renewed EU agenda forhigher education In 2017, the Commission published the ‘renewed EU agenda for higher education’ (COM(2017) 0247). It focuses on four priority areas:  Aligning skills development in higher education with the needs of the labour market;  Making higher education widely accessible and more inclusive and increasing its societal outreach;  Boosting the innovation capacityof higher education;  Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education. D. The European Education Area In May 2018, following the Gothenburg summit, the European Commission published a communication entitled ‘Building a stronger Europe: the role of youth, education and culture policies’
61 (COM(2018) 0268). This document describes the Commission’s vision of building a European Education Area, including:  A strengthened Erasmus+ programme;  The creation of at least 20 European Universities by 2024. This should contribute to the emergence of European degrees, which would be recognised throughout Europe;  The creation of a European student card to facilitate mobility;  A proposal for a Council recommendation on promoting automatic mutual recognition of higher education and upper secondaryeducation diplomas and the outcomes of learning periods abroad (COM(2018) 0270). ACHIEVEMENTS A. Erasmus+ Formally adopted in December 2013[2], Erasmus+ has the central aim of investing in education, training, youth and sport in Europe through a single integrated programme. Erasmus+ combines previously separate sectoral and transversal policies in the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP, 2007- 2013) in the fields of higher education (Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, bilateral programmes with other countries or continents), school education (Comenius), vocational education and training (Leonardo da Vinci), adult education (Grundtvig), youth (Youth in Action), and European integration studies (Jean Monnet). In addition, sport is included for the first time. Erasmus+ has a budget of EUR 14 billion, and cooperation is possible both among Member States and between Member States and third countries. Erasmus+ aims to restructure and streamline activity around three ‘key actions’ across the targeted sectors:  Learning mobility of individuals;  Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices;  Support for policy reform. Within the overarching architecture of Erasmus+, higher education assumes a central role. A minimum of 33.3% of the total budget for Erasmus+ is earmarked for higher education. Two million higher education students are expected to participate in mobility programmes during the period from 2014 to 2020. Erasmus+ not only supports the mobility of students and staff in higher education, but also funds Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees and Erasmus+ Master Loans. Since 2018, it also supports the European Universities project: following the first call, 17 European Universities involving 114 higher education institutions from 24 Member States were selected. The Commission issued its proposal for a successor programme (2021-2027) in May 2018 (COM(2018) 0367). There is no change to the overall architecture of the programme, including the three key actions already established under Erasmus+. However, it is proposed thatthe budget be doubled to EUR 30 billion as compared with the 2014-2020programming period. B. Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions(MSCA) The MSCA scheme, which is part of the EU framework programme for research and innovation 2014- 2020 (‘Horizon 2020’), supports research training and career developmentfocused on innovation skills. The programme funds worldwide and cross-sector mobility that implements excellentresearch in any field. As regards higher education, MSCA grants encourage transnational, intersectoral and
62 interdisciplinary mobility. The MSCA has become the main EU programme for doctoral training, financing 25 000 PhDs and postdoctoral research projects. In addition to fostering mobility between countries, the programme also seeks to break the real and perceived barriers between academia and other sectors, especially business. It also funds the European Researchers’ Night, a series of public events that take place across Europe each year on the fourth Friday in September to promote the work of researchers. The MSCA should not change substantially under the new EU framework programme for research and innovation 2021-2027 (‘Horizon Europe’). Role of the European Parliament Thanks to its increasing political importance over recent decades, Parliamenthas managed to exert a growing influence on the shaping of higher education policies in Europe. A. Mobility Parliament has successfully worked for an increase in the budget available for existing programmes in the field of higher education, including Erasmus+. In February 2017, it adopted a resolution on Erasmus+[3], which analyses the first years of implementation of the programme, underlines its successes, and suggests changes to improve the second partof the multiannual framework programme. For the next generation of the Erasmus+ programme, Parliament proposed tripling the budget to EUR 41 billion, thus enabling the participation of more students and greater inclusivity. Parliament also stressed the need for better cooperation with other European funding programmes and cofinancing for actions currently not funded by Erasmus+[4]. The final text of the new regulation on Erasmus+ is to be negotiated and agreed with the Council at the beginning of the 9th parliamentary term. Concerning the eventuality of a no-deal Brexit, Parliament has also played a central role with a view to securing the rights and status of young people currently partaking in an Erasmus+ exchange programme[5]. B. Links with employment Throughout the years, Parliament has always been interested in higher education and its links with employment. In 2012, Parliament adopted a resolution on modernising Europe’s higher education systems[6], calling on higher education institutions to integrate lifelong learning into their curricula and to adapt to new challenges by creating new fields of study reflecting the needs of the labour market. Following the Commission communication of 30 May 2017 on a renewed EU agenda for higher education (COM(2017) 0247), Parliament adopted, on 12 June 2018, a resolution on modernisation of education in the EU[7]: concerning higher education, this resolution calls for the creation of a European Education Area and encourages Member States to invest more in higher education and to foster cooperation between higher education, the world of work, industry, research communities and society as a whole. C. The Bologna Process Parliament has shown a long-standing interest in the consolidation and progress of the Bologna Process. In 2012, it adopted a resolution[8] stressing the importance of the Bologna reforms for the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and for the objectives set in the Europe 2020 strategy.
63 In a resolution of 28 April 2015[9], Parliament took the view that the Bologna reformscontributed to the improvement of the quality of educational systems and to the attractiveness of higher education in Europe. The Bologna Process also made higher education structures more comparable, providing quality assurance systems in the recognition of diplomas. In April 2018, Parliament adopted a resolution on the implementation of the Bologna Process[10]. It requested that the next 2018 EHEA Ministerial Conference in Paris provide a critical assessmentof the process. The resolution stressed the need to improve the social dimension of education, with concrete opportunities for access to higher education for students with disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds. It advocated accessible and equitable mechanisms for the allocation of mobility grants and allowances. It also called for the EU and the Member States to increase their education budgets in order to guarantee that public higher education is free and accessible to all. EUROPEAN UNION ANDTHE SUBSIDIARITY TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF THE MEMBER COUNTRIES THE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE COMMONEUROPEANHOME World War II ended in the spring of 1945. After the horror of the genocide and destruction, there was the determination to create the conditions for stable peace, passing from the "Europe of countries" to the "Europe of nations". In 1950, the French minister Robert Schuman proposed to put together the coal and iron resources, with the goal of doubling the production of steel and to lower its costs. The proposal consisted in abolishing the duty in the coal and steel sector. In 1951 Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlandssigned the first European Treaty, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It gave excellent results, both economically and with the cooperation between Member States in general. It was decided to pursue economic integration by implementing the customs union between the Member States, with the aim of creating the European Common Market. Continuing on the line that led to ECSC, it was decided to put together the resources for the civil applications of nuclear energy. On 25 March 1957, in Rome, the Treaties establishing two other Communities were signed: • the European Economic Community(EEC); • the European AtomicEnergy Community (EAEC), known as Euratom. The signatories were the same countries thathad joined ECSC. In 1973, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined; between 1981 and 1986, Greece, Spain and Portugal. The Member States became twelve. The eighties ended with the crisis of the “real socialism" system. The symbol was the "fall" of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). On October 3, 1990 the reunification of Germany was proclaimed. The era of the "cold war" ended. The collapse of the system hinged on the URRS opened new spaces to the Community, while the Eastern European nations returned to democracy and to marketeconomy. The Member Statesdecided to establish other common policies, besides the economic policy. The Treaty on European Union was signed in Maastricht(Netherlands) on 7 February1992. Its historic result was to set in motion the political integration process among the European states. The choice of the name "Union" indicated a willingness to give the Member States prospects of action beyond the economic aspect, toward fields where national competencies had been so far thoroughly guarded: those of the foreign policy, defence, and social policies. The European citizenship was established: whoever is a national citizen of a Member State is, therefore, a citizen of the Union. On 1 January 1995, with the entry of Austria, Finland and Sweden, the
64 Union reached fifteen states. The next goal was the adoption of the single currency, following the completion of the European Common Market. For joining the monetary union, it was required to comply with the four criteria, called the "Maastricht criteria". The introduction of the Euro took place on 1 January 2002. Today the single currency is adopted by 19 of the 28 Member States. Meanwhile, the countries that were freed from the "iron curtain" became candidates to the EU, as well as two small Mediterranean countries (Cyprus and Malta). The enlargement of the Union to the cast and south raised economic and institutional problems: economic problems: low-developmentareas were involved, which would require massive interventions for depressed areas; institutional problems: the institutions of the Community needed to be reformed since they had been created fifty years before when the Member States were only six. The accession to the EU by Eastern and South European countries saw the following steps: • in 2004: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprusand Malta; • in 2007: Bulgaria and Romania; • in 2013: Croatia. Today, there are 27 EU Member States. (2020) THE FUNCTIONING OF THE EUROPEAN UNION The functioning of the European Union is based on the founding Treaties (Rome Pactof 1957 and the MaastrichtTreaty of 1992), with the additions and integrations made by the subsequent treaties. The Member Statesof the European Union increased from only 6 States in 1957 to the current 27 countries. At the same time, from the European enthusiasm of the early decades it went to the flow back of these years, during which an unprecedented financial crisis in the post-war period has highlighted economic difficulties in large areas of the Union. In addition there are difficulties in the cohesion of the Member States due to pressure put by the out of control migration movement from Asia and Africa., Finally, the terrorist actions of Islamic extremism have led to restrictions on the fundamental freedom of movement within the Member States. The centripetal movementthat led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and to the prospects of political Union in 1992 started to fade away, in the face of the overt requirement thatthe Union solved the general problems and took charge of the particularly acute crisis in some Member States. The balance between the opposing trends entails the balance of the EU itself, being the latter based on the three principles governing the actions of the Union.  The principle of responsibility: the Union shall act only within the limits of the powers conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein.  The principle of subsidiarity: in the fields that do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and to the extent that the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can, therefore, be better achieved at Union level. In other words, the criterion that decisions are taken as close as possible to the citizens was determined, The subsidiarity principle was incorporated in the Italian Constitution with the constitutional reform of 2001.
65  The principle of proportionality reiterates that the contentand form of the Union's action shall be limited to what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties. UNION'S INSTITUTIONS The framework of the EU institutions is the result of the history of the European Communities and the complex relationship between the sovereigntyof the Member States and the powers delegated to Community bodies. For example, in the democratic States, the Parliament has legislative power, is elected by the citizens and is the choice of popular sovereignty. In the EU this is only partially valid, as the attribution of exclusive legislative powers to the Parliament would mean the loss of the equivalent power (and, thus, of the sovereignty) by the Member States. Therefore, the approval procens of the EU legislation is based on the necessary collaboration between the European Parliament and the Member States, the latter being represented in the Council's Union (called Council of Ministers). The EU institutional framework consists of seven institutions: • European Commission; • European Council; • Council of the European Union; • European Parliament; • Courtof Justice of the EuropeanUnion; • Courtof Auditors; • European Central Bank. The European Commission is composed of European commissioners, each being chosen from the leading figures of the Member State of affiliation. The Commission is the governing body of the EU, besides making the legislative proposals, it is independent from the States. The European Council brings together the Heads of State or Government of the Member States and the President of the Commission at least twice a year. The Council defines the general political directions and priorities of the Union. The Council of the Union, known as the Council of Ministers, is composed of ministers or, however, of members of the governmental structure of the Member States. It meets in different forms, depending on the issues on the agenda. The Council, together with the European Parliament, has legislative and budgetary function; it coordinates the economic policies of the Member States. The European Parliament is the parliamentary assembly of the European Union, directly elected by EU citizens every five years. It takes part in the legislative process. Depending on the procedure adopted, its role can be decisive in the adoption of the final act, or can simply express an opinion. The Courtof Justice of the European Union is the interpreter of the EU law so that it is applied equally in all Member States. Evaluates disputes between national governments and EU institutions. The Courtof Auditors is the controlling body of EU finances. Its role is to improve the financial management of the EU and to report on the use of public funds. The European Central Bank is responsible for implementing the monetary policy of those countries adopting the Euro.
66 POWERS OF THE UNION THE POWERS OF THE UNION CANBE DIVIDED INTO: • EXCLUSIVE COMPETENCIES, for which the Member States have fully devolved areas of national sovereignty (customs union; competition, single currency for the States that have adopted the Euro; trade policy with third countries); • CONCURRENTOR SHAREDPOWERS, such as internal market, agriculture and fisheries, environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, and energy. The Union is responsible for these matters the role of the States is residual: they can legislate in these fields in accordance with the decision taken by the Union or in the event that the latter did not exercise its jurisdiction; • AREAS IN WHICH THE UNION'S ACTIONTAKES PLACE IN SUBSIDIARY FUNCTION, without holding any legislative power. One of these areas is education. One cannot talk about a common European policy on education while it is correct to speak of cooperation in the field of education based on the principle of subsidiarity. EUROPEAN PROGRAMS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION THROUGHOUTLIFE Always in respect of the subsidiarity principle, the European Union supports the national education and vocational training systems. To this extent the Socrates Program was launched in order to support quality education by developing the European dimension of education. It included four actions: Comenius (school), Erasmus (university), Leonardo da Vinci (vocational training), Grundtvig (adult education). The framework for the Union was redesigned as part of the "Education and training 2020" strategy. In 2014, the Erasmus+ Program started, which continues the traditional plan in an updated framework of objectives. The eTwinning projectshould also be pointed out making possible e- twinning projects between European primary and secondary schools through an on-line platform. SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND MANAGEMENT Introduced by the Bassanini Law (59/1997), school autonomy had constitutional recognition with the rewriting of Article 117, operated by the Constitutional Law 3/2001. Article 1 of P.D. 275/1999, "Regulation laying down rules on the autonomy of educational institutions" issued in accordance with Law 59, states as follows: • the autonomy of educational institutions is a guarantee of academic freedom and cultural pluralism, and is embodied in the planning and implementation of measures for education and training aimed at developing the person; • these interventions are appropriate to the different contexts, the demand of the families and the characteristics of the pupils, in order to ensure their educational success. BESTDIMENSIONING OF SCHOOLS School autonomy lead to the rationalisation of their organisation in the territory, aimed at achieving an appropriate dimensioning that would justify the legal status of educational institutions and the management role to head teachers. In order to acquire or maintain autonomy, education institutions had to have, usually, a population between 500 and 900 pupils. Exceptions were granted in small islands, in mountain villages, in geographic areas characterised by ethnic or linguistic specificity, where the parameter was reduced to 300 pupils.
67 On the other hand it was allowed to exceed the normal parameters in areas oI high population density. The set parameters were changed with the spending review law, Law 111/2011, establishing that from year 2011/2012they would be as follows: • nursery schools, primary school and lower secondary school were compulsorily aggregated in comprehensive schools; • comprehensive schools, in orderto obtain autonomy, had to have at least 1.000pupils, reduced to 500 for the institutions located in small islands, in the mountains, and in the geographic areas characterised by linguistic specificity. However, since the competence to determine the school network on the territory belongs to the Regions, it was then established (Law 128/2013) that the school aggregation had to be operated by the Regions, respecting the contingent of school managers (thus, the number of schools that have autonomy) assigned to the territory. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT The SCHOOL MANAGER (according to Article 25 of Legislative Decree 165/2001): • has autonomous powers of management, coordination and evaluation of human resources; • ensures the executionin school of the rights constitutionally protected: freedom of education, freedom of educational choice of families, rightof pupils to learn; • can autonomously determine the supply teachers up to 10% of the personnel; • is assisted by the director of general and administrative services(d.g.a.s.) who acts in the framework of the received instructions; • deals with the labour relations in the financial agreements of the institution; • has direct responsibility as an employer related to safety at work; • has the right to process personal data (privacy protection). Everything takes place in compliance with the competencies of the governing boards. The recentlaw 107/2015 has set itself the aim of relaunching school autonomy by the reinforcementof the leading role of school managers. The following are some of the new powers given to the school manager: • establish guidelines for school activities on the basis of which the Board of teachers lays the TYPS (PTOF); • identify the personnel to be assigned with three-year tasks in the autonomy personnel roles; • give annually to deserving teachers, based on the criteria identified by the Evaluation Board, the financial reward (bonus) coming from the appropriate Ministerial reserves. THE THREE-YEAR PLANOF THE PROGRAM OF STUDIES The set of choices that help characterising the institution's educational Physiognomy is made public through the preparation of the Program of Studies introduced by the Presidential Decree 275/1999 and extended to three years by Law 107/2015, The Three-Year Program of Studies (TYPS) is the cultural and planning document of each school and it is public, so that it can be read by the families wishing to learn about the planning of the institute, The plan is prepared by the board of teachers based on the guidelines for school activities and on the management and administration decisions defined by the school manager. The plan is approved by the Board of the Institute. This document makes public the compulsory curriculum offered by the school to its students, which arises from the overall national quota and the quota reserved to schools, including the disciplines and the activities freely chosen by the single institution to enhance the cultural specificity of the territory,
68 The TYPS also indicates the extracurricular activities, the educational and organisational activities that the school adopts, the criteria for evaluation and those for the recognition of credits related to the activities carried out for the extension of the training offer, freely undertaken by the pupils and duly certified. SCHOOL NETWORKS The autonomous schools, being independent legal entities, may be subject to network agreements between schools and/or institutions of various types, either private or public (universities, associations, training institutions), for a better implementation of educational, research and development, training and updating projects. The territorial networks formed under Law 107/2015 by regional school boards for the management of the teacher personnel have a different function. They arise not from the free associative needs of the school but, first of all, from the need to: • ensure the allocation of territorial headquarters to teachers newly placed and to those who, already in place, lose their jobs and/or ask for mobility; • prepare the environment where the proposals of the school managers of the territory and the teachers' incardinated in the environment can meet, in order to implementthe school program of studies through the enhanced personnel. SYSTEM MONITORING As a result of the constitutional reform of 2001, an exclusive legislative power was attributed to the State for the following topics (Article 117): • determination of the basic levels of performances concerning civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughoutthe national territory; • general legislation on education. In the education system, tasks and responsibilities that belong to different levels intersect. In particular, if the State is responsible for the "determination of the basic levels of performances concerning civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughout the national territory" it must also check that all citizens concretely benefit from these basic levels of performance. Educational institutions are responsible for the rights of the students, primarily for their educational success, as part of the Specifications received Pod allocated resources, developing the TYPS and collaborating with the Central Administration in verifying the efficiency of the system. INVALSI is the research institute that performs the evaluation of the education system based on the specific ministerial directives, operating as a body of the national evaluation system established by Presidential Decree 80/2013. The evaluation of the learning levels of the students from each school is performed by testing, at national level, the knowledge and skills acquired al specific times during the training: the second and fifth grade of primary school, third grade of lower secondary school, second and fifth grade of upper secondary school. The tests include the Italian language and mathematics, to be assessed in line with the learning objectives defined by the National Guidelines. INVALSI also ensures Italy's participation in international surveys, enabling a closer connection between their results and the results of national surveys.
69 SCHOOL COMMUNITYAS A PLACE OF PARTICIPATION: THE SCHOOL'S GOVERNINGBODIES In the system outlined by Law 477/1973, all governing administrative bodies of the schools have a governing bodyrepresenting the internal personnel (directors, teachers, non-teaching personnel) and users (parents and students). In particular, each single school, has: • the School or association board; • the Board of teachers; • Board of intersection, interclass and class; • the Committee forthe evaluation of teachers; • students' and parents assemblies. The powers of the governing bodies are regulated by the Consolidated Law on education (Legislative Decree 297/1994, Articles 5-15). With the exception of the Board of teachers, all the governing bodies are elected by the school. The operating rules of the school's governing bodies are established through the Regulations approved by the school board, with reference to the model issued by the Ministry with C.M. 105/1975. SCHOOL OR ASSOCIATION BOARD The Association board (in primary schools) or School board (in secondary schools) is an elective body that has orientation functions, while the school manager is responsible for the management of the school and personnel. It consists of the school manager (who is a member by right) and the elected representativesof: • the students' parents; • the teaching and non-teaching personnel; • the students in upper secondary school. The School or the Association board, summoned by its chairman, is the meeting place of the institution and the society of the territory in which the school operates. Within the institute, the Council is the interlocutor of the Board of teachers: if the latter lays down the educational and teaching program and the Three-Year Program of Studies, the Council decides upon the proposals of the Board concerning the program of studies and the organisational and financial support for its implementation. Therefore, it has the power to decide in the following key areas: • approval the Three-Year Program of Studies; • organisation and planning of school activities; • approval of the annual budget; • adoption of regulations, with particular reference to the responsibilities arising from the obligations of supervision of minor pupils and to the regulation of discipline in the secondary school; • approval of the school diary.
