Digital object-based learning for people with ASD: a training experience within heritage education contexts

The paper aims at presenting a training experience for future educators carried out during the academic year 2022/2023 on the use of Digital Object-Based Learning (OBL) for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Three different webinars, designed within the Erasmus+ Spektrum project, have been realised with a focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of personalised museum educational experiences to foster social inclusion and wellbeing within people with specific educational needs through Object-based learning (OBL). As stated by the literature in the field, hands-on learning within heritage education contexts can really enhance people's interest in and understanding of a topic/subject and develop important transverse skills, thus promoting cultural participation of users at risk of social exclusion. During the webinars, specific models for planning learning sessions with ASD people were presented, together with wellbeing and empathy assessment tools to be used within museum context. The training experience ended with a digital OBL session, where museum educators were asked to collaboratively analyse, interpret, and evaluate digitised museum objects. More than 90 in-training educators, from different Italian and Spanish institutions, attended the webinars: results from a final assessment survey are presented in order to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the training experience, the soft and hard skills most promoted and the educational needs of the participants, trying to identify challenges and potential transformations within digital heritage education context

Designing MOOCs for Creative Industries professionals. The E+ DigiCulture project experience / Progettare MOOCs per professionisti dell’Industria Creativa. L’esperienza del progetto E+ DigiCulture

The paper aims at illustrating the theoretical framework that has been used within the DigiCulture project (Erasmus+ KA204) to design, realize and evaluate the Digital Skills and Social Inclusion for Creative Industries MOOC Courses. Based on the data obtained from empirical research activities and pilot phase carried out during the project, the digital competences most required by the Creative Industries (CI) sector are defined and the skills and tools needed to promote these digital competences among CI employees through e-learning activities are identified. The “Guidelines for Digital Competences for Creative Industries” document, here summarized, provides important indications for educators and trainers who will want to define, implement, and evaluate online learning pathways focused on promoting digital competences and addressed to CI employees. Moreover, the paper presents some results from the pilot phase of one of the MOOCs implemented within the project, in order to highlight its characteristics in terms of educational design

Professional development of in-training museum educators: an experience of curriculum improvement in time of a pandemic

[EN] The present paper aims to illustrate the reorganization of two post-graduate courses, “Museum Education. Theoretical aspects” and “Advanced Studies in Museum Education” promoted by CDM (Center for Museum Studies) - Dept. of Education at Roma Tre University, carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic, and to analyze the education strategies adopted in terms of museum professionals development to face the Covid-19 museum and universities 2020 Italian lockdown.The results emerging from the quantitative evaluation of the module “Museum and Social Networks”, taking into consideration the activities and digital tools proposed, show the efficacy of the courses reorganization, in terms of transverse and professional skills development in university students, critical thinking and collaboration in particular. Moreover, the data analysis give useful indications in term of university online lectures, laboratory activities and practices in e-learning mode, evaluation tools and methodologies aimed at solliciting professional development of in-training museum educators in university learning context.Poce, A.; Valente, M.; Re, MR.; Amenduni, F.; De Medio, C. (2021). Professional development of in-training museum educators: an experience of curriculum improvement in time of a pandemic. En 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1377-1384. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd21.2021.12881OCS1377138

Using different learning methodologies and tools to exploit the educational impact of a University Art Collection: a pilot phase at Roma Tre University (IT)

The Centre for Museum Studies based at University Roma Tre (IT) has designed and implemented a museum educational programme aimed at promoting the “Tito Rossini” contemporary art collection donated by the artist in 2017 to the Department of Education. The educational programme foresees the use of innovative and digital education methodologies and tools (e.g. Digital Storytelling, Augmented Reality and Gamification) and is addressed to university and external users. A pilot study with university students was carried out in order to verify the achievement of some objectives of the programme designed for the exhibition. This experience addresses the need for personalised educational museum paths in view of promoting social inclusion and transverse skills, focusing on critical thinking in particular

A Virtual Reality Etruscan Museum Exhibition–Preliminary Results Of The Participants’ Experience

The current global health emergency has posed the need to reflect upon how to guarantee high standard of quality in 100% virtual exhibition. In this case study, we present one of the possible solutions to design a VR museum exhibition for educational purposes. The Centre for Museum Studies designed “The E-Trouria App”, a VR exhibition which is aimed at providing participants with personalised learning path based on an Etruscan museum collection in Rome. The App was designed by combining different pedagogical methods such as Digital Storytelling and Reflective Questioning. The goals of the research were to understand visitors' evaluation of their experience. 20 postgraduate students (F = 17; M = 3; Average age = 36 years) in Museum Education took part in the pre-pilot experimentation. Participants expressed very positive evaluation on the visit and their features (narratives, soundtrack and multimodality). Participants were emotionally engaged during the visit and the most reported emotions were “pleasure” and “wondering”. Future research steps are illustrated

Narrating the museum to promote empathy and critical thinking in medical science students and doctors through online activities: a pilot research experience

