Project Report ECLIPSE: European Citizenship Learning Program for Secondary Education

This paper reports on a European project, the Comenius ECLIPSE project (European Citizenship Learning in a Programme for Secondary Education) developed by six European partners coordinated by the University of Trento in the years 2011-2014. ECLIPSE (co-financed by the EACEA - Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency) aims at developing, testing, and implementing a Programme of European Citizenship, in order to improve citizenship competence and responsibility and to strengthen the sense of belonging and European identity of 8th grade pupils. These goals are reachable thanks to a number of measures in formal, non-formal and informal fields. The project partners created teaching and monitoring tools for pupils: seven ECMs (European Citizenship Modules), knowledge tests, pupils’ portfolio, and suggestions for teachers, especially a portfolio for ECLIPSE educators. The ECLIPSE teaching/ testing materials were implemented in several schools of the partner’s countries in order to make sure that it is useful for European pupils of different school systems. It can be used in a flexible way keeping in mind different learning needs in each school system, with a view to improving transversal competencies like learning to learn, as well as initiative and active involvement in improving the chances for young people in citizenship and work worlds. Dieses Papier beschreibt ein europäisches Projekt: das Comenius Projekt ECLIPSE (European Citizenship Learning in einem Programm für Secondary Education), das von sechs europäischen Partnern entwickelt und von der Universität Trient in den Jahren 2011-2014 koordiniert wurde. ECLIPSE wurde von der EACEA (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency) kofinanziert; es zielt auf die Entwicklung, Überprüfung und Implementierung eines Programms zur Entwicklung eines europäischen Bürgersinns, um Kompetenzen als Staatsbürger und zugleich einer europäischen Identität und Verantwortung bei Schülerinnen und Schülern der 8. Klasse. Diese Ziele werden durch eine Reihe von Maßnahmen im formalen, nicht formalen und informellen Bereich angestrebt. Die Projektpartner entwickelten Lehr-und Monitoring Materialien für SchülerInnen, sieben ECM (European Citizenship Modules), Wissenstests, Portfolio für Schüler und Hinweise für Lehrer und speziell ein Portfolio für den Lehrkörper. Die ECLIPSE Lehr / Testmaterialien wurden in mehreren Schulen und Schultypen der Partnerländer getestet. Es kann in flexibler Weise verwendet werden unter Berücksichtigung unterschiedlicher Lernbedürfnisse in jedem Schulsystem, um auch Querschnittskompetenzen wie Lernkompetenz und Eigeninitiative und aktive Mitarbeit zu fördern um die Chancen junger Menschen auf politische Partizipation und auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zu verbessern

Inclusione e apprendimento di qualità negli studi universitari

Early dropping out from the university studies brings negative consequences for the students, their families, the society and the economy. This essay aims to analyze the problems related to the poor performance of part of the university student population and develope proposals for inclusion strategies that can help students conclude their studies successfully. The EU 2020 ET (Education and Training) Horizon of the European Union aims at the ambitious goal of bringing tertiary education rates to at least 40% of the population in the age group between 30 and 34 years, promoting social mobility and smart and sustainable growth, and Italy is still far form reaching this level. This paper deals with institutional measures, orientation strategies, effective teaching, tutoring and support methodologies needed to improve the situation, according to the suggestions of autoritative international bodies like UNESCO, and EHEA. The intention is finding a way to overcome obstacles, in economic, teaching/ learning and social fields, contributig to the individual and social common development

Formative Learning Evaluation of university students as success factor

[EN] This paper deals with the impact of formative evaluation on the learning success of the university students. A lot of young people interrupt their academic career before the end of it or meet big delays and demotivation. That is due to many reasons; one of them is the lack of clear understanding of the expected outcomes. The aim of this paper is considering how a formative evaluation process with clear indicators for transversal skills together with consistent teaching forms may help students to reach the main aims of university studies. I’ll focus on competences as learning to learn, scientific and critical thinking, initiative and entrepreneurship, active citizenship, communication and social skills. Different ways of assessing lead to reach different aims. This contribution includes an ongoing study, describes data drawn from the use of a portfolio and from a qualitative questionnaire with closed and open questions for self assessment filled-in by the students of the subject area group “Citizenship Learning” at the University of Trento. Intermediate results highlight the importance of articulating learning goals explicitely for improvement of the students outcomes.Bombardelli, O. (2015). Formative Learning Evaluation of university students as success factor. En 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADVANCES (HEAD' 15). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 600-606. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd15.2015.46160060

Country Report: Civic and Citizenship Education in Italy: Thousands of Fragmented Activities Looking for a Systematization

Purpose: In the present paper we describe how civic and citizenship education takes place in Italy, trying to identify strengths and weaknesses, with the aims both of understanding the situation and of identifying possible measures for improvement. Methods: The methodology implies an analysis of the official guidelines by the Ministry in this field, a short view of the research publications of the last 30 years, the informal observation of the daily teaching at school from the personal experience of the authors in Italy. Findings: First of all we study the concept of civic and citizenship education, and focus on the curriculum of civic and citizenship education (aims, teaching approaches, taught time, methods and means) in the school system, including the school culture and the experiences of participation inside school; we investigate the teacher training and role, the informal and non-formal influences in this educational field, and conclude dealing with the student assessment, and the evaluation of the outcomes. In the daily practice there are thousands of activities for civic and citizenship education, but a systematic design is lacking