70 The Board elects an Executive council among its members, with technical tasks such the preparation of documents for financial management. These documents are: • the annual program, namely the budget, which is prepared by the school manager and presented for approval to the School board by the Executive council, with the regular accounting advice of the auditors; • the final account, consisting in the financial account and the assets account. It is prepared by the Director of general and administrative services, submitted by the school manager to the auditors and approved by the School board. BOARD OF TEACHERS The Board of teachers is chaired by the school manager and composed by all membersof the teaching personnel on duty in the school. The manager appoints as secretary one of the supply teachers. The Board of teachers has the power to decide with regard to a series of subjects; it can propose others; it is also an electorate body. The areas for which it takes decisions are as follows: • educational operation of the institute, in particular educational and teaching planning, as well as pupil evaluation; • periodic review of the overall teaching activity; • adoption of textbooks; • promotion of experimentation initiatives; • promotion of updating initiatives for teachers; planning and implementation of initiatives to support students with disabilities or with learning difficulties, the integration of foreign students, the follow up of pupils with learning difficulties. It makes proposals to the school manager, taking into account the criteria approved by the School board, for the following aspects: • formation and composition of classes; • assignment of teachers to each class: • preparation of the timetable. It is an electoral board when it elects two teachers in the Evaluation council and when it appoints the teachers responsible for the instrumental functions to TYPS. The activity of the Board of teachers intersects with that of the School board, which is distinguished by a different general competence. A significant paradigm of cooperation between the two bodies is the construction of the TYPS, developed by the Board of teachers and approved by the School board. The recent Law 107/2015 has assigned to the school manager the task to provide the Board in advance with the "specialisations for the school's activities and the management and administration choices". INTERSECTION, INTERCLASS AND CLASS BOARDS The terms Board of intersection (nursery schools), Board of interclass (primaryschool) and Board of class (secondary schools) mean the related teachers' meetings, integrated atspecific times by the parents and students (in the upper secondary school), annually elected as representatives of their respective components. The boards come together in two different ways:
71 • by presence of the teachers: for educational coordination and periodic and final evaluation; • by presence of the teachers and the class representatives elected by the parents (and by the students in upper secondary school). Their tasks are to promote educational collaboration, to assess the overall performance of the learning activity, to approve educational projects for the class and to propose the annual plan of visits and educational trips, and to issue an opinion on the adoption of textbooks. COMMITTEE FOR THE EVALUATIONOF TEACHERS The Committee for the evaluation of teachers has three functions: • to identify the criteria on which the school manager assigns a bonus to reward deserving teachers: •express its opinion on the new teacher at the end of the test-training year • evaluate the performance (for a maximum period of three years) of the teachers who request it. The Council lasts in office for 3 years. It is chaired by the school manager and it is composed as follows: • three teachers of the school, two of which are chosen by the Board of teachers and one by the School board; • two representatives of the parents, for nursery schools and for the first cycle of education; one representative of the students and one representative of the parents, for the second cycle of education, chosen by the School board; • an external member chosen by the Regional School Office among the teachers, school managers and technical managers. In its full composition the Council has the function of determining the criteria for the enhancement of teachers. The school manager takes into account those criteria at the end of the year when he must identify the teachers deserving to receive the bonus from the appropriate ministerial fund. When the Council expresses its opinion on the passing of the training and testing period for the teaching and educational personnel, it meets in a technical and evaluative composition, consisting in the presence of the school manager, who chairs the meeting, the three teachers of the school, and it is integrated by the teacher who is given the role of tutor. MEETINGS OF PARENTS AND STUDENTS The decrees of 1974 gave the parents of the pupils and students in secondary school the opportunity to meet in class or school assemblies, as well as to make a council composed of the representatives elected in the intersection, interclass or class boards. THE TEACHER: LEGAL STATUS ANDCONTRACTPROFILE ACADEMIC FREEDOM Article 1 of the Consolidated Law sets outthe constitutional principle (Article 33) of academicfreedom, stating that: • it is exercised in accordance with the constitutional law and the legal system of the school; • it aims to promote the full development of the student's personality
72 through an open exchange of cultural positions; • this promotion action is implemented in compliance with the moral and civil conscience of the pupils. Academic freedom is a guarantee for the teacher against constraints or conditioning by the public authorities. In this sense, academic freedom is recognised as an individual right of the teachers. RIGHTS OF THE STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES Academic freedom is not an end in itself, but a tool for the realisation of the freedoms and rights of the students: foremost, their right to education. The aim of the school autonomy is to achieve the educational success of students (P.D. 275/1999, Article 1). Article 29 of the Constitution recognises the rights of the family as "natural society founded on marriage" and Article 30 claims that it is the duty and right of parents to support, raise and educate their children. It follows that: • the task of the democratic State (compared to the absolute State) is not to educate but to put families in the position to educate their children; • the school is given the task to develop and implement the educational and teaching program; the family is partner of the school. The school manager is responsible for the promotion in school of the constitutionally protected rights (Article 25, Legislative Decree 165/2001). ROLE OF THE TEACHER Article 395 of the Consolidated Law 297/1994 outlines the characteristics of the role of the teacher, as the basic provider of: • transmission of culture; • contribution to the elaboration of culture; • encouragement of students to participate in this process and in the human and critical development of their personality. TRIAL PERIOD OF THE TEACHING PERSONNEL Provisions are set by Article 438 of the Consolidated Law, as supplemented by par. 115 of Law 107/2015. After the trial period, there is the service period for at least one hundred and eighty days, of which at least one hundred and twenty carried out in educational activities. During the test year, the teacher follows a path of training at work, by means of: • professional assistance at school, given by a teacher appointed by the school manager, after hearing the opinion of the Board of teachers, having the appropriate qualifications and skills (the tutor); • 50 hours of training. At the end of the school year, the teacher tested is evaluated by the school manager, after having heard the Evaluation Board, based on the investigation of the tutor teacher (Law 107/2015, Article 1, par. 117). On the basis of these evaluations and of any other element acquired, the manager can decide whether to: • confirm the role, in case of a positive outcome; • ask for a repetition of the test year, in case of a negative outcome due to failure to achieve the necessary service days or due to a negative evaluation of the test year. This will lead to an
73 unrenewable second period of training and testing. WORKING HOURS OF TEACHERS Teacher's working hours is a subject regulated by contract (Articles 28 and 29). The National Collective Labour Agreement provides for the weekly mandatory hours of instruction: • 25 hours for nursery schools; • 22 hours for primary school, plus 2 hours dedicated to educational planning; • 18 hours for secondary schools. The same agreement defines the obligations for the activities needed for teaching, classifying them into five areas: • individual work for preparing the lessons, correction of papers and individual relations with the families; • collective activities for which up to 40 hours a year are needed in order to attend meetings of the Board of teachers and to carry out the tasks set in its reunions; • activities of the class councils for which up to 40 hours per year are needed; • performance of the exams and final exams (without quantification); • in order to ensure reception and supervision of pupils, the teachers are required to be in class 5 minutes before the classes start and to assist the students out at the end. Teachers' activities not related to teaching are planned in the annual program of activities, suggested by the school manager and directly connected to the TYPS. SPECIAL TASKS It is expected that the teacher will receive special assignments for the collaboration with the school manager or for the coordination of the areas of activity in the TYPS: • collaborators are selected by the school manager for organisation and teaching roles; • the instrumental functions to the TYPS are identified by resolution of the Board of teachers. THE RIGHT AND DUTY TO CULTURAL AND PROFESSIONAL UPDATING Defined by the National Collective Labour Agreement as functional to teaching activities, the training of teachers is defined by Law 107/2015 as mandatory, permanent and structural. It is programmed by the Board of teachers in line with the TYPS, with the results from the improvementprograms of schools, as well as with the priorities outlined in the National Education Plan adopted by the Ministry. As established by Law 107/2015 in-house teachers can use an Electronic Card charged with an amount of 500 euro to pay for the purchase of study on work tools or as a contribution for the registration in schools offering updating and training courses. INCOMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES The Constitution states that public employees are exclusively at the service of the State (Article 38): hence, the prohibition to carry out other activities. However, employees that choose a part-time not exceeding 50% of the full time, can have a second job. As for the teachers, the TU of the school provides for the possibility of private lessons to pupils of other institutions, as long as the head of the school is informed. It also provides that a full-time
74 teacher can practice the profession with permission of the school manager. RESPONSIBILITYOF THE TEACHER CONCERNING MINOR PUPILS Article 2048 of the Civil Code provides that "tutors and those who teach a profession or craft are responsible for the damage caused by the unlawful act of their students and apprentices while these are under their supervision. The persons referred to in the previous paragraphs are freed from responsibility only if they prove not to have been able to prevent the incident." The teaching personnel of the schools, both private and public, falls within the definition of "tutors". The responsibility, called culpa in vigilando, is exonerated only if the teacher proves that he/she could not avoid the incident, i.e. has the burden of proof with the presumption of guilt against him. The School board, on the initiative of the school manager, issues a regulation laying down the procedures for exercising the supervision of pupils at all times during the activities contemplated by the TYPS. DISCIPLINARYRESPONSIBILITY OF THE TEACHER The disciplinary responsibility rises whenever the employee breaches his obligations of behaviour. At present, the teacher is subject to the general rules on public employment, as indicated by Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Article 55-bis and following articles), and the special regulations as indicated by the TU of the school. The latter (Article 492 and following articles) provides the correspondence between specific disciplinary offences and the related penalties. The disciplinary procedure is activated by the school manager or, in severe cases, by the Regional School Office at the request of the school manager. The procedure involves the following steps: • written notice of objections; • Call to defence • conclusion of the disciplinary procedure. If the employee’s excuses are accepted the procedure is dismissed. A penalty shall be imposed in other cases. STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS LAW 104 OF 1992 AND THE GUIDELINES OF 2009 In line with Law 104/1992 "a handicapped person is a person with a physical, mental or sensory impairment, stable or progressive, which leads to learning, relationship or work integration difficulties and the outcome is a process of social disadvantage or marginalisation". In the definition above, the terms impairment, difficulty, and disabled are placed in sequential correlation: from an impairment, a certain difficulty may arise, which can lead to a disability. The Guidelines for the school integration of students with disabilities, issued by the Ministry in 2009, are a collection of guidelines meant to improve the integration process of pupils with disabilities. THE RIGHT TO EDUCATIONOF STUDENTS WITH CERTIFIED DISABILITIES Guideline (P.D. 24 February 1994, as amended) entrusts the Medical Colleges of Local Health Units or Hospitals pointed out by the different Regions for their territories, the competence for the certification of the disabled. In order to ensure the personalisation of the education pathways the following documents need to be drafted:
75 • the functional diagnosis for which the medical specialists are responsible; • the functional dynamic profile, a result of the collaboration between the medical specialist staff and the teachers of the Class council; • the Individualised Education Plan (IEP) which describes the integrated and balanced actions to implement in order to guarantee the right to education and training to pupils with disabilities. It is drafted by the Class council. The first classes enrolling pupils with disabilities have no more than 20 pupils, provided that the need for such a number is substantiated in relation to the training requirements. For a successful inclusion in the class of disabled pupils, Law 517/1977 established support places to be assigned to specialised teachers. Pupils with special needs are assessed following the individualised path laid down by their IEP. The Work Group of the Institute for Disability (WGID) is the place in which coordination of the activities and services in favour of the pupils with disabilities is realized. SPECIFICLEARNING DISABILITIES The abbreviation SLD includes disorders characterised by deficits in perception, in the production of messages or in other intellectual performances in subjects without intellectual disabilities. These disorders are mainly: • Dyslexia: reading and learning disorder; • Dysgraphia: learning and writing difficulty: in the latter case, it is usually defined as Dysorthography; • Dyscalculia: difficulty in performing scriation and computing operations. The Law 170/2010 has set up specific pathways to support the right to education of the persons with SLD. In 2011, the Guidelines for the right to education of pupils and students with SLD were issued. The diagnosis of the SLD is the responsibility of the specialists of the National Health Service. To this end, the school makes prcliminary observations and performs screening actions on all pupils. The parents of the pupils who, over time, confirm having major difficulties, will receive a written communication (describing the difficulties encountered) which contains an invitation to address the CNP (child neuropsychiatry). The programming tool for the student with SLD is called Customised Teaching Program (CTP). It needs to be drawn, with the approval of the family, by the first quarter of the year and provides for the adoption of compensatory measures, dispensatory measures, as well as personalised methods of verification and evaluation. FOREIGNSTUDENTS Foreign students who live in Italy were granted the right and duty to education in the same way as Italian citizens, regardless of their right to remain in the country (P.D. 394/1999). The document of the Ministry on the pedagogy of integration was issued by M.C. 24 of 1 March 2006 on the accompanying Guidelines for acceptance and integration of foreign students. It is prohibited to establish classes in which foreign students are dominant. The purpose of the legislation is integration, and not separation: the M.C. no. 2 of 8 January 2010 specifies not to exceed 30% of the foreigners
76 enrolled in each class. The evaluation of foreign students, in particular those newly arrived in Italy (NAI), poses several types of problems. If it is necessary to take into account the Individual learning path and give time to allow insertion in a totally different environment, it is also necessary to consider that the Italian school system is founded on the legal value of qualifications. Therefore, a set of skills, properly certified and useful to the individual for the continuation in the studies and tor employment corresponds to a diploma. At the time of final evaluation for admission to the next class or to the State exams at the end of the education courses, the legal criterion is provided by Presidential Decree 122/2009, of which Article 1 (paragraph 9) states that they are evaluated in the same form and manner provided for Italian citizens. PUPILS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS (SEN) By Directive of 27 December 2012, the Ministry of Education has adopted from the Anglo-Saxon pedagogy the general profile of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) to plan the activities for students with academic problems. The Directive outlines the overall framework of the students with SEN. proposing their classification into three "sub-categories": • Disability, (whose right to education is protected by law 104/1992; • Specific learning disabilities (SLD), whose right to education is protected by law 170/2010; • The socio-economic, linguistic, and cultural disadvantage. While the identification of the students of the first two groups is the responsibility of the services for child neuropsychiatry (CNP) by certification of the disability or the SLD diagnosis, the task of identifying the educational needs of the students of the third "sub-category" and building the customisation pathways (CP) is entrusted to the Class councils (in nursery schools and primary school, to the team of teachers). Pupils with SEN are identified based on the objective evidence (reports of social workers, traumatic events in their personal life or in the family) or appropriate pedagogical and didactic considerations. The related CP are temporary. ANNUAL PROGRAMME FOR INCLUSIVENESS (API) The M.C. no. 8/2013 has extended the tasks of the Work Group of the Institute for Disability (WGID) to the issues related to all SEN, giving them the new name of Work Group for inclusion with the capabilities of detecting SEN presentin the school and coordinating activities. The aim is to draw up a proposal for the Annual Program for Inclusiveness (API) reported for all pupils with SEN, for the best use of the resources to increase the school's level of general inclusiveness. The API is approved by the Board of teachers as part of the Programme of Studies. THE STATE REGULATION. THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH THE CONSTITUTION In the Constitution, which came into force on 1 January 1948, the Republic is mentioned as the "container" of territorial institutions (Article 114: "The Republic is made up of Municipalities, Provinces,
77 Metropolitan Cities, Regions and the State"). Social formations (Article 2) are recognised: associations (Article 18), religion (Article 19), family (Articles 29-31), school (Articles 33-34), trade unions (Article 39), and political parties (Article 49), Therefore, the Republic is the framework of co-existence of the legal fundamentals to which the Italian citizen is called upon to exercise its own rights and duties. THE STARTOF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN 2015 During the seventeenth legislature, the bill for Constitutional reforn was being approved. First of all, the bill provides in overcoming the two-party chamber system, assigning different tasks, to the Chamber and Senate: • The first is responsible for the trust relationship with the Government, continuing to exercise the political, legislative and supervision function of the Government's actions; • The Senate will represent the local institutions, contributing to the performance of the legislative function only in cases established by the reform. The new Senate will be composed of ninety-five senators representing the local institutions and five senators appointed by the President of the Republic. The following exposition refers to the constitutional regulations provided by the Constitution in force, pending the approval and entry into force of the constitutional reform (Bill C. 2613-D). THE PARLIAMENT Parliament is the expression of popular sovereignty. It is made up of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, elected for five years. Both legislative assemblies have the same functions (perfect bicameralism). Parliamentary committees are bodies of each Chamber, composed of deputies and senators that represent, proportionally, the political forces. The most importantfunction carried out is to analyse the bills, which must be ready before their discussion the whole-house. There are three functions carried out by the Parliament: the legislative function, the control function over the Government and the political function. The Constitution provides, however, that the exercise of the legislative function may be delegated to the Government by determining the principles and the criteria, for a limited period of time and for specific objects. When, in cases of necessity and urgency, the Government adopts, under own responsibility provisional measures having the force of law, it must present them the same day for conversion to the Chambers. The decrees lose effect from their approval if they are not converted into law within sixty days from their publication. THE GOVERNMENT The Government is a constitutional body made up of the Prime Minister and the ministers, which together make up the Council of Ministers. The form of Government provided for in the Constitution is parliamentary because the Government is issued by the Parliament. The Government objectifies its activities in the political leadership function of the State: • With the tools of the government program, the draft legislation implementing the government program, the decree-laws and the decrees;
78 • Exercising the executive power, i.e. administrative functions by the Public Administration, in compliance with the recognised autonomy. THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH AND ITS TERRITORIAL BRANCHES The Ministries are thirteen: one of them is the Ministry of Education, University and Research. The central level of the Ministry of Education is organised in three Departments: • The Department for the education and training system; • The Department for higher education and research; • The Department for programming and management of human, financial and instrumental resources. In eachRegional capital there is a Regional School Office (RSO). Their total number is eighteen, as they are present in all Regions, with the exception of Valle d'Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige. The main task of the RSOS is the allocation of human and financial resources to the single autonomous schools, based on quotas determined by the Ministry. Usually, the RSOS include: • provincial branches (before school autonomy, these were called Education authorities); • sub-provincial branches, intended to be the place of teachers named in function with the new rules: such areas (of forthcoming establishment) have been established by law 107/2015. THE JUDICIARY After the Parliament and the Government, the Judiciary is "third power", autonomous and independent of the State. The Judiciary represents all bodies of civil, criminal and administrative justice that exercise judicial power or judicial function. The purpose of the judicial function (from the Latin ius dicere) is to declare the law to be applied in controversial situations and force the recipients to submit to the decision. The ordinary jurisdiction is divided into criminal and civil. The Superior Council of Judiciary is the governing body of the judiciary order and is autonomous and independent from all other powers. SPECIAL COURTS They deal with special disputes in accordance with a specialisation criterion. Article 103 of the Constitution identifies the following special jurisdictions: • Administrative jurisdiction (Regional Administrative Courts; State Council on appeal); • Accounting jurisdiction (Court of Auditors); • Military jurisdiction (Military Courts). THE PRESIDENTOF THE REPUBLIC
79 The President of the Republic is an autonomous and independentconstitutional body. His duties include: • Acting as a guardian of the Constitution; • Controlling and connecting the constitutional bodies of the State; • Representing the State and national unity, He is elected by the Parliament in joint session of its members. He remains in office for seven years. TERRITORIAL AUTONOMIES OF THE REPUBLIC THE TERRITORIAL AUTONOMIES Article 5 of the Constitution states that the "Republic, one and indivisible, acknowledges and promotes local autonomies, implements the fullest measure of administrative decentralisation to the services that depend on the State; adjusts the principles and methods of its legistation to the requirements of autonomyand decentralisation". Article 114 states that the "Republic is composed of the Municipalities, Provinces, Metropolitan Cities, Regions and the State". THE REGIONS The Regions are autonomous bodies that make up the Republic. They are divided into: 1. Ordinary regions, uniformly disciplined by Section V of the Constitution; 2. Special Statute Regions, governed by specific rules contained in the constitutional laws. The 5 Regions with a Special Statute are Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Valle d'Aosta/Vallee d'Aoste. LEGISLATIVE AUTONOMY OF THE REGIONS following the constitutional reform of 2001, the new article 117 distinguishes three types of legislative power: • Exclusive legislative power of the State, to determine the basic levels of performances relating to civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughoutthe national territory; • Concurrent legislative power or power shared between the State and the Regions. The State determines the fundamental principles through by-laws and the Regions issue the sector-specific legislation; • Residual legislative power of the Regions on matters are obtainable by exclusion. LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATE AND REGIONS IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM Among the matters subject to the exclusive legislative power of the State, Article 117, par. 2, point n) mentions the general education standards. Among the matters with concurrent legislative power,
80 Article 117, par. 3, states that "Education, exceptthe autonomy of educational institutions, and except the vocational education and training" (which is a matter of exclusive legislation of the Regions). Annually, the Regions deliberate the programming plan of the training offer and the dimensioning of the school network. They can also delegate to Provinces and Municipalities specific skills or parts thereof, implementing the principle of subsidiarity. REGIONAL BODIES Regional bodies are: • The President of the Region. Represents the Region, manages the policy of the Regional Committee and is responsible for it, promulgates laws and issues regional regulations; • The Regional Committee, the executive body of the Region; • The Regional Council, elected every 5 years. It exercises legislative power. THE PROVINCES The Province is a constitutive body of the Republic and is defined by Article 3, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree 267/2000 as an "intermediate local authority between the Municipality and the Region, represents the community, takes care of its interests, promotes and coordinates its development". In the education system, the Provinces have the following key competencies: • prepare the provincial plan of educational institutions on the territory; • provide the buildings, furnishings and every organisational tool necessary for the operation of the secondaryschools; • organize the school transportnetwork. After the reform of 2014 (Law 56), the Provincial Councils are no longer directly elected. The draft Constitutional reform, currently in approval, provides for the abolition of the Provinces. THE MUNICIPALITIES The Municipality, constitutive body of the Republic, is defined by Article 3, od Legislative Decree 267/200 as “local authority representing the community, it takes care of its interests and promotes development”. In the education system the Municipalities have the following competences: • Provide buildings, furniture and equipment to nursery schools and primary schools; • Define the school assistance plan and the right to education, including, bonuses for worthy, capable, destitute and disabled students, • Provide for the public transport network; • Ensure compliance with the education obligation. METROPOLITAN CITIES They are autonomous local authorities, reformed by Law 6/2014, whose territory coincides with that of the homonymous Province. They have been created in the 10 largest cities on the national territory:
81 Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Bari, Naples and Reggio Calabria, plus Rome, the Capital, with special regulations, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE CONSTITUTIONAND LAW The Constitution devotes to the Public Administration Articles 97, 98 and 28: • Article 97 "Public offices are organised according to the law, so they ensure the good performance and impartiality of the administration (.); • Article 98 "Public employees are exclusively at the service of the State (.); • Article 28 "The officials and employees of the State and public entities are directly responsible, according to criminal, civil and administrative laws, for the actions committed by breaching of rights () THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION The principles of administrative action are set forth in Law 241/1990, Article1. The administrative activity: • Follows the purposes determined by law; • Is governed by the criteria of economy, efficiency, advertising and transparency: • Is also governed by the principles of European law. Another fundamental principle is set out in Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Consolidated Law of public employment) of which Article 4 assigns to the government bodies the functions of political- administrative nature, as well as the verification of the compliance of the operating results with the directions issued while executives adopt the acts and administrative measures, as well as the financial, technical and administrative management (separation between politics and management). ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES The administrative act consists of any manifestation of will, knowledge or judgement (or mixed), put in place by the Public Administration in the exercise of its functions. A particular category of administrative act is the administrative measure, the final act of an administrative procedure and has authority, which consists in unilateral changes to the legal position of the recipient. The essential elements of the administrative measure are: • The emanating subject: competentadministrative authority; • The recipient subject: the public or private entity against which the effects of the measure are produced; • The form: generally written form, although in some legal procedures, the inertia of the public administration (administrative silence) has a legal meaning; • The object; the administrative actmust relate to a specific object, consisting in a behaviour, a fact, a good, a performance.
82 TYPES OF ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES They can be: • Measures of public law or real administrative measures: in cases where the law assigns to the public administration the ruling authority; • Measures of private law, where law makes the public administration operate on equal footing with other subjects. In turn, measures of public law can bc: • Bound measures: the public administration is subject to mandatory rules; • Discretionary measures: the decision is issued after the assessment of the interests involved and with motivation of volition. The certifications are administrative measures that recognise factual situations. The opinions are expressed by the advisory bodies based on the issuance of the executive decree or the resolution of the competent school body and may be mandatoryor optional; binding or non-binding. SUBJECTIVE LAW AND LEGITIMATE INTEREST With regard to public administration, legal entities can claim positions of: • Subjective law: power of a person to assert their interest recognised by law in a direct way and, therefore, protected by recourse to ordinarycourts; • Legitimate interest: expectation of the legality of administrative action, protected by recourse to the administrative courts. RULES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE It is essential that the action of the public administration takes place according to certain and transparent rules that provide: • The obligation to conclude, through the adoption of an express measure; • The obligation to state reasons, in reference to the factual and legal reasons that led to the decision; • The appointmentof the person in charge of the procedure. There is an obligation to determine and organisational unit responsible for the investigation and the name of the person in charge of the procedure; • The right of access, in order to encourage participation and ensure impartiality and transparency. THE FAULTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES The administrative measure issued without the respect of the rules governing the procedure and the competence is vitiated and can be invalidated. An administrative measure is totally null only when such consequence is indicated by the law, basically, when one of the essential elements is missing. On the other hand the measure is invalid when there is a partial legitimacy or merit fault. In this case the addressee must claim its invalidity by carrying out the administrative remedies: "the administrative measure adopted in breach of the law or is vitiated by an abuse of power or incompetence shall be
83 cancelled" (Article 21-octies, Law 15/2005). ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS AND JUDICIAL REMEDIES Normally, issued administrative measures are conclusive of a given procedure. The citizen who thinks his legitimate interests were prejudiced, can resort to: • Administrative appeals addressed the bodies of the same public administration that has issued the administrative measure (requestof objection, hierarchical appeal, extraordinary appeal to the Head of State); • Judicial appeals before the Regional Administrative Courts (RAC) and, on appeal, the State Council. The decision on the administrative appeal may be rejected by ruling, when the appeal is declared inadmissible, unacceptable or barred to proceed without the judge entering the merits of the objection raised; or, the decision is on the merits, when the appeal is upheld or rejected. THE EMPLOYMENTRELATIONSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THE EMPLOYMENTRELATIONSHIP OF PUBLICEMPLOYMENT The employment relationship is the legal relationship which originates from the employment contract, characterised, on the one hand, by the obligation of the employee to perform his working activity and, on the other hand, by the obligation of wage payment by the employer who, in the public sector, is a Public Administration. Following the entry into force of Decree 29/1993, the public work has been privatised, i.c. attributed to the regulation of the Civil Code. The basic principles of labour discipline for the employees of Public Administration are specified in the Constitution (Articles 3, 35-40, 51-52, 54, and 97-98). Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Consolidated Law of public employment) states that the employment relationships in the Public Administrations are governed by contracts entered into between the representative trade unions of workers and the different administrations divided by areas of negotiation and represented by the Agency for Collective Labour Negotiations in the public administrations. COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATION Collective negotiation takes place on all matters relating to employment and labour relations (Article 45, Legislative Decree 165/2001). Collective negotiations, in line with Article 40 of Legislative Decree 165/2001, leadsto the approval of the following documents: • the national collective agreementframework (NCAF) lays down the rules of negotiation valid throughout the public administration, setting the sections, contractual areas, the rights and union prerogatives; • the supplementary national collective agreement (SNCA) concerns the single Administrations detailing the delegated matters by the related national collective negotiation agreement; In the school sector, the regional supplementarycontract (RSC) regulates the matters expressly
84 provided for in the national collective agreement at the level of a single USR, while the integrative school agreementdefines all other aspects. INTEGRATIVE SCHOOL AGREEMENT In school agreement, the public party is represented by the school manager, while the RSU is the body representing trade unions that, in the fields reserved to integrative bargaining, represents the personnel of the autonomous school. The RSU is accompanied by representatives of the local trade union organisations that signed the national agreement. In 2009, following the entry into force of Legislative Decree 150, the school managementwas responsible for "determining the organisation of the offices and the measures related to the management of labour relations". Consequently, the matters subject to collective negotiation were reduced to: • Application of trade union rights and setting the contingencies in service in case of strike to ensure the minimum services required by law 146/1990; • Implementation of the legislation on safety in the workplace; Criteria for the allocation of the school fund and for the recognition of the personnel in the activities paid from this fund. SCHOOL FUND (SF) The most complex matter of bargaining is the SF, funded by the resources of the national collective agreement. Its purpose is the assignment of extra compensations for the school personnel, in order to support the process of school autonomy and, in particular, the qualification and the expansion of the training offer. In accordance with Article 88 of the 2007 agreement, the activities of the teachers that can be paid from the school fund are those related to the different educational, organisational, research and evaluation requirements, in collaboration with the school manager, also with flat-rate remuneration. Other activities that can be funded by the SF are: • Extra hours for the replacement of teachers absent for short periods; • Instrumental functions to POF conferred to teachers identified by the board; • Specific tasks attributed to ATA personnel; • Personnel working on projects in "risk areas". Allowance payable to the director of general and administrative services (DGAS). Financial allocations for the above activities are communicated by the Ministry to the single institution at the beginning of each school year.

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APPENDIX.docx

  • 1.
    1 LEARNING THEORIES ANDEDUCATIONALPSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIOURISM is a theory of learning that has been developed in psychology, especially in America, and it comes from the English term behaviour. The behavioural model is based on the idea that learning occurs through stimuli received by the subject from the environment. Once the subject receivesthe stimuli, he/she provides the answers or certain behaviours. What happens in the mind and what determines the response to a given stimulus is not the subject of the study. The focusof observation of behaviourists is rather to try to associate a person to a response to a given stimulus in a stable manner. In this way, the response of the subject to the stimulus is observable and can be studied scientifically. If it is stable, it can be said that the subject has learned to respond in a certain manner to the stimulus. Therefore, learning has occurred. THE MAINPRINCIPLES OF BEHAVIOURISM Pavlov was the first to carry outhis research on the connection between stimulus, response and conditioning, distinguishing an unconditional stimulus and response from conditional stimulus and response, i.e. induced from outside. The interest of Watson and Thorndike also focuses on the conditioning processesfrom which learning derives. In particular, Thorndike formulated the learning hypothesis based on trial and error. In order to reach a certain target, different behaviours are adopted, in sequence and in an almost random manner, until the behaviour considered satisfactory to reach the purpose has been identified. Skinner outlines two typesof behaviour: - the respondentbehaviour, which follows the paradigm stimulus-response and which can be defined as a behaviour induced by an external stimulus that generates a response in the subject; - the operative behaviour model in which the subject, even without special stimuli from outside, adopts a certain behaviour in order to receive rewarding effect thatcould be called positive reinforcement. Albert Bandura has formulated the theoryof social learning, which is of a behaviourist type. Through a series of experiments, Bandura established that an aggressive model tends to be justified and imitated by children when they are in a state of irritation. These results open the door to the concept of observational learning (or vicarious learning), a type of learning that is different from the paradigm of stimulus-response-reinforcement and occurs through the observation of a pattern of behaviour. APPENDIX EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCO-PEDAGOGICAL COMPETENCES AND BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE EDUCATIONSYSTEM
  • 2.
