Universal design for Learning per una valorizzazione delle differenze: un\u2019indagine esplorativa sulle percezioni degli insegnanti

L\u2019Universal Design for Learning, abbattendo le barriere che impediscono l\u2019apprendimento e la partecipazione, promuove ambienti di apprendimento nei quali l\u2019obiettivo sia quello di formare studenti esperti, che sappiano apprendere, che abbiano gi\ue0 appreso e che vogliano continuare ad apprendere . Considerando il valore dei principi di questo modello in ottica inclusiva, \ue8 sorta spontanea l\u2019ipotesi riguardante un\u2019eventuale riflessione sul modello dell\u2019UDL anche nel contesto italiano. Attraverso la ricerca sono state, quindi, indagate le sue possibili prospettive di attuazione nella nostra realt\ue0, a partire dalla percezione che gli insegnanti hanno delle proprie pratiche educative inclusive. La ricerca ha coinvolto un gruppo di 255 insegnanti della scuola Primaria, Secondaria di 1\ub0 e 2\ub0 Grado e ha avuto come obiettivo quello di indagare le percezioni degli insegnanti in merito alla condivisione dei valori e delle pratiche inclusive adottate nell\u2019ottica dell\u2019Universal Design for Learning, nelle rispettive scuole di appartenenza. I risultati evidenziano terreno fertile per la sua diffusione nel contesto italiano pur valorizzando alcune dimensioni necessarie per la sua applicazione (es. ethos della scuola, formazione degli insegnanti)

Content and Face Validity of the Evaluation Tool of Health Information for Consumers (ETHIC): Getting Health Information Accessible to Patients and Citizens

Background: Health information concerns both individuals’ engagement and the way services and professionals provide information to facilitate consumers’ health decision making. Citizens’ and patients’ participation in the management of their own health is related to the availability of tools making health information accessible, thus promoting empowerment and making care more inclusive and fairer. A novel instrument was developed (Evaluation Tool of Health Information for Consumers—ETHIC) for assessing the formal quality of health information materials written in Italian language. This study reports ETHIC’s content and face validity. Methods: A convenience sample of 11 experts and 5 potential users was involved. The former were requested to evaluate relevance and exhaustiveness, the latter both readability and understandability of ETHIC. The Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated for ETHIC’s sections and items; experts and potential users’ feedback were analyzed by the authors. Results: All sections and most items were evaluated as relevant. A new item was introduced. Potential users provided the researchers with comments that partly confirmed ETHIC’s clarity and understandability. Conclusions: Our findings strongly support the relevance of ETHIC’s sections and items. An updated version of the instrument matching exhaustivity, readability, and understandability criteria was obtained, which will be assessed for further steps of the validation process

Dino Formaggio. fenomenologia e artisticità

Per celebrare la vita e il lavoro di Dino Formaggio, intervengono numerosi autori con contributi che parlano sia della sua dimensione umana sia della sua filosofia attraverso il suo rapporto con la tradizione fenomenologica, in particolare francese, e attraverso le sue lezioni magistrali sugli oggetti artistici considerati in concreto, e compresi con una lucidit\ue0 sorprendente, che continua a illuminarci in primis sui capolavori della pittura

Formare per metafore. Arte, scienza, natura

Nature doesn’t seem reducible to rigid systems and classifications. Although resorting to metaphors may give rise to contradictions, it allows the elaboration of explanatory models which help us to organize thought and to find orientation in the natural world. Giving form through metaphors stands for seeking the way by which mankind looks for both solutions and new configurations to face nature’s enigmas. The creation of morphological and/or evolutionary metaphors framed in a schematic way what Hugo called “man’s groping in the universe of nature”. Circles, arrows, spirals, scales, etc. stood for research directions: for example, scale became metaphor of an “animal universe” that – as it was thought to be in the Eighteenth Century – organized itself in a bottom-up scale. The circle referred to “metamorphosis” (Alle Glieder bilden sich aus nach ew'gen Gesetzen, /Und die seltenste Form bewahrt im Geheimen das Urbild), which reminds us of Goethe’s thinking. Metaphors are never an aim in themselves: they always determine a way of thinking as well as choices and research directions.Such a use of the linguistic image deeply influences the very notion of metaphor as figures of speech. If, on the one hand, metaphor shows unknown structures of nature, on the other it rediscovers its own ‘naturalness’. Starting from the deep interconnection between functional and formal tasks in morphological discussion, metaphor turned from “figure” to “figuration”, Gestaltung, and in doing so it revealed a dynamic structure able to make us understand new links and directions in the sense of a metamorphic nature.Far from limiting itself to a historical retrospection, the methodological significance of having recourse to metaphor profoundly informs the most recent questions in the scientific field  and notably in life sciences, in the very moment in which it leads and encourages a renewed dialogue between sciences and philosophy.</p

Managing health information to improve health literacy

International surveys on literacy assessment in adults show that some segments of the population do not possess literacy levels fit for the needs and requirements of contemporary society. Health literacy is a complex and multifaceted concept linked to literacy. It seems realistic that everyone involved in healthcare can contribute to improving the health literacy level of the population through best practices in health education, health promotion and patient education in general. Health librarians can play a strategic role. Biomedical and health libraries are part of the healthcare services and can contribute to disseminating health literacy awareness and creating health literate organizations. Health librarians represent not only an interface between healthcare professionals and consumers, but also an easy point of access to high quality health information. In particular, health librarians can play an active role by guiding users toward trustworthy, up to date and understandable information. Librarians can actively cooperate with healthcare professionals in the provision of clear and simple health information, with particular attention to the needs of users with low levels of health literacy. The technical competence of healthcare professionals is essential, because they alone can assure the correctness of health information from a clinical point of view. However, health librarians can help clinicians and healthcare professionals to produce good quality health information by searching for and accessing the best evidence available, producing plain language text, providing editorial supervision of new content and involving patient and citizen representatives. Librarians' expertise is needed to evaluate existing health information resources, organize them in easily accessible repositories and manage health information services for consumers. In this scenario, to paraphrase Ranganathan, librarians can give every user his or her document. In this way, librarians can enhance the health literacy level of the population and fulfil their mission: "to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities" (Lankes 2011, 15)