Crossing boundaries: documentation of a teacher training course on design, robotics and coding

This article reports on the results of a teacher training course in which 41 teachers, working together with three university researchers, experienced a different way to engage in meaningful teaching and learning activities in design, coding and robotics. The course was run in an Italian school during the lock-down period of the Covid-19 pandemics. The training path had the objective to make the participants work differently, acting both as researchers and as teachers in training. The research reported in this article examined if and how an online teacher training course could act as a third space between school and academic cultures to achieve a negotiation of pedagogical practices. Findings from the study, collected through pre-post questionnaires and open-ended discussions, highlight an improvement in knowledge related to coding and robotics. Moreover, during the course, teachers experienced a new approach to space-time dimensions, first-hand experimentation and a collaborative approach, leading to greater perceived confidence in their skills and competences

Makers at school. L'apprendimento nell'era post-digitale

Il volume mira a delineare un background teorico relativo alla Maker Culture e agli scenari emergenti nell’ambito delle tecnologie per l’educazione nell’era post digitale. Sono trattate le tematiche relative alla nascita e alle peculiarità del Maker Movement e della Maker Education e la loro diffusione nel panorama nazionale e internazionale tramite le varie tipologie di makerspace e iniziative avviate; la nascita e l’espansione della STE(A)M Education, in stretta connessione con la prima per intenti e rilevanza; il concetto di post-digitale; il contributo delle low e high technologies, con particolare attenzione alla robotica educativa; l’apporto della digital fabrication, della stampa 3D e della Virtual e Augmented Reality, ripercorrendo la loro evoluzione e i loro tratti distintivi per cogliere le potenzialità offerte nel contesto scolastico. A partire da tale background, si presenteranno alcune esperienze e studi di caso basati sulla Maker Education e condotti a livello internazionale, per poi descrivere un progetto pilota sperimentato recentemente in Italia e volto ad integrare l’approccio Maker nel curricolo scolastico di scuola primaria e secondaria di primo grado. Il lavoro si propone di porre in evidenza luci e ombre, potenzialità e sfide di un approccio innovativo e “trasformativo” della didattica tradizionale, individuando nuove piste di lavoro nella ricerca in ambito educativo e proponendo, al contempo, future direzioni da perseguire ed indagare

Enactive approaches for the teachers\u2019 professional development1

This contribution presents an experience aimed at supporting theemerging professionalism of future teachers during their initial training.The workshop \u201cDocumenting the professionalization of the teacher\u201d, held in the fifth year of the degree course in \u201cScienze della Formazione Primaria\u201d, University of Macerata, is indeed oriented to reconstruct and document the skills acquired during the degree course, through an enactive approach. In the training of future teachers, the relevance of the body and the didactic action, performed during the internship, finds concrete visibility in the construction of the ePortfolio. In it, evidence is also collected using audio and video files concerning the didactic action in context. The conscious and active participation of students and the use of work tools such as rubrics, competence assessment, and ePortfolio have fostered a reflective and problematic posture in the participants. This posture is now essential not only to meet the need for recursion, inherent in the teaching-learning process, but also to address the complexity characterizing the currenteducational landscape