    2 Behaviourism  refersto a psychological approach which emphasizes scientific and objective methods of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, and states all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment. The behaviourist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote an article entitled 'Psychologyas the behaviourist viewsit,' which set out a number of underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioural analysis:  All behaviour is learned from the environment: Behaviourism emphasizes the role of environmental factors in influencing behaviour, to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors. This amounts essentially to a focus on learning. We learn new behaviour through classical or operantconditioning (collectively known as 'learning theory'). Therefore, when born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate).  Psychology should be seen as a science: Theoriesneed to be supported by empirical data obtained through careful and controlled observation and measurementof behaviour. Watson (1913) stated that: 'Psychologyas a behaviourist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control.' (p. 158). The components of a theory should be as simple as possible. Behaviourists propose the use of operational definitions (defining variables in terms of observable, measurable events).  Behaviourism is primarilyconcerned with observable behaviour, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion: While behaviourists often accept the existence of cognitions and emotions, they prefer not to study them as only observable (i.e., external) behaviour can be objectively and scientifically measured. Therefore, internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioural terms (or eliminated altogether).  There is little difference between the learning that takesplace in humans and that in other animals: There's no fundamental (qualitative) distinction between human and animal behaviour. Therefore, research can be carried out on animals as well as humans (i.e., comparative psychology). Consequently, rats and pigeons became the primary source of data for behaviourists, as their environments could be easily controlled.  Behaviour is the result of stimulus-response:
  • 3.
    3 All behaviour, nomatter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus-response association. Watson described the purpose of psychology as: 'To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction.' (1930, p. 11). The main influences of behaviourist psychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who investigated classical conditioning though often disagreeing with behaviourism or behaviourists; Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), who introduced the concept of reinforcement and was the first to apply psychological principles to learning; John B. Watson (1878-1958), who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods; and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), who conducted research on operant conditioning. The first of these, Ivan Pavlov, is known for his work on one important type of learning  classical conditioning. As we learn, we alter the way we perceive our environment, the way we interpret the incoming stimuli, and therefore the way we interact, or behave. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, actually discovered classical conditioning accidentally while doing research on the digestive patterns in dogs. During his experiments, he would put meatpowder in the mouth of a dog who had tubes inserted into various organs to measure bodily responses. Pavlov discovered that the dog began to salivate before the meat powder was presented to it. Soon the dog began to salivate as soon as the person feeding it entered the room. Pavlov quickly began to gain interest in this phenomenon and abandoned his digestion research in favour of his now famous classical conditioning study. Basically, Pavlov’s findingssupportthe idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. We do this instinctively with no learning involved. The reflex is merely a survival instinct. Pavlov discovered thatwe make associations that cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words, hot burner = ouch; stove = burner; therefore, stove = ouch. In his research with the dogs, Pavlov began pairing a bell sound with the meat powder and found that even when the meat powder was not presented, a dog would eventually begin to salivate after hearing the bell. In this case, since the meat powder naturally results in salivation, these two variables are called the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the unconditioned response (UCR), respectively. In the experiment, the bell and salivation are not naturally occurring; the dog is conditioned to respond to the bell. Therefore, the bell is considered the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the salivation to the bell, the conditioned response (CR). Many of our behaviours today are shaped by the pairing of stimuli. The smell of a cologne, the sound of a certain song, or the occurrence of a specific day of the year can trigger distinct memories, emotions, and associations. When we makethese types of associations, we are experiencing classical conditioning. Operantconditioning is another type of learning that refers to how an organism operateson the environment or how it responds to what is presented to it in the environment.
  • 4.
    4 Figure 2.12 OperantConditioning.  Examples of operant conditioning include the following: REINFORCEMENT means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For example, if you want your dog to sit on command, you may give him a treat every time he sits for you. The dog will eventually come to understand that sitting when told to will result in a treat. This treat is reinforcing the behaviour because the dog likes it and will result in him sitting when instructed to do so. There are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT involves adding something in order to increase a response. For example, adding a treat will increase the response of sitting; adding praise will increase the chances of your child cleaning his or her room. The most common typesof positive reinforcement are praise and reward, and most of us have experienced this as both the giver and receiver. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT involves taking something negative away in order to increase a response. Imagine a teenager who is nagged by his parents to take out the garbage week after week. After complaining to his friends about the nagging, he finally one day performs the task and, to his amazement, the nagging stops. The elimination of this negative stimulus is reinforcing and will likely increase the chances that he will take out the garbage next week. PUNISHMENT refers to adding something aversivein order to decrease a behaviour. The most common example of this is disciplining (e.g., spanking) a child for misbehaving. The child begins to associate being punished with the negative behaviour. The child does not like the punishment and, therefore, to avoid it, he or she will stop behaving in that manner.
  • 5.
    5 EXTINCTIONinvolves removing somethingin order to decreasea behaviour. By having something taken away, a response is decreased. Research has found positive reinforcement is the most powerful of any of these types of operant conditioning responses. Adding a positive to increase a response not only works better, but allows both parties to focus on the positive aspects of the situation. Punishment, when applied immediately following the negative behaviour, can be effective, but results in extinction when it is not applied consistently. Punishment can also invoke other negative responses such as anger and resentment. Thorndike’s (1898) work with cats and puzzle boxes illustrates the concept of conditioning. The puzzle boxes were approximately 50 cm long, 38 cm wide, and 30 cm tall (Figure 2.13). Thorndike’s puzzle boxes were built so that the cat, placed inside the box, could escape only if it pressed a bar or pulled a lever, which caused the string attached to the door to lift the weight and open the door. Thorndike measured the time it took the cat to perform the required response (e.g., pulling the lever). Once it had learned the response he gave the cat a reward, usually food. Figure 2.13 Thorndike’s Puzzle Box. Thorndike found that once a cat accidentally stepped on the switch, it would then press the switch faster in each succeeding trial inside the puzzle box. By observing and recording how long it took a variety of animals to escape through several trials, Thorndike was able to graph the learning curve (graphed as an S-shape). He observed that most animals had difficulty escaping at first, then began to escape faster and faster with each successive puzzle box trial, and eventually levelled off in their escape times. The learning curve also suggested that different species learned in the same way but at different speeds. His finding was that cats, for instance, consistently showed gradual learning. From his research with puzzle boxes, Thorndike was able to create his own theory of learning (1932): - Learning is incremental. - Learning occurs automatically. - All animals learn the same way. Law of effect. If an association is followed by satisfaction, it will be strengthened, and if it is followed by annoyance, it will be weakened.
  • 6.
    6 Law of use.The moreoften an association is used, the stronger it becomes. Law of disuse. The longer an association is unused, the weaker it becomes. Law of recency. The most recent response is most likely to reoccur. Multiple response. An animal will try multiple responses (trial and error) if the first response does not lead to a specific state of affairs. Set or attitude. Animals are predisposed to act in a specific way. Prepotency of elements. A subject can filter out irrelevant aspects of a problem and focus on and respond to significant elements of a problem. Response by analogy. Responses from a related or similar context may be used in a new context. Identical elements theoryof transfer. The more similar the situations are, the greater the amount of information that will transfer. Similarly, if the situations have nothing in common, information learned in one situation will not be of any value in the other situation. Associative shifting. It is possible to shift any response from occurring with one stimulus to occurring with another stimulus. Associative shift maintains that a response is first made to situation A, then to AB, and then finally to B, thus shifting a response from one condition to another by associating it with that condition. Law of readiness. A quality in responses and connections that results in readiness to act. Behaviour and learning are influenced by the readiness or unreadiness of responses, as well as by their strength. Identifiability. Identification or placement of a situation is a first response of the nervous system, which can recognize it. Then connections may be made to one another or to another response, and these connections depend on the original identification. Therefore, a large amount of learning is made up of changes in the identifiability of situations. Availability. The ease of getting a specific response. For example, it would be easier for a person to learn to touch his or her nose or mouth with closed eyes than it would be to draw a line five inches long with closed eyes. John B. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913), delivered at Columbia University. Through his behaviourist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behaviour, child rearing, and advertising while gaining notoriety for the controversial “Little Albert” experiment. Immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks, this experimentset out to show how the recently discovered principles of classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into Little Albert, an 11-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner (1920) first presented to the boy a white rat and observed that the boy was not afraid. Next they presented him with a white rat and then clanged an iron rod. Little Albert responded by crying. This second presentation was repeated several times. Finally, Watson and Rayner presented the white rat by itself and the boy showed fear. Later, in an attempt to see if the fear transferred to other objects, Watson presented Little Albertwith a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. He cried at the sight of all of them. This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses. Burrhus Frederic Skinner called his particular brand of behaviourism radical behaviourism (1974). Radical behaviourism is the philosophy of the science of behaviour. It seeks to understand behaviour as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. This applied behaviourism does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism’s behaviour. While a researcher at Harvard, Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, popularly referred to as the Skinner box (Figure 2.14), used to measure responses of organisms (most often rats and
  • 7.
    7 pigeons) and theirorderly interactions with the environment. The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat inside the box could get food delivered to the tray by pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was first put into the box, it would wander around, sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by accident, at which point a food pellet would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. Figure 2.14 Skinner Box. Negative reinforcement was also exemplified by Skinner placing rats into an electrified chamber that delivered unpleasant shocks. Levers to cut the power were placed inside these boxes. By running a current through the box, Skinner noticed that the rats, after accidentally pressing the lever in a frantic bid to escape, quickly learned the effects of the lever and consequently used this knowledge to stop the currents both during and prior to electrical shock. These two learned responses are known as escape learning and avoidance learning (Skinner, 1938). The operantchamber for pigeons involved a plastic disk in which the pigeon pecked in order to open a drawer filled with grain. The Skinner box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behaviour. RESEARCH FOCUS Applying game incentives such as prompts, competition, badges, and rewards to ordinary activities, or gamification, is a growing approach to behaviour modification today. Health care has also applied some early innovative uses of gamification — from a Sony PS3 Move motion controller used to help children diagnosed with cancer to the launch of Games for Health, the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the research and design of health games and behavioural health strategies. Gamification is the process of taking an ordinary activity (like jogging or car sharing) and adding game mechanisms to it, including prompts, rewards, leader-boards, and competition between different players.
  • 8.
    8 When used insocial marketing and online health-promotion campaigns, gamification can be used to encourage a new, healthy behaviour such as regular exercise, improved diet, or completing actions required for treatment. Typically, gamification is web-based, usually with a mobile app or as a micro- site. Behavioural change campaigns require an understanding of human psychology, specifically the benefits and barriers associated with a behaviour. There have been several campaigns using gamification techniques that have had remarkable results. For example, organizations that wanted employees to exercise regularly have installed gyms in their offices and created a custom application that rewards employees for “checking in” to the gyms. Employees can form regionally based teams, check in to workouts, and chart their team’s progress on a leader-board. This has a powerful effect on creating and sustaining a positive behavioural change. Similar game mechanics have been used in sustainability campaigns aimed at increasing household environmental compliance. Such sites use game mechanics such as points, challenges, and rewards to increase daily “green” habits like recycling and conserving water. Other behavioural change campaigns that have applied social gaming include using cameras to record speeding cars, which reduce the incidence of speeding, and offering products thatallow users to track their healthy behaviours through the day, including miles travelled, calories burned, and stairs climbed. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Behaviouristpsychology should concern itself with the observable behaviour of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds. • The main influences of behaviouristpsychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), John B. Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). • The idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are notnaturally occurring is called “classical conditioning.” • Operantconditioning refers to how an organism operates on the environmentor how it responds to whatis presented to it in the environment. • Reinforcementmeans to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus that strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. • There are four typesof reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. • Behaviourist researchers used experimental methods (puzzle box, operant conditioning or Skinner box, Little Albert experiment) to investigate learning processes. • Today, behaviourism is still prominent in applications such as gamification. THE GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY The German word Gestalt, which means form or configuration, refers to a psychological current, psychology of form, which was developed in Germany in the early twentieth century. Unlike behaviourism, according to this current, learning is based on cognitive processes and can be understood by going beyond the study of simple behaviour. In contrast to Thorndike's behaviourism, the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler observed that -especially in mammals closest to humans from an evolutionary standpoint, such as anthropomorphic monkeys, they can learn in a different way, by sudden enlightenment, called insight(intuition), which leads to the resolution of an unusual problem
  • 9.
    9 thanks to aglobal and complete vision. The psychologist Max Wertheimer returns to the concept of insightintroduced byKöhler and focuses his studies on cognitive mechanisms that allow us to solve situations thatwe have never faced before or situations that have occurred in the past, but in a more immediate, brilliant and effective way. He defines productive thinking as the mental activitythat brings new knowledge to the individual as opposed to reproductive thinking, which, however, "mechanically" leads us to deal with new or previouslyexperienced situations, applying the same traditional solutions without considering the problem in an original way. Gestalt psychology, school of psychology founded in the 20th century that provided the foundation for the modern study of perception. Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. That is, the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the waya thing has been “placed,” or “put together.” There is no exact equivalentin English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual translations; in psychology the word is often interpreted as “pattern” or “configuration.” Gestalt theoryoriginated in Austria and Germany as a reaction against the associationistand structural schools’ atomistic orientation (an approach which fragmented experience into distinct and unrelated elements). Gestalt studies made use instead of phenomenology. This method, with a tradition going back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, involves nothing more than the description of direct psychological experience, with no restrictions on whatis permissible in the description. Gestalt psychology was in part an attempt to add a humanistic dimension to whatwas considered a sterile approach to the scientific study of mental life. Gestalt psychology further sought to encompass the qualities of form, meaning, and value that prevailing psychologists had either ignored or presumed to fall outside the boundaries of science. The publication of Czech-born psychologist Max Wertheimer’s “Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung” (“Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement”) in 1912 marks the founding of the Gestalt school. In it Wertheimer reported the result of a study on apparent movement conducted in Frankfurt, Germany, with psychologists Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. Together, these three formed the core of the Gestalt school for the next few decades. (By the mid-1930s all had become professors in the United States.) The earliest Gestalt work concerned perception, with particular emphasis on visual perceptual organization as explained by the phenomenon of illusion. In 1912 Wertheimerdiscovered the phi phenomenon, an optical illusion in which stationaryobjectsshownin rapid succession, transcending the threshold atwhich theycan be perceived separately, appear to move. The explanation of this phenomenon—also known as persistence of vision and experienced when viewing motion pictures—provided strong supportfor Gestalt principles.
  • 10.
    10  PHI PHENOMENON Theterm phi phenomenon is used in a narrow sense for an apparent motion that is observed if two nearby optical stimuli are presented in alternation with a relatively high frequency. In contrast to beta movement, seen at lower frequencies, the stimuli themselves do not appear to move. Instead, a diffuse, amorphous shadowlike something seems to jump in front of the stimuli and occlude them temporarily. This shadow seems to have nearly the color of the background. Max Wertheimer first described this form of apparent movement in his habilitation thesis, published 1912, marking the birth of Gestalt psychology. In a broader sense, particularly if the plural form phi phenomena is used, it applies also to all apparent movements that can be seen if two nearby optical stimuli are presented in alternation. This includes especially beta movement, which is important for the illusion of motion in cinema and animation. HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING Human Information Processing, abbreviated HIP, can be translated Italian as "Elaborazione dell'Informazione nel'Uomo", This is a psychological theme thatstudies the human mind and its related processes, with an analogy to computers. The multi-warehouse model describes how the human mind functions using a three-warehouse or memory system that exchange information. The sensory memory (SM) is in contact with the external environment and receives stimuli from it. A first processing at the sensory level allow us to select only certain characteristics of the stimulus, which are stored in short-term memory (STM), also called working memory (WM). Afterwards, the transfer to the long-term memory occurs, which is presumed to have unlimited capacity, where information and programmes can be stored for very long periods of time.
  • 11.
    11 METACOGNITION The meta-cognitive activityis a self-reflection activity thataccompanies cognitive activity with the purpose of making it more aware, monitoring and evaluating it in order to ensure more effective learning. The firstphase of a meta-cognitive activityconsists of understanding the nature of the task to be carried out. This phase leads to meta-understanding. If understanding is an indicator for knowing whatto do, the meta-understanding is an activity consisting of a consciousassessmentof the level of understanding of the task. The nextstep to understanding (and meta-understanding) of the taskto be carried out is choosing a strategy. When one talks about choice of strategy, one means the study of meta-memory or the ability to learn about the memory. it must be taken into account that during the performance of a task, in the implementation a strategy, it is also necessary to use the memory, recalling data memorised before the task. CONSTRUCTIVISM Constructivism hypothesises a series of psychic structures that allow one to build a personal way of interpreting reality.  Each individual, through his/her personal vision of reality, can decode it and give it a meaning, learning. therefore, how to interact with the environment. This interaction takesplace through a continuous exchange of information thatallow the individual to sortreality in a manner that he/she deems most functional. There are different types of constructivism: • the limited realism (or critical realism), according to which there is an objective external reality that can be known directly; • the epistemological constructivism, of which paradigm is the existence of an external reality independent of the observer, which is not known by the latter, except through a process of construction; • the hermeneutic constructivism. In this case, one does not believe in the existence of an independent and objective reality, external to the individual. Knowledge is the result of the mediation in language and interaction between different observers. WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIVISM? Constructivism is basically a theory -- based on observation and scientific study -- about how people learn. It says thatpeople construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing thingsand reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.
  • 12.
    12 In the classroom,the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them. Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expertlearners." This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a well- planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN. You mightlook atit as a spiral. When they continuously reflect on their experiences, students find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and they develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this learning and reflection process. For example: Groups of students in a science class are discussing a problem in physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to the problem, she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each student to reflect on and examine his or her current knowledge. When one of the students comes up with the relevant concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore. They design and perform relevant experiments. Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what they have learned, and how their observations and experiments helped (or did not help) them to better understand the concept. Contrary to criticisms by some (conservative/traditional) educators, constructivism does not dismissthe active role of the teacheror the value of expert knowledge. Constructivism modifies that role, so that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Alwaysguided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather thanjust mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacheror the textbook. They become engaged by applying their existing knowledge and real-world experience, learning to hypothesize, testing their theories, and ultimately drawing conclusions from their findings. WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF CONSTRUCTIVISM? The concept of constructivism has roots in classical antiquity, going back to Socrates's dialogues with his followers, in which he asked directed questions that led his students to realize for themselves the weaknesses in their thinking. The Socratic dialogue is still an important tool in the way constructivist educators assess their students' learning and plan new learning experiences.
  • 13.
    13 In this century,Jean Piaget and John Dewey developed theories of childhood development and education, what we now call Progressive Education, thatled to the evolution of constructivism. Piaget believed that humans learn through the construction of one logical structure after another. He also concluded that the logic of children and their modes of thinking are initially entirely different from those of adults. The implications of this theory and how he applied them have shaped the foundation for constructivist education. Dewey called for education to be grounded in real experience. Among the educators, philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists who have added new perspectives to constructivist learning theory and practice are Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and David Ausubel. Vygotsky introduced the social aspect of learning into constructivism. He defined the "zone of proximal learning," according to which students solve problems beyond their actual developmental level (but within their level of potential development) under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. Bruner initiated curriculum change based on the notion that learning is an active, social process in which students construct new ideas or concepts based on their current knowledge. DEVELOPMENTALPSYCHOLOGY JEAN PIAGET The starting point of Piaget's theory is the concept of knowledge as the continuous interactionbetween the environmentand the organism. Due to the fact that there is a conscience, the subjectmust act in an active manner upon the environment. Piaget identifies two types of action: real (physical) and internalised (mental). Observing the child's behaviour during the phases of its evolution. Piaget claims that there are functional invariants thatgovern all the actionsof individuals and thatthey do notchange their operational characteristics during the developmentof a person. Such invariants are the principle of organisation by which thinking is organised into coherentstructures and patterns, and the principle of adaptation, by which the continuous exchange between the subject and the external environment causes a variation of the structures of thought. ADAPTATIONOCCURS BY MEANS OF TWO PROCESSES:  ASSIMILATION, that is when new knowledge or experiences are assimilated, incorporated in the very same structures;  ARRANGEMENT that is when the new knowledge cannotbe consistently incorporated in the existing structures. Therefore, if the organisation tends to determine the creation of structures, adaptation, however, entails a modificationin the structures themselves.
  • 14.
    14 Piaget identifies fourstages of development, each of which can be divided into more sub-stages (or phases): • The sensorimotor stage, from 0 to 2 years and is divided into 6 sub-stages; • The pre-operative stage, from 2 to 7 years and is divided into 2 sub-stages; • The stage of concrete operations, from 7 to 12 years; • The stage of formal operations, from 12 to 16 years. Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities. Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was thatchildren are merely less competent thinkers than adults.  Piaget showed that young children thinkin strikingly differentways compared to adults. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. There Are Three Basic Components To Piaget's Cognitive Theory: 1. Schemas (building blocks of knowledge). 2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation). 3. Stages of Cognitive Development:  sensorimotor,  preoperational,  concrete operational,  formal operational.
  • 15.
    15 SCHEMAS Imagine what itwould be like if you did not have a mental model of your world. It would mean that you would not be able to make so much use of information from your past experience or to plan future actions. Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world. Piaget(1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: SCHEMA  "a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing componentactions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning." In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behaviour – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract(i.e., theoretical) concepts. When Piaget talked about the development of a person's mental processes, he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had learned. When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining whatit can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance. Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive developmentand described how they were developed or acquired. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed. For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behaviour which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill. This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script.' Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation. The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by infants. He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate. Piaget believed that new-born babies have a small number of innate schemas - even before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us. For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby's lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person's finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a 'sucking schema.' Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby's hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking. ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMMODATION Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through:  ASSIMILATION  Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
  • 16.
    16  ACCOMMODATION This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.  EQUILIBRATION  This is the force which moves development along. Piagetbelieved that cognitive development did not progress ata steadyrate, butrather in leaps and bounds. Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation). Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation). Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it. Example of Assimilation  A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003). Example of Accommodation  In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”. PIAGET'S 4 STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought. Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages. Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age - although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.
  • 17.
    17 Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2yrs) The main achievement during this stage is Object Permanence - knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years) During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing - a word or an object - stand for something other than itself. Thinking is still egocentric, and the infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years) Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child's cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world). Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes. Formal Operational Stage (11 yearsand over) The formal operational stage begins at approximately age eleven and lasts into adulthood. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses. Educational Implications Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget's theory can be applied to teaching and learning. DISCOVERY LEARNING – the idea thatchildrenlearn best through doing and actively exploring - was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.  Discoverylearning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is also referred to as problem-based learning, experiential learning and 21st century learning. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert. Jerome Bruner is often credited with originating discovery learning in the 1960s, but his ideas are very similar to those of earlier writers such as John Dewey. Bruner argues that "Practice in discovering for oneself teaches one to acquire information in a way that makes that information more readily viable in problem solving". This philosophy later became the discoverylearning movement of the 1960s. The mantra of this philosophical movementsuggests that people should "learn by doing". Discovery learning takes place in problem solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge and is a method of instruction through which students interact with their environment by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments. Discovery-based learning is typically characterized by having minimal teacher guidance, fewer teacher explanations, solving problems with multiple solutions, use of hand-on materials, minimal repetition and memorization. There are multiple essential components that are required for successful discovery-based learning which include the following:
  • 18.
    18  Teacher guidancewhere the emphasis is on building upon students’ reasoning and connecting to their experiences  Classroom culture where there is a shared sense of purpose between teacher and students, where open-mindedness and dialogue are encouraged  Students are encouraged to ask questions, inquire through exploration and collaborate with teacher and peers 'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children's learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.' Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of 'readiness' is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught. According to Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development. According to Piaget(1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered. Within the classroom learning should be student-centred and accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition. Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom: o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it. o Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing "truths." o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other). o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child. o Evaluate the level of the child's development so suitable tasks can be set. CRITICAL EVALUATION Support  The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychologyhas been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.  His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: DiscoveryLearning). Criticisms  Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather nottalk aboutstages at all, preferring to see developmentas a continuous process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed. For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.
  • 19.
    19  Because Piagetconcentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effectthat the social setting and culture mayhave on cognitive development. Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal children, between aged 10 and 13 ( as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample). However, he founds that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is notpurely dependenton maturation buton cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial fornomadic groupsof people. Vygotsky, a contemporaryof Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child's learning always occurs in a social context in co-operation with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides language opportunities and Vygotksy considered language the foundation of thought.  Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations. Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterward to checkif they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability). Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased. For example, children may not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannotexpress themselves very well and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such methodsmeant that Piagetmayhave formed inaccurate conclusions.  As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes, 1975). Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is capable of doing) and performance (whata child can show when given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piagetmighthave underestimated children’s cognitive abilities. For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it. However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not. Later, research such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported thatinfants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do whatit expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.  The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviourism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.  Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva in order to deduce general principles aboutthe intellectual development of all children. Not only was his sample
  • 20.