L'esperienza di ricerca "Narrare il museo per promuovere l’empatia e il pensiero critico in studenti di medicina e dottori", realizzata nell'ambito del progetto "Inclusive Memory", co-finanziato dall’Università Roma Tre, mira a promuovere l'empatia e la capacità di pensiero critico nei medici, anche in formazione, attraverso attività di educazione al patrimonio. Le caratteristiche innovative dell'esperienza di ricerca risiedono nell'utilizzo di attività online, che combinano diverse metodologie di apprendimento: Visual Thinking Strategies, Reflective Questioning, Storytelling e Object-based learning. Il contributo presenta i risultati dell'attività pilota svolta dal gruppo di ricerca del Centro di Didattica Museale, con sede presso il Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione dell’Università Roma Tre, in collaborazione con Sapienza Università di Roma. Vengono inoltre descritte le attività didattiche, gli strumenti di apprendimento e di valutazione utilizzati durante tale esperienza, che ha coinvolto 35 partecipanti. I risultati della sperimentazione descritta evidenziano un miglioramento statisticamente significativo per quanto riguarda l’indicatore di pensiero critico “uso della lingua” e un miglioramento della dimensione empatica della sensibilità al contesto; i partecipanti dichiarano che i loro livelli di comunicazione e pensiero critico migliorano alla fine delle attività e che gli esercizi progettati stimolano la riflessione, l'osservazione e l'interpretazione.The research experience "Narrating the museum to promote empathy and critical thinking in medical science students and doctors through online activities", carried out within the "Inclusive Memory" project, co-funded by University Roma Tre, aims at promoting empathy and critical thinking skills in medical science students and doctors through heritage education activities. The innovative features of the research experience lie in the use of online activities, combining different learning methodologies: Visual Thinking Strategies, Reflective Questioning, Storytelling and Object-Based Learning. The paper presents the results of the pilot activity carried out by the Centre for Museum Studies research group, based at the Department of Education – Roma Tre, in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome. It also describes the teaching activities, learning and evaluation tools used during the pilot experience, which involved 35 participants. The trial results highlight a statistically significant improvement in the Critical Thinking use of language indicators and an improvement of Sensitivity to the context empathy dimension; participants state that their levels of communication and critical thinking skills improved at the end of the activities and that the exercises foreseen stimulated reflection, observation and interpretation

Risk stratification in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Insights from genetic analysis and cardiopulmonary exercise testing

The role of genetic testing over the clinical and functional variables, including data from the cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), in the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) risk stratification remains unclear. A retrospective genotype–phenotype correlation was performed to analyze possible differences between patients with and without likely pathogenic/pathogenic (LP/P) variants. A total of 371 HCM patients were screened at least for the main sarcomeric genes MYBPC3 (myosin binding protein C), MYH7 (β-myosin heavy chain), TNNI3 (cardiac troponin I) and TNNT2 (cardiac troponin T): 203 patients had at least an LP/P variant, 23 patients had a unique variant of uncertain significance (VUS) and 145 did not show any LP/P variant or VUS. During a median 5.4 years follow-up, 51 and 14 patients developed heart failure (HF) and sudden cardiac death (SCD) or SCD-equivalents events, respectively. The LP/P variant was associated with a more aggressive HCM phenotype. However, left atrial diameter (LAd), circulatory power (peak oxygen uptake*peak systolic blood pressure, CP%) and ventilatory efficiency (C-index = 0.839) were the only independent predictors of HF whereas only LAd and CP% were predictors of the SCD end-point (C-index = 0.738). The present study reaffirms the pivotal role of the clinical variables and, particularly of those CPET-derived, in the HCM risk stratification.publishedVersio

Palmitoylethanolamide exerts neuroprotective effects in mixed neuroglial cultures and organotypic hippocampal slices via peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In addition to cytotoxic mechanisms directly impacting neurons, β-amyloid (Aβ)-induced glial activation also promotes release of proinflammatory molecules that may self-perpetuate reactive gliosis and damage neighbouring neurons, thus amplifying neuropathological lesions occurring in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) has been studied extensively for its anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antiepileptic and neuroprotective effects. PEA is a lipid messenger isolated from mammalian and vegetable tissues that mimics several endocannabinoid-driven actions, even though it does not bind to cannabinoid receptors. Some of its pharmacological properties are considered to be dependent on the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors-α (PPARα).</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>In the present study, we evaluated the effect of PEA on astrocyte activation and neuronal loss in models of Aβ neurotoxicity. To this purpose, primary rat mixed neuroglial co-cultures and organotypic hippocampal slices were challenged with Aβ_1-42and treated with PEA in the presence or absence of MK886 or GW9662, which are selective PPARα and PPARγ antagonists, respectively. The results indicate that PEA is able to blunt Aβ-induced astrocyte activation and, subsequently, to improve neuronal survival through selective PPARα activation. The data from organotypic cultures confirm that PEA anti-inflammatory properties implicate PPARα mediation and reveal that the reduction of reactive gliosis subsequently induces a marked rebound neuroprotective effect on neurons.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In line with our previous observations, the results of this study show that PEA treatment results in decreased numbers of infiltrating astrocytes during Aβ challenge, resulting in significant neuroprotection. PEA could thus represent a promising pharmacological tool because it is able to reduce Aβ-evoked neuroinflammation and attenuate its neurodegenerative consequences.</p