    20 very small, butitwas composed solely of European children from families of high socio- economic status. Researchers have therefore questioned the generalisability of his data.  For Piaget, language is seen as secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the developmentof language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning is more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world. LEV SEMËNOVIC VYGOTSKIJ According to Vygotskij psychic development is notonly influenced by biological factors, butalso by historical, social and cultural ones, Vygotskij addresses the issue of language as a tool for cognitive development. Language adds the following factors to the skills of the child: • The multiplication of stimuli; • The function of self-regulating. In solving a problem or in performing a task, human beings, unlike anime can use two types of mental functions • Lower mental functions, which are also typical of the animals and are characterised by the merging of the perceptual/mental functions with the motor function • Higher mental functions, which are active when symbolic systems or eves language is used. VYGOTSKY'S CAREER AND THEORIES Vygotsky was a prolific writer, publishing six books on psychology topics over a ten-year period. His interests were quite diverse but often centred on issues of child development and education. He also explored such subjects as the psychologyof art and language development.  THE ZONE OF PROXIMALDEVELOPMENT According to Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development is "[The] distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."— Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978 Essentially, this zone is the gap between what a child knows and what he does not yet know. The process of acquiring that information requires skills that a child does not yet possess or cannot do independently, but which they can do with the help of a more knowledgeable other. Parents and teachers can foster learning by providing educational opportunities that lie within a child's zone of
  • 21.
    21 proximal development. Kidscan also learn a great deal from peers, so teachers can foster this process by pairing less skilled children with more knowledgeable classmates.  THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER Vygotsky conceived the more knowledgeable other as a person who has greater knowledge and skills than the learner. In many cases, this individual is an adult such as a parent or teacher. Kids also learn a great deal from their interactions with their peers, and children often pay even greater attention to what their friends and classmates know and are doing than they do to the adults in their life. No matter who serves as the more knowledgeable other, the key is that they provide the needed social instruction with the zone of proximal development when the learner is so sensitive to guidance. Children can observe and imitate or even receive guided instruction to acquire new knowledge and skills.  SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY Lev Vygotsky also suggested that human development results from a dynamic interaction between individuals and society. Through this interaction, children learn gradually and continuously from parents and teachers. This learning, however, can vary from one culture to the next. It's important to note that Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the dynamic nature of this interaction. Societydoesn't just impact people; people also affect their society.  CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY Vygotsky's life was cut tragically short on June 11, 1934, when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 37. He is considered a formative thinker in psychology, and much of his work is still being discovered and explored today. While he was a contemporary of Skinner, Pavlov, Freud, and Piaget, his work never attained their level of eminence during his lifetime. Part of this was because the Communist Party often criticized his work in Russia, and so his writings were largely inaccessible to the Western world. His premature death at age 37 also contributed to his obscurity. Despite this, his work has continued to grow in influence since his death, particularly in the fields of developmental and educational psychology. It wasn't until the 1970s that Vygotsky's theories became known in the West as new concepts and ideas were introduced in the fields of educational and developmental psychology. Since then, Vygotsky's works have been translated and have become very influential, particularly in the area of education.  VYGOTSKY VS. PIAGET Piaget and Vygotsky were contemporaries, yet Vygotsky’s ideasnever became as well-known until long after his death. While their ideas shared some similarities, there were some significant differences, including:  Vygotsky did not break down development into a series of predetermined stages as Piaget did.  Vygotsky stressed the important role that culture plays, suggesting cultural differences can have a dramatic effect on development. Piaget’s theory suggests that development is largely universal.
  • 22.
    22  Piaget’s theoryfocuses a great deal of attention on peer interaction while Vygotsky’s theory stresses the importance of more knowledgeable adults and peers.  Vygotsky’s theory heavily stressed the role that language plays in development, something that Piaget largely ignored. In His Own Words: "Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things."—Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978 JEROME BRUNER For Bruner, the cognitive development canbe defined using the representationconcept, by which he means a method of processing information received by the subject from the external environment, a coding system. There are three methods of representation: executive, iconic and symbolic. Each of them manifests itself in a given period in the evolution of the child/adolescent, which nevertheless persists evolves, without being completely replaced by the others. The executive representations are the first and develop in the first year of life. Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. Bruner's work also suggests that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists. BRUNER'S THREE MODES OF REPRESENTATION Modes of representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded in memory. Rather than neat age-related stages (like Piaget), the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they "translate" into each other.
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    23 ENACTIVE (0 -1 YEAR) The first kind of memory. This mode is used within the first year of life (corresponding with Piaget’s sensorimotor stage). Thinking is based entirely on physical actions, and infants learn by doing, rather than by internal representation (or thinking). It involves encoding physical action based information and storing it in our memory. For example, in the form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby mightremember the action of shaking a rattle. This mode continues later in many physical activities, such as learning to ride a bike. Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks (typing, sewing a shirt, operating a lawn mower) that they would find difficult to describe in iconic (picture) or symbolic (word) form. ICONIC (1 - 6 YEARS) Information is stored as sensory images (icons), usually visual ones, like pictures in the mind. For some, this is conscious; others say they don’t experience it. This may explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany the verbal information. Thinking is also based on the use of other mental images (icons), such as hearing, smell or touch. SYMBOLIC (7 YEARS ONWARDS) This develops last. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as language. This mode is acquired around six to seven years-old (corresponding to Piaget’s concrete operational stage). In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems, such as music. Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified, etc. so the user isn’t constrained by actions or images (which have a fixed relation to that which they represent). THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE Language is important for the increased ability to deal with abstract concepts. Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the constraints of dealing only with appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible cognition. The use of words can aid the development of the concepts they representand can remove the constraints of the “here & now” concept. Bruner views the infant as an intelligent & active problem solver from birth, with intellectual abilities basically similar to those of the mature adult. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS The aim of education should be to create autonomous learners (i.e., learning to learn). For Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is not to impart knowledge, but instead to facilitate a child's thinking and problem-solving skills which can then be transferred to a range of situations. Specifically, education should also develop symbolic thinking in children. In 1960 Bruner's text, The Process of Education was published. The main premise of Bruner's text was that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge.
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    24 READINESS Bruner (1960) opposedPiaget's notion of readiness. He argued that schools waste time trying to match the complexity of subject material to a child's cognitive stage of development. This means students are held back by teachers as certain topics are deemed too difficult to understand and must be taught when the teacher believes the child has reached the appropriate stage of cognitive maturity. THE SPIRAL CURRICULUM Bruner (1960) adopts a different view and believes a child (of any age) is capable of understanding complex information: 'We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.' (p. 33) Bruner (1960) explained how this was possible through the concept of the spiral curriculum. This involved information being structured so that complex ideas can be taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on. Therefore, subjects would be taught at levels of gradually increasing difficultly (hence the spiral analogy). Ideally, teaching his way should lead to children being able to solve problems by themselves. DISCOVERY LEARNING Bruner (1961) proposesthat learners constructtheir ownknowledge and do this by organizing and categorizing information using a coding system. Bruner believed that the mosteffective way to develop a coding system is to discover it rather than being told by the teacher. The concept of discovery learning implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist approach). The role of the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead to facilitate the learning process. This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help students discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them. The use of the spiral curriculum can aid the process of discovery learning. BRUNER ANDVYGOTSKY Both Bruner and Vygotsky emphasize a child's environment, especially the social environment, more than Piaget did. Both agree that adults should play an active role in assisting the child's learning. Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding. '[Scaffolding] refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring' (Bruner, 1978, p. 19). He was especially interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as individuals. The term scaffolding first appeared in the literature when Wood, Bruner, and Ross described how tutors' interacted with a pre-schooler to help them solve a block reconstruction problem (Wood et al., 1976). The concept of scaffolding is very similar to Vygotsky's notion of the zone of proximal development, and it's not uncommon for the terms to be used interchangeably. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal. The purpose of the support is to allow the child to achieve higher levels of developmentby:
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    25  Simplifying thetask or idea.  Motivating and encouraging the child.  Highlighting important task elements or errors.  Giving models that can be imitated. SIGMUND FREUD Freud distinguishes three essential elements of the individual's personality: conscious, unconscious and preconscious. The unconsciouspart of the psyche represents everything that the individual is conscious of. It includes perceptions, feelings, thinking processes and the willingness that we feel and are aware and conscious of. All that belongs to the unconscious mind and migrates easily from a state of unconsciousnessto a state of consciousness(and vice versa) is part of the pre-conscious which is a communication line, a border between the conscious and the unconscious partof the mind. However, there are other mental processes or contents of our mind that are very difficult to bring to consciousness and which form the unconscious, strictly speaking. Mostly, they include experiences that happened during childhood, which were often unpleasant and surrounded by guilt. Sometimes, these experiences are very painful and intolerable to the subject, who cancels them through a mechanism thatFreud calls removal. To better define the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mental processes and the mechanisms that allow the transfer of content from one area to another of the psyche, Freud identifies three elements that perform different functions in the human psyche: • The Id, which is the most inaccessible partof the personality and includes our instincts and impulses; • The Ego, which has the task of observing the outside world and preserving a true image of it in the memory through perceptions; • The Superego, which consists in the internalisation of the child's psyche of rules, prohibitions, precepts and laws that are imposed by parents, teachers and, more generally, by the members of the society to which he/she belongs. Starting from his studies on the psyche, Freud developed a staged theory of the child's development. ERIK H. ERIKSON Starting from the stage of Freud's psychosexual development, Erik elaborates a pattern consisting of differentstages of psychosocial development that characterise the life of every individual, from birth to old age. Each phase is characterised by the following principles: • in each stage, the subject under development is confronted with opposing forces that form an antinomian pair marked by a positive and a negative quality, which identifies the conflict to be overcome in that
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    26 particular period oflife; • each stage is characterised by a basic virtue; • each stage has two underlying conditions, which are determined if the identity crisis of the stage is not resolved in a positive way.  ERIKSON DEVELOPED HIS EIGHT STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIALDEVELOPMENT BASED ON FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY. STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT Erikson’s stages of psychosocial developmentare based on (and expand upon) Freud’s psychosexual theory. Erikson proposed that we are motivated by the need to achieve competence in certain areas of our lives. According to psychosocial theory, we experience eight stages of developmentover our lifespan, from infancy through late adulthood. At each stage there is a crisis or task that we need to resolve. Successful completion of each developmental task results in a sense of competence and a healthy personality. Failure to master these tasks leads to feelings of inadequacy. Erikson also added to Freud’s stages by discussing the cultural implications of development; certain cultures may need to resolve the stages in different ways based upon their cultural and survival needs. TRUSTVS. MISTRUST From birth to 12 months of age, infants must learn that adults can be trusted. This occurs when adults meet a child’s basic needs for survival. Infants are dependent upon their caregivers, so caregivers who are responsive and sensitive to their infant’s needs help their baby to develop a sense of trust; their baby will see the world as a safe, predictable place. Unresponsive caregiverswho do not meettheir baby’s needs can engender feelings of anxiety, fear, and mistrust; their baby may see the world as unpredictable. If infants are treated cruelly or their needs are not met appropriately, they will likely grow up with a sense of mistrust for people in the world. AUTONOMY VS. SHAME/DOUBT As toddlers (ages 1–3 years) begin to explore their world, they learn that they can control their actions and act on their environment to get results. They begin to show clear preferences for certain elements of the environment, such as food, toys, and clothing. A toddler’s main task is to resolve the issue of autonomy vs. shame and doubtby working to establish independence. This is the “me do it” stage. For example, we might observe a budding sense of autonomyin a 2-year-old child who wants to choose her clothes and dress herself. Although her outfits might not be appropriate for the situation, her input in such basic decisions has an effect on her sense of independence. If denied the opportunity to act on her environment, she may begin to doubther abilities, which could lead to low self-esteem and feelings of shame. INITIATIVE VS. GUILT Once children reach the preschool stage (ages 3–6 years), they are capable of initiating activities and asserting control over their world through social interactions and play. According to Erikson, preschool children must resolve the task of initiative vs. guilt.By learning to plan and achieve goals
  • 27.
    27 while interacting withothers, preschool children can master this task. Initiative, a sense of ambition and responsibility, occurs when parents allow a child to explore within limits and then support the child’s choice. These children will develop self-confidence and feel a sense of purpose. Those who are unsuccessful at this stage—with their initiative misfiring or stifled by over-controlling parents—may develop feelings of guilt. INDUSTRY VS. INFERIORITY During the elementary school stage (ages 6–12), children face the task of industry vs. inferiority. Children begin to compare themselves with their peers to see how they measure up. They either develop a sense of pride and accomplishmentin their schoolwork, sports, social activities, and family life, or they feel inferior and inadequate because they feel that they don’t measure up. If children do not learn to get along with others or have negative experiences at home or with peers, an inferiority complex might develop into adolescence and adulthood. IDENTITY VS. ROLE CONFUSION In adolescence (ages 12–18), children face the task of identity vs. role confusion. According to Erikson, an adolescent’s main task is developing a sense of self. Adolescents struggle with questions such as “Who am I?” and “What do I want to do with my life?” Along the way, most adolescents try on many different selves to see which ones fit; they explore various roles and ideas, set goals, and attempt to discover their “adult” selves. Adolescents who are successful at this stage have a strong sense of identity and are able to remain true to their beliefs and values in the face of problems and other people’s perspectives. When adolescents are apathetic, do not make a conscious search for identity, or are pressured to conform to their parents’ ideas for the future, they may develop a weak sense of self and experience role confusion. They will be unsure of their identity and confused about the future. Teenagers who struggle to adopt a positive role will likely struggle to “find” themselves as adults. INTIMACYVS. ISOLATION People in early adulthood (20s through early 40s) are concerned with intimacyvs. isolation. After we have developed a sense of self in adolescence, we are readyto share our life with others. However, if other stages have not been successfully resolved, young adults may have trouble developing and maintaining successful relationships with others. Erikson said that we must have a strong sense of self before we can develop successful intimate relationships. Adults who do not develop a positive self- concept in adolescence may experience feelings of loneliness and emotional isolation. GENERATIVITY VS. STAGNATION When people reach their 40s, they enter the time known as middle adulthood, which extends to the mid-60s. The social task of middle adulthood is generativity vs. stagnation. Generativity involves finding your life’s work and contributing to the development of others through activitiessuch as volunteering, mentoring, and raising children. During this stage, middle-aged adults begin contributing to the next generation, often through childbirth and caring for others; they also engage in meaningful and productive work which contributes positively to society. Those who do not master this task may experience stagnation and feel as though they are not leaving a mark on the world in a
  • 28.
    28 meaningful way; theymay have little connection with others and little interest in productivity and self- improvement. INTEGRITY VS. DESPAIR From the mid-60s to the end of life, we are in the period of development known as late adulthood. Erikson’s task at this stage is called integrity vs. despair. He said that people in late adulthood reflect on their lives and feel either a sense of satisfaction or a sense of failure. People who feel proud of their accomplishments feel a sense of integrity, and they can look back on their lives with few regrets. However, people who are not successful at this stage may feel as if their life has been wasted. They focus on what “would have,” “should have,” and “could have” been. They face the end of their lives with feelings of bitterness, depression, and despair. JOHN BOWLBY ANDMARY AINSWORTH Focusing on the positive aspects thatcharacterise the connection of the child with his mother, Bowlby stresses that it is expressed through a series of primaryinstinctual responses, i.e. innate or inherited (distinguished from the secondaryresponses, which are acquired through a learning process), and independent of each other, in the sense that the frequency, the intensity, the development of a response does not influence the frequency, intensity or the developmentof the others. Such responses are essentially behaviours that the child adopts to make sure thatthe mother is in touch with him/her or remains in his/her vicinity. Bowlby identifies five main behaviours: sucking, clinging, following, crying and smiling. Subsequently, Bowlby comes to define four phases of attachment: • Guidance and warning without discrimination; • Guidance and warning with discrimination; • Maintaining proximity, by warning and execution; • Creation of a mutual relationship. Ainsworth continued to deepen Bowlby's studies on the mother-child Dona focusing mainly on the Strange Situation procedure, which takes place in a no familiar context to the child (strange = unusual) and requires the presence of another adult and a series of separations and a reconnection with the mother. Based on the behaviours adopted by children as part of the experiment psychologist has identified three types of attachment: • safe; • insecure-avoidant; • insecure-ambivalent.
  • 29.
    29 Attachmentis a deepand enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space (Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969). Attachmentdoes not have to be reciprocal. One person may have an attachment to an individual which is not shared. Attachment is characterized by specific behaviours in children, such as seeking proximity to the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969). Attachment behaviour in adults towards the child includes responding sensitively and appropriately to the child’s needs. Such behaviour appears universal across cultures. Attachment theory explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development. Attachmenttheory in psychology originates with the seminal work of John Bowlby (1958). In the 1930s John Bowlby worked as a psychiatristin a Child Guidance Clinic in London, where he treated many emotionally disturbed children. This experience led Bowlby to consider the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional and cognitive development. Specifically, it shaped his belief about the link between early infant separations with the mother and later maladjustment, and led Bowlby to formulate his attachment theory. John Bowlby, working alongside James Robertson (1952) observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers. Even when such children were fed by other caregivers, this did not diminish the child’s anxiety. These findings contradicted the dominant behavioural theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller, 1950) which was shown to underestimate the child’s bond with their mother. The behavioural theoryof attachmentstated that the child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant. Bowlby defined attachmentas a 'lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.' Bowlby (1958) proposed that attachmentcan be understood within an evolutionarycontext in that the caregiver provides safety and security for the infant. Attachmentis adaptive as it enhances the infant’s chance of survival. This is illustrated in the work of Lorenz (1935) and Harlow (1958). According to Bowlby infants have a universal need to seek close proximity with their caregiver when under stress or threatened (Prior & Glaser, 2006). Most researchers believe that attachment develops through a series of stages. STAGES OF ATTACHMENT Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (this is known as a longitudinal study). The children were all studied in their own home, and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment. The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed. A diary was kept by the mother to examine the evidence for the development of attachment. Three measures were recorded: Stranger Anxiety - response to the arrival of a stranger.
  • 30.
    30 Separation Anxiety -distress level when separated from a career, the degree of comfort needed on return. Social Referencing - the deree a child looks at their carer to check how they should respond to something new (secure base). They discovered thatbaby's attachments develop in the following sequence: Asocial (0 - 6 weeks) Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favorable reaction, such as a smile. Indiscriminate Attachments (6 weeks to 7 months) Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company, and mostbabies respond equally to any caregiver. They get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them. From 3 months infants smile more at familiar faces and can be easily comfortable by a regular caregiver. Specific Attachment (7 - 9 months) Special preference for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort, and protection. It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person (separation anxiety). Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, nevertheless, they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment. This has usually developed by one year of age. Multiple Attachment (10 months and onwards) The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments. By 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments. The results of the study indicated that attachments were mostlikely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness. Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact. Many of the babies had several attachments by ten months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and neighbours. The mother was the main attachmentfigure for about half of the children at 18 months old and the father for most of the others. The most important fact in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her. Therefore, responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment. LAWRENCE KOHLBERG Kohlberg has formulated a theory of the moral development of the individual through successive stages. For Kohlberg, the moral development of a person cannot be simply represented by an increase in the knowledge of the values of a given culture, because this leads to an ethic that is solely related to that culture. The moral development of a person is represented by the transformations that occur in the person's way of thinking: an individual evolves morally when his/her thinking structure
  • 31.
    31 changes. Therefore, studyinghow a person interacts with the social environmentand how he/she solves social issues should be done in the light of the development of moral judgement structures that are universal and that develop in the same way across all cultures. Kohlberg identifies three levels of moral development: • Pre-conventional level (from about 4 years to about 10 years); • Conventional level (adolescents and adults); • Post-conventional level (or autonomous or principle level). ROBERTL. SELMAN Selman tried to describe the abilities of children to place themselves in the perspective of others in order to understand their different points of view. His studies have been mainly applied in education, with the intention of establishing a school curriculum that by leveraging the social skills of the students, could also include specific activities of peer learning. SELMAN'S THEORY OF ROLE-TAKING DEVELOPMENT One example of Selman's stories is that of Holly and her father.Children are told about Holly, an avid 8-year-old tree climber. One day, Holly falls off a tree, but does not hurt herself. Holly's father sees this and makes Holly promise that she will stop climbing trees, and Holly promises. Later, however, Holly and her friends meet Shawn, a boy whose kitten is stuck in a tree. Holly is the only one amongst her friends who can climb trees well enough to save Shawn's kitten, who may fall at any moment, but she remembers the promise she made with her father. Selman then goes on to ask children about the perspectives of Holly and her father, and each stage is associated with typical responses. STAGES Level 0: Egocentric Role Taking (ages 3–6, roughly) This stage is characterized by two lacking abilities. The first is the failure to distinguish perspectives (differentiation). More specifically, the child is unable to distinguish between his perspective, including his perspective on why a social action occurred, and that of others. [1] The second ability the child lacks is relating perspectives (social integration). In the Holly dilemma, children tend to respond that Holly will save the kitten and that the father will not mind Holly's disobedience because he will be happy and he likes kittens. In actuality, the child is displaying his/her inability to separate his/her liking for kittens from the perspectives of Holly and her father. Level 1: Subjective role taking (ages 6–8, roughly) Children now recognize that they and others in a situation may have different information available to them, and thus may differ in their views. In other words, children have matured in differentiation. The child still significantly lacks integration ability, however: he/she cannot understand thathis views are influenced by the views of others, and vice versa, ad infinitum.In addition, the child believes that the sole reason for differing social perspectives is because of different information, and nothing else. In the Holly dilemma, when asked if the father would be angry if he found out that Holly climbed the tree again, children might respond, “If he didn’t know why she climbed the tree, he would be angry. But if he knew why she did it, he would realize that she had a good reason,” not recognizing that the father may still be angry, regardless of her wanting to save the kitten, because of his own values, such as his concern for his daughter's safety.
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    32 Level 2: Self-reflectiverole taking (ages 8–10, roughly) The child's differentiation ability matures at this age enough so that he/she understands that people can also differ in their social perspectives because of their particularly held and differing values and set of purposes.[1][4] In turn, the child is able to better put him/herself in the position of another person. In terms of integration, the child can now understand that others think about his/her point of view too. This allows the child to predict how the other person might reactto the child's behaviour. What is still lacking, however, is for the child to be able to consider another person's point of view and another person's point of view of the child simultaneously. In the Holly dilemma, when children are asked if Holly will climb the tree, they will typically respond, “Yes. She knows that her father will understand why she did it.” This indicates the child is considering the father's perspective in light of Holly's perspective; however, when asked if the father would want Holly to climb the tree, children typically respond that he would not. This shows that the child is solely considering the father's point of view and his worry for Holly's safety. Level 3: Mutual role taking (ages 10–12, roughly) In this stage, the child can now differentiate his/her own perspective from the viewpoint likely for the average member of the group. In addition, the child can take the view of a detached third-person and view a situation from that perspective.[1] In terms of integration, the child can now simultaneously consider his/her view of others and others’ view of the child, and the consequences of this feedback loop of perspectives in terms of behaviour and cognition. In describing the result of the Holly dilemma, the child may take the perceptive of a detached third party, responding that “Holly wanted to get the kitten because she likes kittens, but she knew that she wasn’t supposed to climb trees. Holly’s father knew that Holly had been told not to climb trees, but he couldn’t have known about [the kitten].” Level 4: Societal role taking (ages 12–15+, roughly) The adolescent now considers others’ perspectives with reference to the social environment and culture the other person comes from, assuming that the other person will believe and act in accord to their society's norms and values. When asked if Holly deserves to be punished for her transgression, adolescents typically respond that Holly should not as her father should understand that we need to humanely treatanimals. Evidence for Selman's Stages Three studies have been conducted to assess Selman's theory, and all three have shown support for his developmental outline of role taking ability progression. Selman conducted the first study of his own theory using 60 middle-class children from ages 4 to 6. In this experiment, the children were asked to predict and explain their predictions about another child's behaviour in a certain situation. The child participants were given situational information not available to the child they were making behavioural and cognitive predictions about. Results implied a stage progression of role taking ability as a function of age, as theorized by Selman. In a second assessment of the theory, Selman and Byrne interviewed 40 children, ages 4, 6, 8, and 10, on two socio-moral dilemmas. Children were required to discuss the perspectives of different characters in each dilemma, and results again showed thatrole taking ability progressed through stages as a function of age. The third study assessing Selman's theory was a 5-year longitudinal study of 41 male children on their role taking ability.Results showed that 40 of the 41 children interviewed followed the stages as outlined by Selman and none skipped over a stage.
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    33 PSYCHO-PEDAGOGICAL SKILLS THE ACTIVESCHOOLS ANDDEWEY Planning in active schools (ornew schools) is distinguished by the degree of involvement of the pupil in the teaching activity. He/she should not have a passive behaviourand should critically absorb all the knowledge that the teacher suggests. The pupil must instead experience and understand first- hand, through experience and practical activity. Starting from the concept of experience and school activity, Dewey claims that in order to effectively contribute to social growth, the school must start from the needs, impulses and interests of the pupils, which should be oriented towards educational activities to be carried out in an interesting and participative manner in order to encourage learning. According to Dewey, the method of learning by doing helps the child to organise his knowledge and it cannot be replaced with frontal lessonsor learning from a text. Of course, books are a useful tool to learn, but experience mustbe combined with texts, as it favours the active vocation of the child. BURRHUS F. SKINNER AND THE TEACHINGDEVICES Skinner suggestsdesigning teaching devices, capable of organising their applications in order to create learning sequences aimed atacquiring specific knowledge. These devices can be programmed with multiple objectives have the ability to change their behaviour based on the student's answers. BENJAMINS. BLOOM AND THE MASTERY LEARNING Bloom is responsible for the learning procedure called Mastery Learning  It is a procedure that aims to bring the majority of students to master the discipline that they are taught, taking into account the individual differences in the student rate and timing of learning. Five variables are defined, which influence learning: attitude, quality of education, ability to understand education, perseverance, and the time available. MASTERY LEARNING (or, as it was initially called, "learning for mastery") is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy, first formally proposed by Benjamin Bloom in 1968. Mastery learning maintains that students must achieve a level of mastery (e.g., 90% on a knowledge test) in prerequisite knowledge before moving forward to learn subsequentinformation. If a student does not achieve mastery on the test, they are given additional supportin learning and reviewing the information and then tested again. This cycle continues until the learner accomplishes mastery, and they may then move on to the next stage. Mastery learning methods suggest thatthe focus of instruction should be the time required for different students to learn the same material and achieve the same level of mastery. This is very much in contrast with classic models of teaching, which focus more on differences in students' ability and where all students are given approximately the same amount of time to learn and the same set of instructions.
  • 34.
    34 In mastery learning,there is a shift in responsibilities, so that student's failure is more due to the instruction and not necessarily lack of ability on his or her part. Therefore, in a mastery learning environment, the challenge becomes providing enough time and employing instructional strategies so that all students can achieve the same level of learning. Mastery learning is a set of group-based, individualized, teaching and learning strategies based on the premise that students will achieve a high level of understanding in a given domain if they are given enough time. LEV S. VYGOTSKIJ Research on the degree of cognitive maturation of children is always directed towards the observation of what they are able to do individually and independently (current development). However, this does not provide an indication of their learning skills in the short or long term. Therefore, Vygotskij focuses on the area of proximal development, which corresponds to the level of potential developmentof the child, determined by the ability to solve a problem with the help of a more competentadult or a peer. In primary school, an education that is directed towards making the children work in their proximal development area is needed. As part of the cognitive development, Vygotskij distinguishes two types of concepts: scientific and spontaneous. The former are formal concepts, often detached from the personal experience of the child, where usually, it is not possible to make spontaneous and empirical use of them and are acquired by children at school. The spontaneous (or daily) concepts are instead generated by everyday experience and are not organised into a coherent knowledge system; they do not have punctual and strict relationships that connect them. They are easily attributable to an empirical use. The connection between spontaneous and scientific concepts is identified by the proximal development area. When the level of maturation of a spontaneous conceptis in the proximal development area, then the pupil should have a activity suggested, guided by the teacher, who can lead the conceptback to an organic arrangement, towards a profound understanding and awareness towards a more scientific based concept. JEROME BRUNER The researcher says that the fundamental aspects of each discipline canbe taught to anyone, of any age, provided they are presented in a certain form. Starting from this assumption, one can define a spiral curriculum, so-called as it initially presents the keyideas in a simple and intuitive manner, but periodically returns to such ideas, considering them in a different form, more elaborate and relying on more formal and symbolic modes of representation. The researcher distinguishes between the theory of education, of prescriptive type, with the aim of reaching the objectives in an optimal way, and the learning theory, of descriptive type, which describes and interprets whatis going on when learning takes place or what happened when it was finished. Bruner incorporates the conceptof problem solving and links it to the scaffolding concept.
  • 35.
    35 THE SCAFFOLDING is a process that allows a studentto solve a problem or reach an objective that would go beyond his/her capabilities, if not assisted. VON GLASERSFELD Knowledge is notacquired passively. When the studenthas an encounter with a new experience, he perceives it as a disturbance compared to what was expected from his/her cognitive structures. Actively, this new experience must be assimilated or accommodated in the existing structures in order to create new knowledge. Only in this way the individual returns to a balance with the external environment. For this reason, it is necessary to put the student in front of elements that could disturb his cognitive structures. This takes place especially in comparison and interaction with other students. Under this paradigm, the teacher often favours the creation of learning groups or study groups. VON FOERSTER The student analyses the education system focusing on the usual specific teaching practices and highlighting the trivialisation issue of the teaching-learning process. The education system welcomes children who are, in some ways, unpredictable. The education system gradually tends to dumb down students, making them provide predictable and expected responses to questions. Another importantdifference is between legitimate and illegitimate questions. The education system is based on illegitimate questions, i.e. questions for which the answer is known and add nothing to the overall knowledge of humanity, but simply pass on the knowledge to the future. The focus should be on the legitimate questions, i.e. those that deserve to be asked, because the answer is yet unknown or, even better, no one knows if there is a possible answer. EDGAR MORIN The pedagogical beliefs of Morin are closely related to his global view of the current reality, the complexity of the problems and relationships established between the environment, culture and education, Therefore, the challenge of modern knowledge is focused on the effort of being able to clarify, define and interpret the complexity, Educational systems base their training action on the knowledge and explanation of clear and articulate content, One can learn what is clear and reliable. For Morin, the first critical point is the fragmentation and isolation of knowledge. The complexity theory helps forming a global vision of reality. A greater global perspective helps in recognising the interconnection of cultures and the interconnection of the destinies of different communities. Therefore, it encourages greater responsibility and greater solidarity.
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    36 TEACHING SKILLS OFTHE TEACHER ACTIVE LEARNING Active learning has become a generic term for differenteducational methodologies thatfocus attention on the activitiesperformed by studentsthemselves. The objective is to actively involve the students in the learning process. In particular, there are three types of active learning:  Think-pair-share. An activity is proposed and students are asked to fem individually on the stimulus proposed, then share their answers,  Concept test. A multiple choice test is given to the students, who then into pairs and discuss their answers, trying to come to an agreementon the correct answer;  Thinking-aloud pair problem solving TAPPS. An activity thatcan be divided into two parts is suggested and the first part is started before asking the students to gettogether in pairs. In cach pair, an explainer (who explains) and a questioner (who asks questions) must be chosen. Then, the teacher hears the pairs to see what kind of solution they found. In the second part of the activity, the roles in the pair are reversed. PEER LEARNING This takes place mainly among students who support each other in mutual Learning. Peer learning is divided into two large categories: • Cooperative learning, based on a positive interdependence that is established in a group of students working together to achieve a common goal; • Peer tutoring, based on a specific division of roles by students: one plays the role of tutor (the helper, i.e. the one who helps the peer in learning, the one who teaches) and the other the role of tutee (the one who is helped, i.e. the one who is helped to learn, the learner). In cooperative learning, teachers must: 1. clearly set out the objectives of the lesson; 2. make decisions about putting the students in groups, before the class begins; 3. clearly explain to students the tasks to be performed, the targets to be obtained and the learning activities; 4. monitor the effectiveness of cooperative learning in groups and take action to help solve the tasks or to improve the skills of the students and the groups; 5. evaluate the results achieved by the students and help them discuss the progress of the group work. Below, the most common types of peer tutoring: • Peer learning of different ages; • Peer learning of similar age; • Mutual peer learning;
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    37 • Peer learningspread throughout the class; • Learning strategies with the assistance of peers. INDUCTIVE TEACHING The teaching of science subjects is typically deductive. The teacher explains principles and general ideas and then presents practical exercises that concern the theoretical principles just introduced.  An inductive path starts from practical application, from the real problem, from the analysis and interpretation of certain data, from the studyof a specific case in order to reach general and abstract concepts. In this way, students are more motivated to face the necessary formalisation of the concepts and gain a better understanding of abstract general principles, without which no one could handle the problem presented. A practical application of the theoretical paradigm of inductive teaching is a teaching method called inductive learning based on inquiry (Inquiry-based Learning). In particular, we following methodologies: • Discovery Learning: • Problem-based Learning: • Project-based Learning; • Case-based Teaching; • Just-in-time Teaching; • Flipped classroom. RECIPROCAL TEACHING Reciprocal teaching began as a reading activity that was performed in groups. Reciprocal teaching activates meta-cognitive processes highlighted by carrying out the four activities listed below: 1. Summarising: 2. Asking questions; 3. Clarifying; 4. Predicting. The basic procedure involves the interaction between a teacher and a pupil Initially the teacher shows the part to be read. Before starting to read, the teacher communicates which of the two, the teacher or the student, will be the "teacher". Then, they both start to read in silence. After reading, the chosen teacher has to ask a possible question on the text read in order to check for comprehension: summarise the text; clarify certain aspects that he/she thinks may be difficult for the students; predict a possible continuation of what occurs in the text read. When the next part for the text is read, the roles are exchanged. Several versions of this method have been suggested, which made it more like a cooperative learning activity. Students are divided into groups within which one student reads a text; each member has one of the a tasks to carry out (summarising, asking questions, clarifying and
  • 38.
    38 predicting). In thisway, a community of learners is created. PLANNING OF THE CURRICULA  Knowledge = possession of factual data, notions, ideas and concepts acquired through study, research, observation and experience. It is a body of information of which the meaning is understood.  Skill = appropriate, conscious and effective use of knowledge.  Competence = a requirementthat allows performing a task or a request t is rather articulate and complex, thanks to having the disposition, motivation, emotions, social relationships, behaviours and attitudes that are necessary performing the task. SCHOOL AUTONOMY School autonomy, introduced by Presidential Decree 275/1999 is the medium that schools have in order to ensure the educational success of students. This term refers to the full developmentof the student's potential and to the maturation of skills they will use in the real world. The autonomy of individual schools is embodied in a document called the Three-Year Program of Studies (TYPS), which outlines the school's planning of the curriculum. MIDDLE SCHOOLCURRICULUM The Guidelines for the preschool and primary school curriculum are issued by Ministerial Decree of 31 July 2007, with furtherreformulated Guidelines in 2012(M.D. 254 of 16 November 2012). For the first cycle (primary and secondary school), the curriculum is divided into subject areas and disciplines. For each discipline, "goals for competence development" are set at the end of each training session, i.e. at the end of preschool, primary school and secondary school. In addition, "intermediate stages" are established, indicated by the learning objectives within the formative segments and, again, at the end
  • 39.
    39 of some ofthe training segments. The learning objectives are expressed by organically integrating knowledge and skills in statements related to mental and physical activities of the child. These objectives are considered strategicfor the achievement of the skills listed in the goals. They represent those objective behaviours that can be detected by appropriate verification tests or observations in specific situations. HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM The high school courses provide students with the knowledge, skills and competencies that allow them to effectively continue their studies or to coherently adapt to social life and the world of work. At the end of high school, the student must have achieved certain learning outcomes (LO) that can be divided into: • development of knowledge and skills; • maturation of skills; • acquisition of tools. In addition, based on their generality, the learning outcomes can be divided into: • common LO, which are achieved by the end of any high school period and are divided into five categories: methodological, logical argumentation, language and communication, historical-humanistic, science, mathematics and technology; • specific LO, for individual high school periods. They have a definitely disciplinary valence; in particular, they are related to specialised disciplines, which are characteristic of the high school. The common and the specific LO form the ECVP (Educational, Cultural and Vocational Profile) of high schools. CURRICULUMOF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS The Cultural, Educational and Vocational Profile of the student that graduates from a vocational or technical institute consists of two complementary aspects: • activities and general education teaching common to all specialisations that are intended to provide a basic preparation; • activities and compulsory specialisation courses that aim to provide students with specific skills of the study module undertaken. These teaching help to determine competencies to be used in different contexts of work production life. The ECVP of the student is expressed in terms of learning outcomes. These are related to competencies that the student must acquire at the end of his studies. Both the general education teachings and the specialisation teaching contribute to obtaining the learning outcomes. In fact, the ECVP includes two types of learning outcomes: Common and Specific LO. that are both fundamental:
  • 40.
    40 TEXTBOOKS AND NEWTEACHING TECHNOLOGIES Annex I to M.D. 781/2013presents the system thatallows enjoying digital books in an educational context. The elements that make up this system are the following: • Textbooks and, in particular, digital textbooks; • Integrative Learning Content (ILC) and, in particular, Integrative Digital Content (IDC); • Platforms for use, in reference to software that allows using digital book and IDC; • Devices for use, in reference to hardware devices that allow the use of digital books and IDC. The legislation provides for three ways to adopt the textbooks and integrate digital resources: • type a mixed version, i.e. printed textbook accompanied by IDC; • type b mixed version, i.e. printed and digital textbook accompanied by IDC: • type e digital version, i.e. digital textbook accompanied by IDC. MIWB: TRADITIONAL TEACHINGAND INNOVATIVE TEACHING The Multimedia Interactive Whiteboard (MIWB) is an input device, namely a device capable of entering information into the computer. Generally, for each whiteboard model, there are two main applications: • the management software of the MIWB, which includes the drivers necessary for the operating system to run the whiteboard; • the author software of the MIWB, which in many ways resembles a presentation software. The MIWB can be used either in a very "traditional" or "innovative" way. In the first case, it means a teaching method characterised by the transmission of content and skills by the teacher to the pupil, who has to reproduce in a rather faithful manner the content assimilated and must use the skills acquired in a rather loyal way. Conversely, an innovative teaching method is characterised by the following aspects:  is oriented on the maturation of skills;  it uses, for the presentation of content and maturation of skills, all communication channels that the technologies provide;  it presents reticular and ot sequential learning paths, in which each student follows a target and builds his own knowledge;  it is organised so that the student actively participates in lessons, interacting with other students and with the teacher, creating meaning, stimulating curiosity, being able to be motivated, and producing materials. LEARNING OBJECT The Learning Object has the following characteristics: • it is a self-consistent, coherent and complete learning unit, consisting of essential contents, small follow-ups and tests. It often allows tracking the activity of the student and is focused on a quite specific concept;
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    41 • it isa closed and rigidly structured objectthat is not meant to be enriched or fed with other content. It is conceived for self-study, in an e-learning and distance learning context. rather than an object underpinning collaborative learning. DIGITAL ASSET Digital Assets can be understood as fragments of digital content, as basic units information that can be individually modified and subsequently assembled. O ill, Their purpose is to give shape, from time to time, to a learning unit (1 learning Object), so it becomes customised and the result of research and knowledge-building. 2.0 CLASSES The Digital School Programme promoted by the Ministry of Education plan is to create classrooms that are learning environments that combine different technological devices (fixed, such as MIWB, printers, and scanners, and mobile devices, such as notebooks, netbooks, tablets, and smartphones), which are normally used to create a new teaching approach and new learning processes. These classrooms are called 2.0 Classes. In these classrooms, the strong integration between the information and communication technology (ICT) and the school environment opens the door to the socio- constructivist pedagogical approach in which learning is favoured mainly by experience the know- how, the comparison with others, and the personalisation of education interventions.In a 2.0 Class, each student works on his device, but he can share the work with the classmates and the teacher via the network. As a result, each individual can provide help, make correction observations and help improve the workof others LEARNING ENVIRONMENT The Learning Environment concept is widely used with the constructivist approaches, In its minimum configuration, a learning environment includes: a learner and a space in which he works, uses tools and devices, collects and interprets messages and information, and interacts with other individuals. Learning environments can be divided in the three following categories: • classroom learning environments, which mostly include physical environments; • Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), on-line platforms to which web users can subscribe; • immersive environments, a category of a virtual learning environments, such as Serious Games and immersive games within which each user with an alter ego makes experiencesand carries out activities on his own or interacting with other users.
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    42 SOCIAL SKILLS OFTHE TEACHER WAYS OF COMMUNICATION The communication between two subjects can be divided into: • Verbal communication, consisting in the language (written or spoken) • Paraverbal communication, based on the use of voice (tone, rhythm); spoken • Non-verbal communication, based on the use of the body (facial expressions. posture). COMMUNICATION STYLE The communication style of an individual is the way in which he/she interacts with others, using verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal communication. It is defined by means of a core of variables, each of which is linked to a characteristic of the person. In particular, Norton identifies the following variables: dominant, friendly, attentive, relaxed, argumentative, dramatic, animated, open, striking and precise. For this purpose, Norton uses a questionnaire that he calls Communicator Style Measure and identifies the three following styles: • the human teacher, characterised by the simultaneous presence of the "open, attentive and friendly" attributes. It is considered a rather positive style by the students; • the actor teacher, characterised by the presence of the "striking, dramatic and animated" attributes; • the authoritarian teacher, having the "dominant, precise and argumentative" attributes. This style is not appreciated by students. THE MODEL FOR INTERPERSONAL TEACHER BEHAVIOUR The Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour (MITB) is defined by two main dimensions around which interpersonal relations between the teacher and the student develop: • The Influence dimension, which is characterised by an axis indicated by a pair of opposites terms Dominance-Submission. This axis represents the control level that the teacher has with regard to the communication adopted in the classroom; • The Proximity dimension, which corresponds to an axis indicated by a pair of opposite terms Opposition-Cooperation. It indicates the proximity and cooperation level that the teacher and the students show in educational activities. Based on the MITB, eight recurring interpersonal profiles were identified. In particular, it appears that the Authoritative and Tolerant/Authoritative profiles are the ones that get the best results on the cognitive and affective level. The Uncertain/Aggressive profile is the one that presents most critical Issues. MOTIVATION AND FLOW THEORY An intrinsic motivation is when one perceives an activity as challenging and rewarding in itself, no matter how desirable the ultimate goal may be and which can be attained by carrying out the activities. In other words, the motivation originates from within the individual, from feelings and
  • 43.
    43 perceptions that heexperiences first-hand in performing the particularly motivating task. Conversely, we talk about extrinsic motivation when the motivation to perform the task arises primarily from the objective and from the result that shall be obtained in the end. This constitutes the extrinsic reward. Usually, this objective depends on the others, on a reward or remuneration thatmay The conditions that determine the State of Flow, the experience of total involvement of the person engaged in an autotelic activity, i.e. intrinsically be offered for the task performed. motivating, are essentially two: 1. the individual must take the task or activity as a challenge; 2. the task must have tangible, forthcoming, at hand, clearly perceptible ad concretely reachable goals. During a flow experience, the individual shows the following behaviour • is very focused on what he/she is doing; • has the feeling of having everything under control; • is aware of the consequences and objectives of each action he/she takes. • effectively integrates action and awareness; • loses self-consciousness, i.e. is no longer concerned about himself/herself and forgets his/her own needs; • loses track of time; • feels inherently gratified by what takes place. In the school context, the cooperative learning and peer tutoring can trigger flow experiences. AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR By observing the behaviour of pupils and their interaction with the classmates, the teachers can decide if a particular person is suffering from a conduct disorder. In this case, it is important to report the situation to the school manager, contact the family and direct the student towards specialists in the health or social services (psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers). The conduct disorders of particular interest to the school environment are those identified in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) developed by WHO, such as conduct disorder with reduced socialisation, conduct disorder with normal socialisation and oppositional defiant disorder. The conduct disorder may be associated with the bullying phenomenon, of which clinical features can mix with social and cultural causes. There are two types of bullying: • direct, which can be physical or verbal; • indirect, in which the bully does not directly address the victims, but tends to isolate them or put them in difficult situations, through premeditated and studied behaviour (slander and gossip). Each school must have a policy that is aimed at preventing and timely detecting bullying phenomena. Therefore, the head teacher must promote the Code of Conduct Rules that are effective and shared by the entire school community (teachers, parentsand pupils) usually described in the School Regulations. CO-TEACHING Co-teaching is defined as the "action of two or more professionals engaged in educating a
  • 44.
    44 heterogeneousor mixed groupof students, in one place." This definition identifies four key components thatcharacterise co-teaching: 1. the presence of two teachers; 2. teaching of significant concepts; 3. the presence of groups of students with different educational needs; 4. a set of common teaching approaches. There are four major areas in which the co-teaching practises can be used: • to provide education jointly with a heterogeneous group of students, including those with disabilities or other special needs; • to provide education to a group of foreign students; • to provide education to a group of gifted or talented students; • as an alternative and experimental teaching approach for students in order to promote customised learning. MANAGEMENT OF THE GROUP The advantages of working in groups are as follows: • ambitious and articulated goals can be reached, which with individual efforts and a little coordination would be impossible to obtain; • thanks to mutual comparison, the real opportunities for professional development for each member of the group are multiplied. In other words, working in groups allows for greater professional capital growth of organisations. However, within a group, there can be negative phenomena such as antagonism, narcissism, hoarding, marginalisation, lack of organisation, and the formation of subgroups, herd instinct and free-riding. One of the ways to convey information in an organisation is by holding assemblies or meetings. The following types can be identified: • descending information meetings; • ascending information meetings; • meetings to exchange points of view. Decision making and agreement assemblies are also important. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE Wenger defines the community of practice as a group of people who share a commitmentor a passion for something they are dealing with actively. It has three fundamental aspects: • the community of practice shares a domain of interest;
  • 45.
    45 • it consistsof people who interact by carrying Out activities in common, discussing and exchanging ideas, learning from comparison; • it consists of practitioners, i.e. people who try to put into practice what they learn in the community. The three dimensions of the practice associated with the community are: • mutual engagement, i.e. the possibility of interaction between the members: • the joint venture, the ultimate goal that the community wants to reach, the task it wants to perform; • the shared catalogue, a set of aspects and knowledge that act as link in the community. LEARNING STYLES AND TEACHING STYLES LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO DAVID KOLB In his theory of experiential learning, David Kolb defines a learning cycle that is divided into four phases: • concrete experience, linked to the real experience; • reflective observation, the next phase in which the subject makes observations and reflections trying to find one or more meanings of the experience; • abstract conceptualisation, phase in which the subject creates an abstract model of what he has experienced in practice; • active experimentation, phase in which the theory (learning) of the previous stage serves as a guide for the planning of a new concrete experience. According to Kolb, every person has a certain inclination towards one of the four phases of the cycle and based on it develops a particular learning style. LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO THE DUNNS The learning style is the result of a series of factors that affect the effectiveness and ways of learning of a student. When the factors have a certain configuration, i.e. take on a set of specific values, then the learning of a particular student is favoured. The set of values of the factors, which in this case are particularly favourable, identify the learning style of the student In the final version of the theory, the factors identified by the two researchers are grouped into 5 areas (environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological). It should be emphasised that not all the factors that influence learning have the same origin. Dunn identifies two of them, one of biological nature and the other evolutionary. THE VARK MODEL The VARK learning model of Neil Fleming takes perceptual factors from the model developed by the
  • 46.
    46 Dunn couple, andstudies them further. Fleming believes that the way in which students receive or transmit information effectively is the real critical parameter of their learning style. (VARK is the acronym of the words Visual, Aural, Read/write and Kinaesthetic. These terms refer to four learning styles. Thus, a Visual learner has a highly developed visual-spatial intelligence and learns in a simple and straightforward way when the information is presented visually, while an Aural learner has the advantage of listening, therefore, his/her ideal lesson is the oral lesson, characterised by discussions and exchanges of ideas between teachers and students. Finally, for the Reader/writer the text is the best means to approach knowledge, and a Kinaesthetic learner naturally learns by direct experience and practice. LEARNING STYLES ACCORDING TO RICHARD FELDER According to Felder, based on how a student handles the receiptand processing of information, one can classify his/her learning style. In particular, the student identifies four dimensions of the learning style, which are the coordinates used to get oriented in a rather well-structured group of styles. Each dimension has 2 complementary styles, which have different and alternative characteristics: • perception dimension " sensory or intuitive style; • input dimension " visual or verbal style; • processing dimension " active or reflexive style; • comprehension dimension " sequential or global style. The first two dimensions are related to the reception phase of the information. while the other two to the processing phase. FROM DISABILITY TO SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS ICIDH, ICFAND DISABILITY The ICIDH classification system has three fundamental aspects: - IMPAIRMENT  is related to an anomaly that may occur in the structure of the body or in its appearance and can be caused by anything. - DISABILITY  is the result of the persona’s impairment in terms of functional performance and the activities that he/she carries out. - HANDICAP  is related to the disadvantage of the individual, experienced as a result of his/her impairment, which caused the disability. There aspects are set out in Law 104/1992. In fact, the person with a handicap is defined as "one who has a physical, mental or sensory impairment, stable or progressive, which leads to learning, relationship or work integration difficulties and the outcome is a process of social disadvantage or
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    47 marginalisation." The ICIDHclassification has been replaced by another classification system developed in 2001 by WHO and called ICF. This classification takes as reference the health condition of a person considering his level of functioning; therefore, unlike ICIDH, it is not only applicable to individuals with disabilities, but to any person with a certain health condition. In the ICF classification the term handicap disappears and is replaced by the term disability, which indicates the level of impairment of the subject, the limitations that his health condition creates in carrying out activities and in what way it can restrict the participation of the individual in social life. The importance of the ICF classification is that it also considers the factors determined by the physical and social environment in which the person lives, which have an impact on the individuals' participation in activities in the social context In other words, they affect the function or the disability. When the environmental factors are positive, then they act as facilitatorsand favour the functioning of the individual. When they are negative, they are obstacles or barriers to the functioning and determine a disability. Therefore, we speak about the functioning or disability of a person based on what emerges from the level of health of the functions and of the body structure, the level of effectiveness for carrying out the activities, the level of participation to social 1life, in a specific context which influences these factors. It follows that the ICF model does not classify the health condition of an individual, but the health condition of an individual that is part of a context. In 2008, based on the new criteria set by the ICF, the documents for the integration of the disabled were revised in the school context, so that they would mirror the basic planning. These documents are the Functional Diagnosis (FD), the Functional Dynamic Profile (FDP) and the Individualised Education Plan (IEP). SLD – DSA The specific learning disabilities (SLD) are developmental disorders, which affect skills involved in school activities, such as reading, writing and calculating. Law 170/2010identifies: - DYSLEXIA "specific disorder that manifests as a difficulty in learning how to read, especially in deciphering linguistic signs, or in the correctness and fluency of reading (Article 1, par. 2)"; - DYSGRAPHIA "specific writing disorder that manifests as the inability (Article 1, par. 3)". Therefore, this disorder affects the writing (and not the spelling) and is connected to the motor-executive moment of performance - DYSORTHOGRAPHY "specific writing disorder that manifests as the inability to transcode linguistic processes (Article 1, par. 4)". It is a disorder the concerns the correctness of writing according to the rules of the linguistic code (spelling rules) and not according to the graphic aspect of writing: - DYSCALCULIA "specific disorder that manifests as the inability to calculate and process numbers (Article 1, par. 5)." The Guidelines for the integration of students with disabilities in schools outline two components of the calculation ability that are affected by dyscalculia: the organisation of numerical cognition and the executive and calculation procedures. For pupils with SLD, Law 170/2010demands
  • 48.
    48 schools to adopta customised and individualised teaching approach with compensatory tools and dispensatory measures. SEN – BES The Directive of 27 December 2012 identifies the categories of studentswho have special educational needs (SEN), claiming thatthere is an area of educational disadvantage. Therefore, the following categories of students with SEN have been identified, which include: • students with disabilities; • students with SLD; • students with other specific developmental disorders that are notSLD or studentswith other disorders (non developmental and/or not specific); • students with socio-economic, linguistic and cultural disadvantages. The students with disabilities are those who can access aid provided for by Law 104/1992, including the assignmentof a specialistteacher (support teacher) that supportsthe learning activities of the student. Students with specific learning disorders benefit from the provisions of Law 170/2010. Students with other specific developmental disorders have: • language disorders; • motor abilities disorders; • hyperkinetic disorders; • mild forms of autism; • limited intellectual activity. Finally, there are the students with socio-economic, linguistic and cultural disadvantages or students who live in very problematic families and social environment, who have social and economical difficulties. CONTINUITY, ORIENTATION ANDEVALUATION DIDACTIC CONTINUITY Steps from one education segmentto another introduce the discontinuity factors that can be a source of confusion and loss to the studentand, if handled infectively, can lead to school failure. The term didactic continuity is used to indicate the initiatives thatthe educational institutions implement to mitigate the discontinuity of the curriculum, teaching methodological and evaluate. In particular, we talk about vertical continuity, characterised by the elaboration of the curriculum by teachers of different education segments in synergy and in close collaboration with each other Horizontal continuity is based on the way in which educational institutions develop a curriculum that is effective in the social, civil, cultural and economic reality, which characterises the contextin which the school operates. ORIENTATION The orientation is defined as "a series of activities thatenable citizens at any age and in any moment of their lives to identify their capacities, competencies and interests, to make decisions regarding
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    49 education, training andvocation and to manage their individual life paths in the training activities, in the professional world and in any otherenvironment in whichsuch skills and competenciesare acquired and/or used". The guidance skills allow the person to accompany their own orientation process throughout life and to make a personal plan for which he/she can make more specific progressive choices. BLOOM'S TAXONOMY For Bloom, the taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive field is a support tool for teachers, educators and scholars. The basic level skills are also called Lower Order Thinking Shills and are indicated by the acronym LOTS. The more complex skills are instead called Higher Order Thinking Skills and are indicated by the acronym HOTS, The teacher has to identify, om the taxonomic scale of these competencies, the starting level of the student, presenting a goal to be achieved, in terms of more complex competence, Then, an adequate educational program need to be set that leads the learner from the proper initial condition to the goal set for him/her by the teacher. THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTIONOF THE ITALIAN SCHOOL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In 1861 the school model of the Kingdom of Sardinia was extended to the newly established Kingdom of Italy. The Casati Legislation in 1859 outlined a school system divided in three sections: Higher education; Classical secondary education; Technical and primary education. Primary school lasted a period of four years, with the first two mandatory for everyone. The Coppino Legislation of 1877 extended the mandatoryperiod to three yearsand the total period of primaryschool to 5 years. THE FIRSTHALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The main problem was illiteracy. At the census in 1901, 56% of the Italian population was illiterate, especially women and people in rural areas, while the situation in the industrial areas was a little better. In 1904, the Orlando Reform extended mandatory education until the age of 12 and changed the structure of the course of studies, At the end of the fourth year, the pathways were divided between those who continued to the fifth and sixth year of primary school (in preparation for professional training) and those who went to secondary school. In 1911, with the Daneo-Credaro legislation, primary schools passed under the directmanagement of the State through the Provinces and the school patronage became mandatory to provide assistance to families in need. In 1923, with the Gentile Reform, the education system wasdefinitively centralised and governed by a hierarchical structure. Underlying the reform, there was an aristocratic conception of culture and education, seen as tools for selecting the best. Primary school education returned to an extension of five years divided into tWo cycles (lower grade of three years and upper grade of two years), Education was mandatory until the fourteenth year of life, even if implementation was conditioned by the massive lack of school
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    50 attendance in thepoorest areas of the country. SCHOOL IN THE REPUBLICANCONSTITUTION With the approval of the Constitution, which came into force on 1st January 1948, the fundamental principles on which the education system is based were identified. The articles that are more directly related to instruction are the: • Articles 2 and 3 set out the fundamental human rights, equality and equal dignity of all citizens, the commitmentof the Republic to remove obstacles to the full developmentof the human person; • Article 7 constitutionalises the Lateran Treaty of 1929; • Article 9 entrusts the Republic with the task of promoting the development of the culture and scientific and technical research; • Article 29 states the rights of the family as a natural society founded on marriage; • Article 29 proclaims the duty and the right of parents to support, instruct and educate their children; • Article 31 demands to the Republic the task to support families and protect maternity, childhood and youth; • Article 33 introduces the principle of freedom of education. Commits the Republic to set down general education standards and establish state schools at all levels. It gives the right to private entities to establish schools at no cost for the State; • Article 34 affirms that the school is open to everyone, It establishes mandatory education for at least eight years (later legislation has extended the period to ten years), It sets the duty of the Republic to ensure that all worthy and capable citizens are enabled to reach the highest levels of education, even if they lack financial means; •Article 35 recognises the professional training of workers; •Article 117 sets out the powers of the State and the Regions in terms of education and vocational training. This article was amended in 2001 by Constitutional Law No. 3 and is now under process of rewriting following the constitutional reform project to be approved during 2016. THE SECONDHALF OF THE TWEENTIETH CENTURY In 1962 the Government established the unique mandatory schools, implementing Article 34 of the Constitution (mandatoryeducation of a period of 8 years). After the protests in 1968, the Enabling Act 477 of 1973 and the implementing decrees (enabling decrees): • introduced the participation of families and students to school life; • established the boards of the school and redefined the legal status of the school personnel; • allowed the realisation of innovative experiments with the observance of the laws in force. The Nineties had a series of sectoral reforms, such as the reform of the primary school, the adoption
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    51 of the ConsolidatedLaw on school regulations the establishmentof the Comprehensive Institute, and the extension of compulsory education to 10 years. Law 59/1997 introduced school autonomy (Article 21). School equality was introduced by Law 62 of 2000, which established the public education and training system, including state schools and charter schools. FROM THE MORATTI REFORMTO GOOD SCHOOL With Law 53/2003 (the Moratti reform) a new reform of the non-university educational system was introduced, restructuring: • Nursery schools; • The first school cycle (primary school and lower secondary school); • The second school cycle (secondary school divided into two subsystems, grammar schools and vocational schools). In 2015, Law 107 (the so-called Good School Law or Buona Scuola) introduced a total "Reform of the national system of education and training" to be implemented (in particular) through a series of delegated legislative acts in approval within 18 months after the Law (16 July 2015) came into force. Certain provisions entered immediately into force, which relate to: • The extraordinaryPlan to recruit about 100,000 teachers: • The transformation of the Training Offer Plan to a Three-Year Plan; • The employment by schools of new personnel; • Different procedures to evaluate the test year of new teachers; • Different system of territorial placement of in-house and supply teachers for three-year offices. NURSERY SCHOOLS AND FIRSTCYCLE NURSERY SCHOOLS REGULATIONS Nursery schools were established by Law 444 of 18 March 1968. The current nursery school is a pre- school path, recommended but not mandatory, for children from 3 to 6 years of age. The normal schedule is of forty hours per week, for five or six days, which can be extended to a maximum of fifty hours a week and reduced to no less than twenty-five hours. The sections of primary school have, usually, a number of children that is not less than 18 and not higher than 26. For children from 24 to 36 months, the spring sections can be activated, based on school projects underlying agreements between the Regional School Offices and the Regions. The National Guidelines for nursery schools are included in the National Guidelines for nursery schools and first cycle, issued in 2012.
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    52 PRIMARY SCHOOL The primaryschool is the first step of the first cycle of education. The condition to enrol in the primary school is to come to the age of 6 years. Upon registration, parents or tutors express their options regarding the weekly timetable, which includes four models: • 24 hours per week, introduced by Law 169/2008; • 27 hours per week, introduced by Legislative Decree 59/2004 (Article 7); • 30 hours per week. To the 27 hours option another 3 hours of optional activities are added, at parent's choice and based on the availability of the personnel (models 2 and 3 are derived from Law 53/2003, the so-called "Moratti reform"); • 40 hours per week (full-time), with 8 hours per day for 5 days a week, including a lunch break, the duration of which (one to two hours) is decided by the Board of the Institute at the proposal of the Board of teachers. The classes of primary schools have, usually, a number of children that is not less than 15 and not higher than 26. Teaching English language was compulsory as a result of the Law 53/2003. The weekly timetable is different depending on the year group: one hour in the first grade, two in the second, and three in the following grades. The National Guidelines for primary school are included in the National Guidelines for nursery schools and first cycle, issued in 2012. The periodic and annual evaluation of the pupil's academic performance, as well as the related certification, is expressed in grades with tenths. The evaluation of the behaviour is instead expressed via a judgement, delivered in the manner approved by the Board of teachers. Even for the Catholic religion, the assessment is made through synthetic judgement. Support teachers assigned to classes in which pupils with certified disabilities are included, participate in the evaluation of all pupils. Teachers may unanimously decide not to admit a pupil to the next grade, only in exceptional and duly motivated cases. The frequency criterion of atleastthree quarters of the customised annual timetable does notinvolve primary school. LOWER SECONDARYSCHOOL After primary school the lower secondary school, which lasts for three years, has two models of weekly timetable: • Basic timetable of 30 hours per week (normal time); • Prolonged time of 36 hours per week, which can rise to 40 hours upon authorisation of the Regional School Office. The timetable includes the time spent in the school canteen. The parents or tutors are responsible for choosing the option at the time of registration. The first classes are made up, as a rule, with no less than 18 and no more than 27 pupils, and can reach 28 in case of pupils extra registered. The teaching of two European languages was provided: the first is necessarily English, with three hours per week. The second language has two hours per week and, based on the
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    53 Programme of Studies,it normally provides a choice between French, Spanish or German. NATIONAL GUIDELINES FOR THE FIRSTCYCLE The National Guidelines of 2012 point out that the primary school and the lower secondary school should be able to jointly make up the first cycle of education. Hence, the choice of the vertical curriculum, built through school autonomy within the framework offered by the Specifications. The starting point is the Profile of the student, which describes the skills related to the teaching disciplines and the full exercise of citizenship that a student must have at the end of the eight years of the first cycle of education. Then, there are the curricula of disciplines (in order Italian, English and a second European community language, history, geography, mathematics, science, music, arts and image, physical education, and technology). For each of these disciplines, the learning objectives are identified: • At the end of the third grade of primary school; • At the end of the fifth grade of primary school; • At the end of the third grade of lower secondary school. PERIODIC AND FINAL EVALUATION. THE FINAL STATE EXAM IN THE FIRSTCYCLE OF EDUCATION In secondary school (lower and upper), the school year is valid when the pupil has attended at least three quarters of the customised annual timetable. The class council is responsible for the periodic and final evaluation, chaired by the head teacher or a delegate. Pupils must be assessed for each discipline and behaviour with grades expressed in tenths. Teaching Catholic religion is evaluated using synthetic judgement. In case of deficiencies in one or more disciplines, the class council may approve admission by majority. In this case, it makes a specific note in the evaluation document to call for the responsibility of the family and the student to catch up. The State exam is the sum of the activity performed by the pupil during the three years and a final verification of achieving the objectives identified by the Profile of competencies at the end of the first cycle of education, included in the National Guidelines. Admission to exam takes place after the final meeting in the third grade and consists in assigning the eligibility grade, expressed in tenths, based on the following rules: • Preliminary checks on the frequency of attendance, in order to ascertain the validity of the year (frequency of at least three quarters of the annual customised timetable); • A grade not lower than six tenths for each discipline; • A grade for behaviour of not less than six tenths; • Verification of the guiding council expressed prior to the deadline for entries to the pathways of the second cycle or EPT (education and professional training). The examination board will consist of all teachers of the third grades of the school, including support teachers. The chairman is appointed by the Regional School Office. The State exam consists in five written tests (four of the Institute and a national one) and an oral exam. The written tests of the Institute are: Italian, mathematics and science, English, and second Community language. A national written test is then added with texts chosen by the Ministry among those prepared annually by INVALSI. It
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    54 consists of twotests, one for Italian and one for mathematics, to be taken consecutively during one morning determined on national scale. The oral test consists in a multidisciplinary interview, taken in the presence of the entire examining subcommittee. The final mark is made up of the arithmetic average of the following grades in tenths: • The admission grade to exam; • The five grades obtained in the written tests; • The grade obtained in the oral examination. Candidates who obtain a score of ten tenths will receive honours from w commission and the decision will be taken unanimously. Graduate candidates shall be given the certificate of competencies: from 2015/2016 the model is provided by the Ministry. The certificate include the confirmation or revision of the guiding council released during the examinations. SECOND CYCLE OF EDUCATION THE EQUALSTATUS OF "EDUCATION" AND "EDUCATION ANDPROFESSIONALTRAINING" The Moratti reform stated the equal status of the two pathways after the first school cycle: the five year education by the State and the education and professional training by the Regions. Prior to the reform the professional training courses were organised as practical technical courses that lasted two years. The official legislative recognition of the two pathways meantthat the so-called second channel was implemented with objectives and cultural content, so that it was named "education and professional training" (EPT), extended to three years with the possibility to graduate in the fourth year; it allows entering the fifth year of the second cycle and gives access to the final State exam. The first two years of both channels are useful to accomplish the mandatory ten years of education. REGULATIONS OF THE UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL In line with Law 40/2007, the second cycle of education returned to the traditional structure of a "three-point system": vocational schools, technical schools, and high schools. After the reorganisation of 2010, the upper secondary school is regulated by: • P.D." (*) 87 of 15 June 2010  Regulations concerning the reorganisation of vocational schools • P.D. 88 of 15 March 2010  Regulations concerning the reorganisation of technical institutes • P.D. 89 of 15 March 2010  Regulations concerning the revision of the administrative , organisational and teaching procedure of high schools.
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    55 CLASS STRUCTURE The classesof the first year of study of institutes and schools of secondary and upper secondary education have, usually, no less than 27 students. As a rule, the number of intermediate classes formed is equal to that of the classes from where the students come from, provided that they have no Tess than 22 pupils. The number of terminal classes is equal to that of the Corresponding penultimate classes in the previous school year, provided that there are at least10 pupils enrolled. CLIL: TEACHING AND LEARNING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE The Content and language integrated learning, CLIL, involves the use of a foreign language as a means of learning content. CLIL was implemented in 2010 with the reorganisation of technical schools and high schools: In the last year of high schools and technical schools, the teaching of a non- linguistic discipline is taught in a foreign language. In language high schools, teaching of a non- linguistic discipline in a first language begins in the third year; from the fourth year, a second discipline is conveyed in another language. As for the vocational schools, CLIL is not provided in the Regulations, although it is possible to use the autonomy quota to consolidate the experiences already initiated. CLIL needs teachers that are prepared and who possess not only disciplinary skills, but also intercultural, linguistic and communication skills in a foreign language. THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES AND THE EUROPEAN LANGUAGE PORTFOLIO The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is the system that qualifies the skill level achieved by those who study a European language. Developed by the Council of Europe between 1989 and 1996, it distinguishes three groups of competence, mentioned below starting with the highest level: • Level C-"Mastery"; • Level B- "Autonomy"; • Level A- "Basic". Each group is divided in turn in two levels, for a total of six levels. The European Language Portfolio is the document that accompanies those who study a language in their learning path throughout their life. It consists in three different sections: the Language passport, the Linguistic biography and the Dossier. SCHOOL-WORK RELATED LEARNING The school-work related learning, or vocational learning, is a way of training 15 to 18 year olds, in order to ensure that young people acquire skills they can use in the job market. The vocational pathways are the responsibility of the school, based on the agreements with the
  • 56.
    56 companies, associations, Chambersof Commerce, public and private institutions, professional associations, museums and other public or private institutions willing to accept the students. These pathways, which do not imply an employment, have an overall duration of: • At least 400 hours in the final three years of technical and vocational schools; • At least 200 hours in the final three years of high school. STUDENT EVALUATION For the evaluation of pupils in the second cycle schools, the rules are set by Presidential Decree 122/2009. The periodic and final evaluation is made by the class council, chaired by the head tecacher or a delegate, with decision taken, where necessary, by the majority. The support teachers, also responsible for the class and participate in the evaluation of all pupils. The evaluation of pupil's behaviour is expressed in decimals and the numeric grade is also written in letters in the evaluation document. Even in the upper secondary school, the validity of the school year is subordinated to the frequency of at least three quarters of the customised annual timetable (the Board of teachers may provide motivated and extraordinary exemptions for exceptional cases). For admission to the next class, pupils must obtain the following grades in the final exam: • The grade for behaviour of not less than six tenths; • The grade for each discipline of not less than six tenths. In the event of students who have not acquired sufficient knowledge at one or more disciplines, the class council suspends the judgement and prepares educational interventions to catch up, setting them for no later than the start date of classes of the next school year. At the end of the interventions, the class council shall verify the results obtained and shall give the final judgement which, in case of positive outcome, allows for the admission to the next class. SCHOOL CREDIT AND TRAINING CREDIT The school credit takes into account the average of the grades, the attendance record, the interest, the commitment and the behaviour, as well as any training credits. The class council gives to the pupil who is worthy, at the final exam of each of the last three years of high school, a special score: the sum of the scores obtained during the three years is the school credit that is added to the granes obtained by the candidates in the exams, The maximum credit attributable during the three year period amounts to 25 points. The training credit consists in qualified educational experience that generate skills consistent with the type of course referred to in the State Examination. THE STATE EXAMINATION The State examination is aimed to assess the knowledge and skills acquired in the last year of studies in relation to the general and specific objectives of each of the specialisations and general cultural
  • 57.
    57 bases, as wellas the critical capacity of the candidate. The examination procedures are the responsibility of the Committee, composed of a Chairman external to the school and no more than six members, of which half internal and half external to the school. The examination consists of three written tests and an interview. The firstwritten test aims at verifying the mastery of the Italian language, as well as the expression, logical and linguistic, and critical skills of the candidate. The object of the second test is one of the subjects' specific to the course of study. The third test is an expression of the school autonomy. Therefore, it is closely related to the POF adopted by each of them. It is structured in order to allow the assessmentof knowledge in a foreign language. The texts related to the first and second written tests are chosen by the Ministry. The text of the third written test is prepared by the examination board. The interview shall deal with multidisciplinary subjects related to educational programs and work of the last year. It takes place at the presence of the entire commission. A discussion on the written tests is expected to take place. At end of the State examination, each candidate shall be given a final grade expressed in cents, the result of the sum of the scores given by the examination board for the written tests (max. 45 points) and for the interview (max. 30), as well as the points for the school credit (max. 25) obtained by each candidate. The minimum score to pass the exam is 60/100. Notwithstanding the maximum score of 100, the examination board may, for worthy students, raise the score up to a maximum of 5 points. Those who obtain the maximum score of 100 points without getting the raise, subject to certain conditions, may receive the honours. Regulations of vocational schools, technical schools, and high schools VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS Vocational schools are an articulation of the second cycle of the education system. They belong to a unitary technical and professional area aimed at issuing final diplomas and they have their own regulations. They have as reference the production chains, unlike technical schools that have as reference the technological chains. The study courses at vocational schools have a duration of five years. They are divided into two-year periods and a fifth year, at the end of which students take the State examination in order to obtain the diploma of vocational education. The first two years, valid for the performance of the mandatory education, provides for each year: • 660 hours of activities and general education teachings (20 hours per week); • 396 hours of activities and mandatory specialised teachings (12 hours per week); The next two years and the last year provide for each ycar: • 495 hours of activities and general education teachings (15 hours per week); • 561 hours of activities and mandatory specialised teachings (17 hours per week); Vocational schools are divided into two sectors, each of which is divided into specialisations.
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    58 The industry andcrafts sector is divided into two specialisations: • Industrial production and handicraft, with the branches Industryand Handicraft; • Maintenance and technical assistance. The Services sector includes four specialisations: • Services for Agriculture and Rural Development; • Health and Social Services with the related branches: Health and Social Services, Dental Services and Optical Services; • Services for food and wine and hotel services, with the following branches: Food and wine, Room services and Sales, Tourism; • Commercial services. The educational and teaching program refers to the Guidelines issued in 2010 (for the first two years) and in 2012 (for the next two years and the last year). After passing the final State examination, the graduates of vocational schools, besides the work opportunities and college enrolment opportunities, have the following options: • Short pathways of 800/1000 hours to obtain a higher technical specialisation (IFTS); • Biennial pathways to obtain a higher technical diploma in the most advanced technology areas at the Higher Technical Schools (HTS). TECHNICALSCHOOLS Technical schools provide basic technical and scientific training necessary to those who seek to enter a qualified sector in the employmentor freelance occupations market. The courses of technical schools last for five years, divided into two two-year periods and one last year, after which the students take the State examination and obtain the technical education diploma. There are 1,056 annual hours corresponding to an average of 32 hours per week. In the last year, a new technical and professional discipline is introduced, in a foreign language. The economic sector is divided into two specialisations: Administration, and marketing; tourism. The technology sector is divided into nine specialisations: Mechanics, mechatronics and energy; Transportand logistics; Electronics and electrical engineering; IT and telecommunications; Graphics and communications; Chemistry, materials and biotechnology; Fashion system; Agriculture, food processing and agro-industry; Construction, environmentand territory. In the last year of study, a foreign language is introduced in non-linguistic discipline (CLIL). The educational and teaching program refers to the Guidelines issued in 2010 (for the first two years) and in 2012 (for the next two years and the last year). After passing the final State examination, the graduates of vocational schools, besides the work opportunities and college enrolment opportunities, have the possibility to obtain a higher technical specialisation mentioned above for the vocational schools. HIGH SCHOOLS High schools provide students with cultural and methodological tools for a deeper understanding of reality, so that they are able, using a rational, creative, planning and critical attitude to face situations,
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    59 phenomena and problems,and acquire knowledge, skills and competencies consistent with the skills and personal choices appropriate to further follow higher studies, in order to integrate in the social life and the work market. The high school area includes six major branches, with additional internal branches: • arts high school, with six specialisations; • classical high school; • language high school; • music and dance high school, with the "music" and “dance" sections; • science high school, with the option of applied sciences and the sports high school section; • humanities high school, with the economic and social option. The high school lasts for five years and is divided into two two-year periods and a fifth year, after which the students take the State examination. The weekly timetable in the two-year period is of 27 hours, except for the high school (34 hours) and the music and dance high school (32 hours). In the following years, the hours increase based on the specialisation below In the last year of study, a foreign language is introduced in non-linguistic discipline (CLIL). The educational and teaching program refers to t National Guidelines. The educational and teaching program refers to the National Guidelines issued in 2010. EUROPEAN UNION ANDTHE SUBSIDIARITY TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF THE MEMBER COUNTRIES In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, higher education policies are decided at the level of the individual Member States. The role of the EU is therefore mainly a supporting and coordinating one. The main objectives of Union action in the field of higher education include encouraging mobility of students and staff, fostering mutual recognition of diplomas and periods of study, and promoting cooperation between higher education institutions. Legal basis EDUCATION— and in this context also higher education — was formally recognised as an area of EU competency in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The Treatyof Lisbon amending the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) did not change the provisions on the role of the EU in education and training. Under Title XII, Article 165(1) states that ‘the Union shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity’. In Article 165(2) of the TFEU, it is stated that Union action is to be aimed at ‘developing a European dimension in education; encouraging mobility of students and teachers, by encouraging, inter alia, the academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study; promoting cooperation between educational establishments; developing exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the education systems of the Member States; and encouraging the developmentof distance education’.
  • 60.
    60 In addition, theTreaty of Lisbon contains a provision that can be described as a horizontal ‘social clause’. Article 9 of the TFEU states: ‘In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against social exclusion, and a high level of education, training and protection of human health’. Moreover, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which has the same legal value as the Treaties (Article 6 of the TEU), states: ‘Everyone has the right to education’ (Article 14). OBJECTIVES A. ‘Europe 2020’ and ‘Education and Training 2020’ The Europe 2020 strategyraised European political interest in higher education (COM(2010) 2020). Focused on ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ growth, the goals of Europe 2020 are to be achieved through more effective investment in education, research and innovation. The Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET 2020) was adopted by the European Council in May 2009[1]. It set several objectives to be reached by 2020, among them:  The proportion of 30 to 34-year-olds with tertiary educational attainment should be at least 40%;  At least 20% of higher education graduatesand 6% of 18 to 34-year-olds with an initial vocational qualification should have spent some time studying or training abroad;  At least 82% of 20 to 34-year-olds having successfully completed upper secondaryor tertiary education who left education one to three years ago should be in employment. B. The Bologna Process In addition to the Member States’ own political initiatives, the EU actively supports the priorities of the Bologna Process, which, since its inception in 1999, has worked towards more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe, culminating in the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with the Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference Declaration of March 2010. C. The renewed EU agenda forhigher education In 2017, the Commission published the ‘renewed EU agenda for higher education’ (COM(2017) 0247). It focuses on four priority areas:  Aligning skills development in higher education with the needs of the labour market;  Making higher education widely accessible and more inclusive and increasing its societal outreach;  Boosting the innovation capacityof higher education;  Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education. D. The European Education Area In May 2018, following the Gothenburg summit, the European Commission published a communication entitled ‘Building a stronger Europe: the role of youth, education and culture policies’
  • 61.
    61 (COM(2018) 0268). Thisdocument describes the Commission’s vision of building a European Education Area, including:  A strengthened Erasmus+ programme;  The creation of at least 20 European Universities by 2024. This should contribute to the emergence of European degrees, which would be recognised throughout Europe;  The creation of a European student card to facilitate mobility;  A proposal for a Council recommendation on promoting automatic mutual recognition of higher education and upper secondaryeducation diplomas and the outcomes of learning periods abroad (COM(2018) 0270). ACHIEVEMENTS A. Erasmus+ Formally adopted in December 2013[2], Erasmus+ has the central aim of investing in education, training, youth and sport in Europe through a single integrated programme. Erasmus+ combines previously separate sectoral and transversal policies in the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP, 2007- 2013) in the fields of higher education (Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, bilateral programmes with other countries or continents), school education (Comenius), vocational education and training (Leonardo da Vinci), adult education (Grundtvig), youth (Youth in Action), and European integration studies (Jean Monnet). In addition, sport is included for the first time. Erasmus+ has a budget of EUR 14 billion, and cooperation is possible both among Member States and between Member States and third countries. Erasmus+ aims to restructure and streamline activity around three ‘key actions’ across the targeted sectors:  Learning mobility of individuals;  Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices;  Support for policy reform. Within the overarching architecture of Erasmus+, higher education assumes a central role. A minimum of 33.3% of the total budget for Erasmus+ is earmarked for higher education. Two million higher education students are expected to participate in mobility programmes during the period from 2014 to 2020. Erasmus+ not only supports the mobility of students and staff in higher education, but also funds Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees and Erasmus+ Master Loans. Since 2018, it also supports the European Universities project: following the first call, 17 European Universities involving 114 higher education institutions from 24 Member States were selected. The Commission issued its proposal for a successor programme (2021-2027) in May 2018 (COM(2018) 0367). There is no change to the overall architecture of the programme, including the three key actions already established under Erasmus+. However, it is proposed thatthe budget be doubled to EUR 30 billion as compared with the 2014-2020programming period. B. Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions(MSCA) The MSCA scheme, which is part of the EU framework programme for research and innovation 2014- 2020 (‘Horizon 2020’), supports research training and career developmentfocused on innovation skills. The programme funds worldwide and cross-sector mobility that implements excellentresearch in any field. As regards higher education, MSCA grants encourage transnational, intersectoral and
  • 62.
    62 interdisciplinary mobility. TheMSCA has become the main EU programme for doctoral training, financing 25 000 PhDs and postdoctoral research projects. In addition to fostering mobility between countries, the programme also seeks to break the real and perceived barriers between academia and other sectors, especially business. It also funds the European Researchers’ Night, a series of public events that take place across Europe each year on the fourth Friday in September to promote the work of researchers. The MSCA should not change substantially under the new EU framework programme for research and innovation 2021-2027 (‘Horizon Europe’). Role of the European Parliament Thanks to its increasing political importance over recent decades, Parliamenthas managed to exert a growing influence on the shaping of higher education policies in Europe. A. Mobility Parliament has successfully worked for an increase in the budget available for existing programmes in the field of higher education, including Erasmus+. In February 2017, it adopted a resolution on Erasmus+[3], which analyses the first years of implementation of the programme, underlines its successes, and suggests changes to improve the second partof the multiannual framework programme. For the next generation of the Erasmus+ programme, Parliament proposed tripling the budget to EUR 41 billion, thus enabling the participation of more students and greater inclusivity. Parliament also stressed the need for better cooperation with other European funding programmes and cofinancing for actions currently not funded by Erasmus+[4]. The final text of the new regulation on Erasmus+ is to be negotiated and agreed with the Council at the beginning of the 9th parliamentary term. Concerning the eventuality of a no-deal Brexit, Parliament has also played a central role with a view to securing the rights and status of young people currently partaking in an Erasmus+ exchange programme[5]. B. Links with employment Throughout the years, Parliament has always been interested in higher education and its links with employment. In 2012, Parliament adopted a resolution on modernising Europe’s higher education systems[6], calling on higher education institutions to integrate lifelong learning into their curricula and to adapt to new challenges by creating new fields of study reflecting the needs of the labour market. Following the Commission communication of 30 May 2017 on a renewed EU agenda for higher education (COM(2017) 0247), Parliament adopted, on 12 June 2018, a resolution on modernisation of education in the EU[7]: concerning higher education, this resolution calls for the creation of a European Education Area and encourages Member States to invest more in higher education and to foster cooperation between higher education, the world of work, industry, research communities and society as a whole. C. The Bologna Process Parliament has shown a long-standing interest in the consolidation and progress of the Bologna Process. In 2012, it adopted a resolution[8] stressing the importance of the Bologna reforms for the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and for the objectives set in the Europe 2020 strategy.
  • 63.
    63 In a resolutionof 28 April 2015[9], Parliament took the view that the Bologna reformscontributed to the improvement of the quality of educational systems and to the attractiveness of higher education in Europe. The Bologna Process also made higher education structures more comparable, providing quality assurance systems in the recognition of diplomas. In April 2018, Parliament adopted a resolution on the implementation of the Bologna Process[10]. It requested that the next 2018 EHEA Ministerial Conference in Paris provide a critical assessmentof the process. The resolution stressed the need to improve the social dimension of education, with concrete opportunities for access to higher education for students with disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds. It advocated accessible and equitable mechanisms for the allocation of mobility grants and allowances. It also called for the EU and the Member States to increase their education budgets in order to guarantee that public higher education is free and accessible to all. EUROPEAN UNION ANDTHE SUBSIDIARITY TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF THE MEMBER COUNTRIES THE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE COMMONEUROPEANHOME World War II ended in the spring of 1945. After the horror of the genocide and destruction, there was the determination to create the conditions for stable peace, passing from the "Europe of countries" to the "Europe of nations". In 1950, the French minister Robert Schuman proposed to put together the coal and iron resources, with the goal of doubling the production of steel and to lower its costs. The proposal consisted in abolishing the duty in the coal and steel sector. In 1951 Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlandssigned the first European Treaty, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It gave excellent results, both economically and with the cooperation between Member States in general. It was decided to pursue economic integration by implementing the customs union between the Member States, with the aim of creating the European Common Market. Continuing on the line that led to ECSC, it was decided to put together the resources for the civil applications of nuclear energy. On 25 March 1957, in Rome, the Treaties establishing two other Communities were signed: • the European Economic Community(EEC); • the European AtomicEnergy Community (EAEC), known as Euratom. The signatories were the same countries thathad joined ECSC. In 1973, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined; between 1981 and 1986, Greece, Spain and Portugal. The Member States became twelve. The eighties ended with the crisis of the “real socialism" system. The symbol was the "fall" of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). On October 3, 1990 the reunification of Germany was proclaimed. The era of the "cold war" ended. The collapse of the system hinged on the URRS opened new spaces to the Community, while the Eastern European nations returned to democracy and to marketeconomy. The Member Statesdecided to establish other common policies, besides the economic policy. The Treaty on European Union was signed in Maastricht(Netherlands) on 7 February1992. Its historic result was to set in motion the political integration process among the European states. The choice of the name "Union" indicated a willingness to give the Member States prospects of action beyond the economic aspect, toward fields where national competencies had been so far thoroughly guarded: those of the foreign policy, defence, and social policies. The European citizenship was established: whoever is a national citizen of a Member State is, therefore, a citizen of the Union. On 1 January 1995, with the entry of Austria, Finland and Sweden, the
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    64 Union reached fifteenstates. The next goal was the adoption of the single currency, following the completion of the European Common Market. For joining the monetary union, it was required to comply with the four criteria, called the "Maastricht criteria". The introduction of the Euro took place on 1 January 2002. Today the single currency is adopted by 19 of the 28 Member States. Meanwhile, the countries that were freed from the "iron curtain" became candidates to the EU, as well as two small Mediterranean countries (Cyprus and Malta). The enlargement of the Union to the cast and south raised economic and institutional problems: economic problems: low-developmentareas were involved, which would require massive interventions for depressed areas; institutional problems: the institutions of the Community needed to be reformed since they had been created fifty years before when the Member States were only six. The accession to the EU by Eastern and South European countries saw the following steps: • in 2004: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprusand Malta; • in 2007: Bulgaria and Romania; • in 2013: Croatia. Today, there are 27 EU Member States. (2020) THE FUNCTIONING OF THE EUROPEAN UNION The functioning of the European Union is based on the founding Treaties (Rome Pactof 1957 and the MaastrichtTreaty of 1992), with the additions and integrations made by the subsequent treaties. The Member Statesof the European Union increased from only 6 States in 1957 to the current 27 countries. At the same time, from the European enthusiasm of the early decades it went to the flow back of these years, during which an unprecedented financial crisis in the post-war period has highlighted economic difficulties in large areas of the Union. In addition there are difficulties in the cohesion of the Member States due to pressure put by the out of control migration movement from Asia and Africa., Finally, the terrorist actions of Islamic extremism have led to restrictions on the fundamental freedom of movement within the Member States. The centripetal movementthat led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and to the prospects of political Union in 1992 started to fade away, in the face of the overt requirement thatthe Union solved the general problems and took charge of the particularly acute crisis in some Member States. The balance between the opposing trends entails the balance of the EU itself, being the latter based on the three principles governing the actions of the Union.  The principle of responsibility: the Union shall act only within the limits of the powers conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein.  The principle of subsidiarity: in the fields that do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and to the extent that the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can, therefore, be better achieved at Union level. In other words, the criterion that decisions are taken as close as possible to the citizens was determined, The subsidiarity principle was incorporated in the Italian Constitution with the constitutional reform of 2001.
  • 65.
    65  The principleof proportionality reiterates that the contentand form of the Union's action shall be limited to what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties. UNION'S INSTITUTIONS The framework of the EU institutions is the result of the history of the European Communities and the complex relationship between the sovereigntyof the Member States and the powers delegated to Community bodies. For example, in the democratic States, the Parliament has legislative power, is elected by the citizens and is the choice of popular sovereignty. In the EU this is only partially valid, as the attribution of exclusive legislative powers to the Parliament would mean the loss of the equivalent power (and, thus, of the sovereignty) by the Member States. Therefore, the approval procens of the EU legislation is based on the necessary collaboration between the European Parliament and the Member States, the latter being represented in the Council's Union (called Council of Ministers). The EU institutional framework consists of seven institutions: • European Commission; • European Council; • Council of the European Union; • European Parliament; • Courtof Justice of the EuropeanUnion; • Courtof Auditors; • European Central Bank. The European Commission is composed of European commissioners, each being chosen from the leading figures of the Member State of affiliation. The Commission is the governing body of the EU, besides making the legislative proposals, it is independent from the States. The European Council brings together the Heads of State or Government of the Member States and the President of the Commission at least twice a year. The Council defines the general political directions and priorities of the Union. The Council of the Union, known as the Council of Ministers, is composed of ministers or, however, of members of the governmental structure of the Member States. It meets in different forms, depending on the issues on the agenda. The Council, together with the European Parliament, has legislative and budgetary function; it coordinates the economic policies of the Member States. The European Parliament is the parliamentary assembly of the European Union, directly elected by EU citizens every five years. It takes part in the legislative process. Depending on the procedure adopted, its role can be decisive in the adoption of the final act, or can simply express an opinion. The Courtof Justice of the European Union is the interpreter of the EU law so that it is applied equally in all Member States. Evaluates disputes between national governments and EU institutions. The Courtof Auditors is the controlling body of EU finances. Its role is to improve the financial management of the EU and to report on the use of public funds. The European Central Bank is responsible for implementing the monetary policy of those countries adopting the Euro.
  • 66.
    66 POWERS OF THEUNION THE POWERS OF THE UNION CANBE DIVIDED INTO: • EXCLUSIVE COMPETENCIES, for which the Member States have fully devolved areas of national sovereignty (customs union; competition, single currency for the States that have adopted the Euro; trade policy with third countries); • CONCURRENTOR SHAREDPOWERS, such as internal market, agriculture and fisheries, environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, and energy. The Union is responsible for these matters the role of the States is residual: they can legislate in these fields in accordance with the decision taken by the Union or in the event that the latter did not exercise its jurisdiction; • AREAS IN WHICH THE UNION'S ACTIONTAKES PLACE IN SUBSIDIARY FUNCTION, without holding any legislative power. One of these areas is education. One cannot talk about a common European policy on education while it is correct to speak of cooperation in the field of education based on the principle of subsidiarity. EUROPEAN PROGRAMS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION THROUGHOUTLIFE Always in respect of the subsidiarity principle, the European Union supports the national education and vocational training systems. To this extent the Socrates Program was launched in order to support quality education by developing the European dimension of education. It included four actions: Comenius (school), Erasmus (university), Leonardo da Vinci (vocational training), Grundtvig (adult education). The framework for the Union was redesigned as part of the "Education and training 2020" strategy. In 2014, the Erasmus+ Program started, which continues the traditional plan in an updated framework of objectives. The eTwinning projectshould also be pointed out making possible e- twinning projects between European primary and secondary schools through an on-line platform. SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND MANAGEMENT Introduced by the Bassanini Law (59/1997), school autonomy had constitutional recognition with the rewriting of Article 117, operated by the Constitutional Law 3/2001. Article 1 of P.D. 275/1999, "Regulation laying down rules on the autonomy of educational institutions" issued in accordance with Law 59, states as follows: • the autonomy of educational institutions is a guarantee of academic freedom and cultural pluralism, and is embodied in the planning and implementation of measures for education and training aimed at developing the person; • these interventions are appropriate to the different contexts, the demand of the families and the characteristics of the pupils, in order to ensure their educational success. BESTDIMENSIONING OF SCHOOLS School autonomy lead to the rationalisation of their organisation in the territory, aimed at achieving an appropriate dimensioning that would justify the legal status of educational institutions and the management role to head teachers. In order to acquire or maintain autonomy, education institutions had to have, usually, a population between 500 and 900 pupils. Exceptions were granted in small islands, in mountain villages, in geographic areas characterised by ethnic or linguistic specificity, where the parameter was reduced to 300 pupils.
  • 67.
    67 On the otherhand it was allowed to exceed the normal parameters in areas oI high population density. The set parameters were changed with the spending review law, Law 111/2011, establishing that from year 2011/2012they would be as follows: • nursery schools, primary school and lower secondary school were compulsorily aggregated in comprehensive schools; • comprehensive schools, in orderto obtain autonomy, had to have at least 1.000pupils, reduced to 500 for the institutions located in small islands, in the mountains, and in the geographic areas characterised by linguistic specificity. However, since the competence to determine the school network on the territory belongs to the Regions, it was then established (Law 128/2013) that the school aggregation had to be operated by the Regions, respecting the contingent of school managers (thus, the number of schools that have autonomy) assigned to the territory. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT The SCHOOL MANAGER (according to Article 25 of Legislative Decree 165/2001): • has autonomous powers of management, coordination and evaluation of human resources; • ensures the executionin school of the rights constitutionally protected: freedom of education, freedom of educational choice of families, rightof pupils to learn; • can autonomously determine the supply teachers up to 10% of the personnel; • is assisted by the director of general and administrative services(d.g.a.s.) who acts in the framework of the received instructions; • deals with the labour relations in the financial agreements of the institution; • has direct responsibility as an employer related to safety at work; • has the right to process personal data (privacy protection). Everything takes place in compliance with the competencies of the governing boards. The recentlaw 107/2015 has set itself the aim of relaunching school autonomy by the reinforcementof the leading role of school managers. The following are some of the new powers given to the school manager: • establish guidelines for school activities on the basis of which the Board of teachers lays the TYPS (PTOF); • identify the personnel to be assigned with three-year tasks in the autonomy personnel roles; • give annually to deserving teachers, based on the criteria identified by the Evaluation Board, the financial reward (bonus) coming from the appropriate Ministerial reserves. THE THREE-YEAR PLANOF THE PROGRAM OF STUDIES The set of choices that help characterising the institution's educational Physiognomy is made public through the preparation of the Program of Studies introduced by the Presidential Decree 275/1999 and extended to three years by Law 107/2015, The Three-Year Program of Studies (TYPS) is the cultural and planning document of each school and it is public, so that it can be read by the families wishing to learn about the planning of the institute, The plan is prepared by the board of teachers based on the guidelines for school activities and on the management and administration decisions defined by the school manager. The plan is approved by the Board of the Institute. This document makes public the compulsory curriculum offered by the school to its students, which arises from the overall national quota and the quota reserved to schools, including the disciplines and the activities freely chosen by the single institution to enhance the cultural specificity of the territory,
  • 68.
    68 The TYPS alsoindicates the extracurricular activities, the educational and organisational activities that the school adopts, the criteria for evaluation and those for the recognition of credits related to the activities carried out for the extension of the training offer, freely undertaken by the pupils and duly certified. SCHOOL NETWORKS The autonomous schools, being independent legal entities, may be subject to network agreements between schools and/or institutions of various types, either private or public (universities, associations, training institutions), for a better implementation of educational, research and development, training and updating projects. The territorial networks formed under Law 107/2015 by regional school boards for the management of the teacher personnel have a different function. They arise not from the free associative needs of the school but, first of all, from the need to: • ensure the allocation of territorial headquarters to teachers newly placed and to those who, already in place, lose their jobs and/or ask for mobility; • prepare the environment where the proposals of the school managers of the territory and the teachers' incardinated in the environment can meet, in order to implementthe school program of studies through the enhanced personnel. SYSTEM MONITORING As a result of the constitutional reform of 2001, an exclusive legislative power was attributed to the State for the following topics (Article 117): • determination of the basic levels of performances concerning civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughoutthe national territory; • general legislation on education. In the education system, tasks and responsibilities that belong to different levels intersect. In particular, if the State is responsible for the "determination of the basic levels of performances concerning civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughout the national territory" it must also check that all citizens concretely benefit from these basic levels of performance. Educational institutions are responsible for the rights of the students, primarily for their educational success, as part of the Specifications received Pod allocated resources, developing the TYPS and collaborating with the Central Administration in verifying the efficiency of the system. INVALSI is the research institute that performs the evaluation of the education system based on the specific ministerial directives, operating as a body of the national evaluation system established by Presidential Decree 80/2013. The evaluation of the learning levels of the students from each school is performed by testing, at national level, the knowledge and skills acquired al specific times during the training: the second and fifth grade of primary school, third grade of lower secondary school, second and fifth grade of upper secondary school. The tests include the Italian language and mathematics, to be assessed in line with the learning objectives defined by the National Guidelines. INVALSI also ensures Italy's participation in international surveys, enabling a closer connection between their results and the results of national surveys.
  • 69.
    69 SCHOOL COMMUNITYAS APLACE OF PARTICIPATION: THE SCHOOL'S GOVERNINGBODIES In the system outlined by Law 477/1973, all governing administrative bodies of the schools have a governing bodyrepresenting the internal personnel (directors, teachers, non-teaching personnel) and users (parents and students). In particular, each single school, has: • the School or association board; • the Board of teachers; • Board of intersection, interclass and class; • the Committee forthe evaluation of teachers; • students' and parents assemblies. The powers of the governing bodies are regulated by the Consolidated Law on education (Legislative Decree 297/1994, Articles 5-15). With the exception of the Board of teachers, all the governing bodies are elected by the school. The operating rules of the school's governing bodies are established through the Regulations approved by the school board, with reference to the model issued by the Ministry with C.M. 105/1975. SCHOOL OR ASSOCIATION BOARD The Association board (in primary schools) or School board (in secondary schools) is an elective body that has orientation functions, while the school manager is responsible for the management of the school and personnel. It consists of the school manager (who is a member by right) and the elected representativesof: • the students' parents; • the teaching and non-teaching personnel; • the students in upper secondary school. The School or the Association board, summoned by its chairman, is the meeting place of the institution and the society of the territory in which the school operates. Within the institute, the Council is the interlocutor of the Board of teachers: if the latter lays down the educational and teaching program and the Three-Year Program of Studies, the Council decides upon the proposals of the Board concerning the program of studies and the organisational and financial support for its implementation. Therefore, it has the power to decide in the following key areas: • approval the Three-Year Program of Studies; • organisation and planning of school activities; • approval of the annual budget; • adoption of regulations, with particular reference to the responsibilities arising from the obligations of supervision of minor pupils and to the regulation of discipline in the secondary school; • approval of the school diary.
  • 70.
    70 The Board electsan Executive council among its members, with technical tasks such the preparation of documents for financial management. These documents are: • the annual program, namely the budget, which is prepared by the school manager and presented for approval to the School board by the Executive council, with the regular accounting advice of the auditors; • the final account, consisting in the financial account and the assets account. It is prepared by the Director of general and administrative services, submitted by the school manager to the auditors and approved by the School board. BOARD OF TEACHERS The Board of teachers is chaired by the school manager and composed by all membersof the teaching personnel on duty in the school. The manager appoints as secretary one of the supply teachers. The Board of teachers has the power to decide with regard to a series of subjects; it can propose others; it is also an electorate body. The areas for which it takes decisions are as follows: • educational operation of the institute, in particular educational and teaching planning, as well as pupil evaluation; • periodic review of the overall teaching activity; • adoption of textbooks; • promotion of experimentation initiatives; • promotion of updating initiatives for teachers; planning and implementation of initiatives to support students with disabilities or with learning difficulties, the integration of foreign students, the follow up of pupils with learning difficulties. It makes proposals to the school manager, taking into account the criteria approved by the School board, for the following aspects: • formation and composition of classes; • assignment of teachers to each class: • preparation of the timetable. It is an electoral board when it elects two teachers in the Evaluation council and when it appoints the teachers responsible for the instrumental functions to TYPS. The activity of the Board of teachers intersects with that of the School board, which is distinguished by a different general competence. A significant paradigm of cooperation between the two bodies is the construction of the TYPS, developed by the Board of teachers and approved by the School board. The recent Law 107/2015 has assigned to the school manager the task to provide the Board in advance with the "specialisations for the school's activities and the management and administration choices". INTERSECTION, INTERCLASS AND CLASS BOARDS The terms Board of intersection (nursery schools), Board of interclass (primaryschool) and Board of class (secondary schools) mean the related teachers' meetings, integrated atspecific times by the parents and students (in the upper secondary school), annually elected as representatives of their respective components. The boards come together in two different ways:
  • 71.
    71 • by presenceof the teachers: for educational coordination and periodic and final evaluation; • by presence of the teachers and the class representatives elected by the parents (and by the students in upper secondary school). Their tasks are to promote educational collaboration, to assess the overall performance of the learning activity, to approve educational projects for the class and to propose the annual plan of visits and educational trips, and to issue an opinion on the adoption of textbooks. COMMITTEE FOR THE EVALUATIONOF TEACHERS The Committee for the evaluation of teachers has three functions: • to identify the criteria on which the school manager assigns a bonus to reward deserving teachers: •express its opinion on the new teacher at the end of the test-training year • evaluate the performance (for a maximum period of three years) of the teachers who request it. The Council lasts in office for 3 years. It is chaired by the school manager and it is composed as follows: • three teachers of the school, two of which are chosen by the Board of teachers and one by the School board; • two representatives of the parents, for nursery schools and for the first cycle of education; one representative of the students and one representative of the parents, for the second cycle of education, chosen by the School board; • an external member chosen by the Regional School Office among the teachers, school managers and technical managers. In its full composition the Council has the function of determining the criteria for the enhancement of teachers. The school manager takes into account those criteria at the end of the year when he must identify the teachers deserving to receive the bonus from the appropriate ministerial fund. When the Council expresses its opinion on the passing of the training and testing period for the teaching and educational personnel, it meets in a technical and evaluative composition, consisting in the presence of the school manager, who chairs the meeting, the three teachers of the school, and it is integrated by the teacher who is given the role of tutor. MEETINGS OF PARENTS AND STUDENTS The decrees of 1974 gave the parents of the pupils and students in secondary school the opportunity to meet in class or school assemblies, as well as to make a council composed of the representatives elected in the intersection, interclass or class boards. THE TEACHER: LEGAL STATUS ANDCONTRACTPROFILE ACADEMIC FREEDOM Article 1 of the Consolidated Law sets outthe constitutional principle (Article 33) of academicfreedom, stating that: • it is exercised in accordance with the constitutional law and the legal system of the school; • it aims to promote the full development of the student's personality
  • 72.
    72 through an openexchange of cultural positions; • this promotion action is implemented in compliance with the moral and civil conscience of the pupils. Academic freedom is a guarantee for the teacher against constraints or conditioning by the public authorities. In this sense, academic freedom is recognised as an individual right of the teachers. RIGHTS OF THE STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES Academic freedom is not an end in itself, but a tool for the realisation of the freedoms and rights of the students: foremost, their right to education. The aim of the school autonomy is to achieve the educational success of students (P.D. 275/1999, Article 1). Article 29 of the Constitution recognises the rights of the family as "natural society founded on marriage" and Article 30 claims that it is the duty and right of parents to support, raise and educate their children. It follows that: • the task of the democratic State (compared to the absolute State) is not to educate but to put families in the position to educate their children; • the school is given the task to develop and implement the educational and teaching program; the family is partner of the school. The school manager is responsible for the promotion in school of the constitutionally protected rights (Article 25, Legislative Decree 165/2001). ROLE OF THE TEACHER Article 395 of the Consolidated Law 297/1994 outlines the characteristics of the role of the teacher, as the basic provider of: • transmission of culture; • contribution to the elaboration of culture; • encouragement of students to participate in this process and in the human and critical development of their personality. TRIAL PERIOD OF THE TEACHING PERSONNEL Provisions are set by Article 438 of the Consolidated Law, as supplemented by par. 115 of Law 107/2015. After the trial period, there is the service period for at least one hundred and eighty days, of which at least one hundred and twenty carried out in educational activities. During the test year, the teacher follows a path of training at work, by means of: • professional assistance at school, given by a teacher appointed by the school manager, after hearing the opinion of the Board of teachers, having the appropriate qualifications and skills (the tutor); • 50 hours of training. At the end of the school year, the teacher tested is evaluated by the school manager, after having heard the Evaluation Board, based on the investigation of the tutor teacher (Law 107/2015, Article 1, par. 117). On the basis of these evaluations and of any other element acquired, the manager can decide whether to: • confirm the role, in case of a positive outcome; • ask for a repetition of the test year, in case of a negative outcome due to failure to achieve the necessary service days or due to a negative evaluation of the test year. This will lead to an
  • 73.
    73 unrenewable second periodof training and testing. WORKING HOURS OF TEACHERS Teacher's working hours is a subject regulated by contract (Articles 28 and 29). The National Collective Labour Agreement provides for the weekly mandatory hours of instruction: • 25 hours for nursery schools; • 22 hours for primary school, plus 2 hours dedicated to educational planning; • 18 hours for secondary schools. The same agreement defines the obligations for the activities needed for teaching, classifying them into five areas: • individual work for preparing the lessons, correction of papers and individual relations with the families; • collective activities for which up to 40 hours a year are needed in order to attend meetings of the Board of teachers and to carry out the tasks set in its reunions; • activities of the class councils for which up to 40 hours per year are needed; • performance of the exams and final exams (without quantification); • in order to ensure reception and supervision of pupils, the teachers are required to be in class 5 minutes before the classes start and to assist the students out at the end. Teachers' activities not related to teaching are planned in the annual program of activities, suggested by the school manager and directly connected to the TYPS. SPECIAL TASKS It is expected that the teacher will receive special assignments for the collaboration with the school manager or for the coordination of the areas of activity in the TYPS: • collaborators are selected by the school manager for organisation and teaching roles; • the instrumental functions to the TYPS are identified by resolution of the Board of teachers. THE RIGHT AND DUTY TO CULTURAL AND PROFESSIONAL UPDATING Defined by the National Collective Labour Agreement as functional to teaching activities, the training of teachers is defined by Law 107/2015 as mandatory, permanent and structural. It is programmed by the Board of teachers in line with the TYPS, with the results from the improvementprograms of schools, as well as with the priorities outlined in the National Education Plan adopted by the Ministry. As established by Law 107/2015 in-house teachers can use an Electronic Card charged with an amount of 500 euro to pay for the purchase of study on work tools or as a contribution for the registration in schools offering updating and training courses. INCOMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES The Constitution states that public employees are exclusively at the service of the State (Article 38): hence, the prohibition to carry out other activities. However, employees that choose a part-time not exceeding 50% of the full time, can have a second job. As for the teachers, the TU of the school provides for the possibility of private lessons to pupils of other institutions, as long as the head of the school is informed. It also provides that a full-time
  • 74.
    74 teacher can practicethe profession with permission of the school manager. RESPONSIBILITYOF THE TEACHER CONCERNING MINOR PUPILS Article 2048 of the Civil Code provides that "tutors and those who teach a profession or craft are responsible for the damage caused by the unlawful act of their students and apprentices while these are under their supervision. The persons referred to in the previous paragraphs are freed from responsibility only if they prove not to have been able to prevent the incident." The teaching personnel of the schools, both private and public, falls within the definition of "tutors". The responsibility, called culpa in vigilando, is exonerated only if the teacher proves that he/she could not avoid the incident, i.e. has the burden of proof with the presumption of guilt against him. The School board, on the initiative of the school manager, issues a regulation laying down the procedures for exercising the supervision of pupils at all times during the activities contemplated by the TYPS. DISCIPLINARYRESPONSIBILITY OF THE TEACHER The disciplinary responsibility rises whenever the employee breaches his obligations of behaviour. At present, the teacher is subject to the general rules on public employment, as indicated by Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Article 55-bis and following articles), and the special regulations as indicated by the TU of the school. The latter (Article 492 and following articles) provides the correspondence between specific disciplinary offences and the related penalties. The disciplinary procedure is activated by the school manager or, in severe cases, by the Regional School Office at the request of the school manager. The procedure involves the following steps: • written notice of objections; • Call to defence • conclusion of the disciplinary procedure. If the employee’s excuses are accepted the procedure is dismissed. A penalty shall be imposed in other cases. STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS LAW 104 OF 1992 AND THE GUIDELINES OF 2009 In line with Law 104/1992 "a handicapped person is a person with a physical, mental or sensory impairment, stable or progressive, which leads to learning, relationship or work integration difficulties and the outcome is a process of social disadvantage or marginalisation". In the definition above, the terms impairment, difficulty, and disabled are placed in sequential correlation: from an impairment, a certain difficulty may arise, which can lead to a disability. The Guidelines for the school integration of students with disabilities, issued by the Ministry in 2009, are a collection of guidelines meant to improve the integration process of pupils with disabilities. THE RIGHT TO EDUCATIONOF STUDENTS WITH CERTIFIED DISABILITIES Guideline (P.D. 24 February 1994, as amended) entrusts the Medical Colleges of Local Health Units or Hospitals pointed out by the different Regions for their territories, the competence for the certification of the disabled. In order to ensure the personalisation of the education pathways the following documents need to be drafted:
  • 75.
    75 • the functionaldiagnosis for which the medical specialists are responsible; • the functional dynamic profile, a result of the collaboration between the medical specialist staff and the teachers of the Class council; • the Individualised Education Plan (IEP) which describes the integrated and balanced actions to implement in order to guarantee the right to education and training to pupils with disabilities. It is drafted by the Class council. The first classes enrolling pupils with disabilities have no more than 20 pupils, provided that the need for such a number is substantiated in relation to the training requirements. For a successful inclusion in the class of disabled pupils, Law 517/1977 established support places to be assigned to specialised teachers. Pupils with special needs are assessed following the individualised path laid down by their IEP. The Work Group of the Institute for Disability (WGID) is the place in which coordination of the activities and services in favour of the pupils with disabilities is realized. SPECIFICLEARNING DISABILITIES The abbreviation SLD includes disorders characterised by deficits in perception, in the production of messages or in other intellectual performances in subjects without intellectual disabilities. These disorders are mainly: • Dyslexia: reading and learning disorder; • Dysgraphia: learning and writing difficulty: in the latter case, it is usually defined as Dysorthography; • Dyscalculia: difficulty in performing scriation and computing operations. The Law 170/2010 has set up specific pathways to support the right to education of the persons with SLD. In 2011, the Guidelines for the right to education of pupils and students with SLD were issued. The diagnosis of the SLD is the responsibility of the specialists of the National Health Service. To this end, the school makes prcliminary observations and performs screening actions on all pupils. The parents of the pupils who, over time, confirm having major difficulties, will receive a written communication (describing the difficulties encountered) which contains an invitation to address the CNP (child neuropsychiatry). The programming tool for the student with SLD is called Customised Teaching Program (CTP). It needs to be drawn, with the approval of the family, by the first quarter of the year and provides for the adoption of compensatory measures, dispensatory measures, as well as personalised methods of verification and evaluation. FOREIGNSTUDENTS Foreign students who live in Italy were granted the right and duty to education in the same way as Italian citizens, regardless of their right to remain in the country (P.D. 394/1999). The document of the Ministry on the pedagogy of integration was issued by M.C. 24 of 1 March 2006 on the accompanying Guidelines for acceptance and integration of foreign students. It is prohibited to establish classes in which foreign students are dominant. The purpose of the legislation is integration, and not separation: the M.C. no. 2 of 8 January 2010 specifies not to exceed 30% of the foreigners
  • 76.
    76 enrolled in eachclass. The evaluation of foreign students, in particular those newly arrived in Italy (NAI), poses several types of problems. If it is necessary to take into account the Individual learning path and give time to allow insertion in a totally different environment, it is also necessary to consider that the Italian school system is founded on the legal value of qualifications. Therefore, a set of skills, properly certified and useful to the individual for the continuation in the studies and tor employment corresponds to a diploma. At the time of final evaluation for admission to the next class or to the State exams at the end of the education courses, the legal criterion is provided by Presidential Decree 122/2009, of which Article 1 (paragraph 9) states that they are evaluated in the same form and manner provided for Italian citizens. PUPILS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS (SEN) By Directive of 27 December 2012, the Ministry of Education has adopted from the Anglo-Saxon pedagogy the general profile of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) to plan the activities for students with academic problems. The Directive outlines the overall framework of the students with SEN. proposing their classification into three "sub-categories": • Disability, (whose right to education is protected by law 104/1992; • Specific learning disabilities (SLD), whose right to education is protected by law 170/2010; • The socio-economic, linguistic, and cultural disadvantage. While the identification of the students of the first two groups is the responsibility of the services for child neuropsychiatry (CNP) by certification of the disability or the SLD diagnosis, the task of identifying the educational needs of the students of the third "sub-category" and building the customisation pathways (CP) is entrusted to the Class councils (in nursery schools and primary school, to the team of teachers). Pupils with SEN are identified based on the objective evidence (reports of social workers, traumatic events in their personal life or in the family) or appropriate pedagogical and didactic considerations. The related CP are temporary. ANNUAL PROGRAMME FOR INCLUSIVENESS (API) The M.C. no. 8/2013 has extended the tasks of the Work Group of the Institute for Disability (WGID) to the issues related to all SEN, giving them the new name of Work Group for inclusion with the capabilities of detecting SEN presentin the school and coordinating activities. The aim is to draw up a proposal for the Annual Program for Inclusiveness (API) reported for all pupils with SEN, for the best use of the resources to increase the school's level of general inclusiveness. The API is approved by the Board of teachers as part of the Programme of Studies. THE STATE REGULATION. THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH THE CONSTITUTION In the Constitution, which came into force on 1 January 1948, the Republic is mentioned as the "container" of territorial institutions (Article 114: "The Republic is made up of Municipalities, Provinces,
  • 77.
    77 Metropolitan Cities, Regionsand the State"). Social formations (Article 2) are recognised: associations (Article 18), religion (Article 19), family (Articles 29-31), school (Articles 33-34), trade unions (Article 39), and political parties (Article 49), Therefore, the Republic is the framework of co-existence of the legal fundamentals to which the Italian citizen is called upon to exercise its own rights and duties. THE STARTOF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN 2015 During the seventeenth legislature, the bill for Constitutional reforn was being approved. First of all, the bill provides in overcoming the two-party chamber system, assigning different tasks, to the Chamber and Senate: • The first is responsible for the trust relationship with the Government, continuing to exercise the political, legislative and supervision function of the Government's actions; • The Senate will represent the local institutions, contributing to the performance of the legislative function only in cases established by the reform. The new Senate will be composed of ninety-five senators representing the local institutions and five senators appointed by the President of the Republic. The following exposition refers to the constitutional regulations provided by the Constitution in force, pending the approval and entry into force of the constitutional reform (Bill C. 2613-D). THE PARLIAMENT Parliament is the expression of popular sovereignty. It is made up of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, elected for five years. Both legislative assemblies have the same functions (perfect bicameralism). Parliamentary committees are bodies of each Chamber, composed of deputies and senators that represent, proportionally, the political forces. The most importantfunction carried out is to analyse the bills, which must be ready before their discussion the whole-house. There are three functions carried out by the Parliament: the legislative function, the control function over the Government and the political function. The Constitution provides, however, that the exercise of the legislative function may be delegated to the Government by determining the principles and the criteria, for a limited period of time and for specific objects. When, in cases of necessity and urgency, the Government adopts, under own responsibility provisional measures having the force of law, it must present them the same day for conversion to the Chambers. The decrees lose effect from their approval if they are not converted into law within sixty days from their publication. THE GOVERNMENT The Government is a constitutional body made up of the Prime Minister and the ministers, which together make up the Council of Ministers. The form of Government provided for in the Constitution is parliamentary because the Government is issued by the Parliament. The Government objectifies its activities in the political leadership function of the State: • With the tools of the government program, the draft legislation implementing the government program, the decree-laws and the decrees;
  • 78.
    78 • Exercising theexecutive power, i.e. administrative functions by the Public Administration, in compliance with the recognised autonomy. THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH AND ITS TERRITORIAL BRANCHES The Ministries are thirteen: one of them is the Ministry of Education, University and Research. The central level of the Ministry of Education is organised in three Departments: • The Department for the education and training system; • The Department for higher education and research; • The Department for programming and management of human, financial and instrumental resources. In eachRegional capital there is a Regional School Office (RSO). Their total number is eighteen, as they are present in all Regions, with the exception of Valle d'Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige. The main task of the RSOS is the allocation of human and financial resources to the single autonomous schools, based on quotas determined by the Ministry. Usually, the RSOS include: • provincial branches (before school autonomy, these were called Education authorities); • sub-provincial branches, intended to be the place of teachers named in function with the new rules: such areas (of forthcoming establishment) have been established by law 107/2015. THE JUDICIARY After the Parliament and the Government, the Judiciary is "third power", autonomous and independent of the State. The Judiciary represents all bodies of civil, criminal and administrative justice that exercise judicial power or judicial function. The purpose of the judicial function (from the Latin ius dicere) is to declare the law to be applied in controversial situations and force the recipients to submit to the decision. The ordinary jurisdiction is divided into criminal and civil. The Superior Council of Judiciary is the governing body of the judiciary order and is autonomous and independent from all other powers. SPECIAL COURTS They deal with special disputes in accordance with a specialisation criterion. Article 103 of the Constitution identifies the following special jurisdictions: • Administrative jurisdiction (Regional Administrative Courts; State Council on appeal); • Accounting jurisdiction (Court of Auditors); • Military jurisdiction (Military Courts). THE PRESIDENTOF THE REPUBLIC
  • 79.
    79 The President ofthe Republic is an autonomous and independentconstitutional body. His duties include: • Acting as a guardian of the Constitution; • Controlling and connecting the constitutional bodies of the State; • Representing the State and national unity, He is elected by the Parliament in joint session of its members. He remains in office for seven years. TERRITORIAL AUTONOMIES OF THE REPUBLIC THE TERRITORIAL AUTONOMIES Article 5 of the Constitution states that the "Republic, one and indivisible, acknowledges and promotes local autonomies, implements the fullest measure of administrative decentralisation to the services that depend on the State; adjusts the principles and methods of its legistation to the requirements of autonomyand decentralisation". Article 114 states that the "Republic is composed of the Municipalities, Provinces, Metropolitan Cities, Regions and the State". THE REGIONS The Regions are autonomous bodies that make up the Republic. They are divided into: 1. Ordinary regions, uniformly disciplined by Section V of the Constitution; 2. Special Statute Regions, governed by specific rules contained in the constitutional laws. The 5 Regions with a Special Statute are Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Valle d'Aosta/Vallee d'Aoste. LEGISLATIVE AUTONOMY OF THE REGIONS following the constitutional reform of 2001, the new article 117 distinguishes three types of legislative power: • Exclusive legislative power of the State, to determine the basic levels of performances relating to civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughoutthe national territory; • Concurrent legislative power or power shared between the State and the Regions. The State determines the fundamental principles through by-laws and the Regions issue the sector-specific legislation; • Residual legislative power of the Regions on matters are obtainable by exclusion. LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATE AND REGIONS IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM Among the matters subject to the exclusive legislative power of the State, Article 117, par. 2, point n) mentions the general education standards. Among the matters with concurrent legislative power,
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    80 Article 117, par.3, states that "Education, exceptthe autonomy of educational institutions, and except the vocational education and training" (which is a matter of exclusive legislation of the Regions). Annually, the Regions deliberate the programming plan of the training offer and the dimensioning of the school network. They can also delegate to Provinces and Municipalities specific skills or parts thereof, implementing the principle of subsidiarity. REGIONAL BODIES Regional bodies are: • The President of the Region. Represents the Region, manages the policy of the Regional Committee and is responsible for it, promulgates laws and issues regional regulations; • The Regional Committee, the executive body of the Region; • The Regional Council, elected every 5 years. It exercises legislative power. THE PROVINCES The Province is a constitutive body of the Republic and is defined by Article 3, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree 267/2000 as an "intermediate local authority between the Municipality and the Region, represents the community, takes care of its interests, promotes and coordinates its development". In the education system, the Provinces have the following key competencies: • prepare the provincial plan of educational institutions on the territory; • provide the buildings, furnishings and every organisational tool necessary for the operation of the secondaryschools; • organize the school transportnetwork. After the reform of 2014 (Law 56), the Provincial Councils are no longer directly elected. The draft Constitutional reform, currently in approval, provides for the abolition of the Provinces. THE MUNICIPALITIES The Municipality, constitutive body of the Republic, is defined by Article 3, od Legislative Decree 267/200 as “local authority representing the community, it takes care of its interests and promotes development”. In the education system the Municipalities have the following competences: • Provide buildings, furniture and equipment to nursery schools and primary schools; • Define the school assistance plan and the right to education, including, bonuses for worthy, capable, destitute and disabled students, • Provide for the public transport network; • Ensure compliance with the education obligation. METROPOLITAN CITIES They are autonomous local authorities, reformed by Law 6/2014, whose territory coincides with that of the homonymous Province. They have been created in the 10 largest cities on the national territory:
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    81 Turin, Milan, Venice,Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Bari, Naples and Reggio Calabria, plus Rome, the Capital, with special regulations, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE CONSTITUTIONAND LAW The Constitution devotes to the Public Administration Articles 97, 98 and 28: • Article 97 "Public offices are organised according to the law, so they ensure the good performance and impartiality of the administration (.); • Article 98 "Public employees are exclusively at the service of the State (.); • Article 28 "The officials and employees of the State and public entities are directly responsible, according to criminal, civil and administrative laws, for the actions committed by breaching of rights () THE PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION The principles of administrative action are set forth in Law 241/1990, Article1. The administrative activity: • Follows the purposes determined by law; • Is governed by the criteria of economy, efficiency, advertising and transparency: • Is also governed by the principles of European law. Another fundamental principle is set out in Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Consolidated Law of public employment) of which Article 4 assigns to the government bodies the functions of political- administrative nature, as well as the verification of the compliance of the operating results with the directions issued while executives adopt the acts and administrative measures, as well as the financial, technical and administrative management (separation between politics and management). ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES The administrative act consists of any manifestation of will, knowledge or judgement (or mixed), put in place by the Public Administration in the exercise of its functions. A particular category of administrative act is the administrative measure, the final act of an administrative procedure and has authority, which consists in unilateral changes to the legal position of the recipient. The essential elements of the administrative measure are: • The emanating subject: competentadministrative authority; • The recipient subject: the public or private entity against which the effects of the measure are produced; • The form: generally written form, although in some legal procedures, the inertia of the public administration (administrative silence) has a legal meaning; • The object; the administrative actmust relate to a specific object, consisting in a behaviour, a fact, a good, a performance.
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    82 TYPES OF ADMINISTRATIVEMEASURES They can be: • Measures of public law or real administrative measures: in cases where the law assigns to the public administration the ruling authority; • Measures of private law, where law makes the public administration operate on equal footing with other subjects. In turn, measures of public law can bc: • Bound measures: the public administration is subject to mandatory rules; • Discretionary measures: the decision is issued after the assessment of the interests involved and with motivation of volition. The certifications are administrative measures that recognise factual situations. The opinions are expressed by the advisory bodies based on the issuance of the executive decree or the resolution of the competent school body and may be mandatoryor optional; binding or non-binding. SUBJECTIVE LAW AND LEGITIMATE INTEREST With regard to public administration, legal entities can claim positions of: • Subjective law: power of a person to assert their interest recognised by law in a direct way and, therefore, protected by recourse to ordinarycourts; • Legitimate interest: expectation of the legality of administrative action, protected by recourse to the administrative courts. RULES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE It is essential that the action of the public administration takes place according to certain and transparent rules that provide: • The obligation to conclude, through the adoption of an express measure; • The obligation to state reasons, in reference to the factual and legal reasons that led to the decision; • The appointmentof the person in charge of the procedure. There is an obligation to determine and organisational unit responsible for the investigation and the name of the person in charge of the procedure; • The right of access, in order to encourage participation and ensure impartiality and transparency. THE FAULTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES The administrative measure issued without the respect of the rules governing the procedure and the competence is vitiated and can be invalidated. An administrative measure is totally null only when such consequence is indicated by the law, basically, when one of the essential elements is missing. On the other hand the measure is invalid when there is a partial legitimacy or merit fault. In this case the addressee must claim its invalidity by carrying out the administrative remedies: "the administrative measure adopted in breach of the law or is vitiated by an abuse of power or incompetence shall be
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    83 cancelled" (Article 21-octies,Law 15/2005). ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS AND JUDICIAL REMEDIES Normally, issued administrative measures are conclusive of a given procedure. The citizen who thinks his legitimate interests were prejudiced, can resort to: • Administrative appeals addressed the bodies of the same public administration that has issued the administrative measure (requestof objection, hierarchical appeal, extraordinary appeal to the Head of State); • Judicial appeals before the Regional Administrative Courts (RAC) and, on appeal, the State Council. The decision on the administrative appeal may be rejected by ruling, when the appeal is declared inadmissible, unacceptable or barred to proceed without the judge entering the merits of the objection raised; or, the decision is on the merits, when the appeal is upheld or rejected. THE EMPLOYMENTRELATIONSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THE EMPLOYMENTRELATIONSHIP OF PUBLICEMPLOYMENT The employment relationship is the legal relationship which originates from the employment contract, characterised, on the one hand, by the obligation of the employee to perform his working activity and, on the other hand, by the obligation of wage payment by the employer who, in the public sector, is a Public Administration. Following the entry into force of Decree 29/1993, the public work has been privatised, i.c. attributed to the regulation of the Civil Code. The basic principles of labour discipline for the employees of Public Administration are specified in the Constitution (Articles 3, 35-40, 51-52, 54, and 97-98). Legislative Decree 165/2001 (Consolidated Law of public employment) states that the employment relationships in the Public Administrations are governed by contracts entered into between the representative trade unions of workers and the different administrations divided by areas of negotiation and represented by the Agency for Collective Labour Negotiations in the public administrations. COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATION Collective negotiation takes place on all matters relating to employment and labour relations (Article 45, Legislative Decree 165/2001). Collective negotiations, in line with Article 40 of Legislative Decree 165/2001, leadsto the approval of the following documents: • the national collective agreementframework (NCAF) lays down the rules of negotiation valid throughout the public administration, setting the sections, contractual areas, the rights and union prerogatives; • the supplementary national collective agreement (SNCA) concerns the single Administrations detailing the delegated matters by the related national collective negotiation agreement; In the school sector, the regional supplementarycontract (RSC) regulates the matters expressly
  • 84.
    84 provided for inthe national collective agreement at the level of a single USR, while the integrative school agreementdefines all other aspects. INTEGRATIVE SCHOOL AGREEMENT In school agreement, the public party is represented by the school manager, while the RSU is the body representing trade unions that, in the fields reserved to integrative bargaining, represents the personnel of the autonomous school. The RSU is accompanied by representatives of the local trade union organisations that signed the national agreement. In 2009, following the entry into force of Legislative Decree 150, the school managementwas responsible for "determining the organisation of the offices and the measures related to the management of labour relations". Consequently, the matters subject to collective negotiation were reduced to: • Application of trade union rights and setting the contingencies in service in case of strike to ensure the minimum services required by law 146/1990; • Implementation of the legislation on safety in the workplace; Criteria for the allocation of the school fund and for the recognition of the personnel in the activities paid from this fund. SCHOOL FUND (SF) The most complex matter of bargaining is the SF, funded by the resources of the national collective agreement. Its purpose is the assignment of extra compensations for the school personnel, in order to support the process of school autonomy and, in particular, the qualification and the expansion of the training offer. In accordance with Article 88 of the 2007 agreement, the activities of the teachers that can be paid from the school fund are those related to the different educational, organisational, research and evaluation requirements, in collaboration with the school manager, also with flat-rate remuneration. Other activities that can be funded by the SF are: • Extra hours for the replacement of teachers absent for short periods; • Instrumental functions to POF conferred to teachers identified by the board; • Specific tasks attributed to ATA personnel; • Personnel working on projects in "risk areas". Allowance payable to the director of general and administrative services (DGAS). Financial allocations for the above activities are communicated by the Ministry to the single institution at the beginning of each school year.