On December 17, 2020, an online seminar on “Strategies for inclusion and innovative methodologies for the dual system” was held, hosted in Milan, organized by the FLC (Fondazione Luigi Clerici), with the support of EZA and the European Union.
Dr. Paolo Cesana (Director of the Fondazione Luigi Clerici) opened the seminar and explained the decision of the institution to deal with this topic as well as the expectations and goals of the event. The interest and timeliness of the phenomena on the agenda were highlighted by the events reported in the newspapers of all the countries represented at the seminar. Word was then given to:
Don Massimiliano Sabbadini, President of the Luigi Clerici Foundation, introduced the seminar paper by emphasising the importance of the work of our educational sector in today's rapidly evolving system with the emergency we are experiencing. Don Massimiliano emphasized how fundamental it is to pay attention to the youth and their education and care, especially today when the challenges they face are varied and complex, both in everyday life and in the world of work, which is constantly changing and quickly.
Piergiorgio Sciacqua, Co-President of EZA, emphasised the importance and topicality of the topics dealt with in the seminar. In addition, he expressed the wish that this seminar would be the best place to generate fundamental ideas and reflections in order to inform young people both in their future professional life and in their everyday life, in which they often feel alone and looking for points of reference, to be able to find support. Piergiorgio Sciacqua reiterated that training is central. Especially in this day and age, when there are deficits in the interpersonal area, the question of training is of the utmost importance. In Italy there is talk of recovery funds, but not for training projects to support the dual system. Education, professional training and counselling should be the focal point. Technology should be seen as a means, not an end. Working in the digital environment requires new skills for teachers and trainers. New digital skills are required.
MEP Valentina Aprea: The school of the "Centennials": As the virologist Ilaria Capua emphasises, the current pandemic could be an opportunity for social change. Everything is changing and so is the school world. We're running late on the digital agenda, but we also have a huge digital divide. There are still significant problems in Italy. After the pandemic, we shouldn't think of schools as barracks, but as campuses. In the third millennium there will be new forms of school attendance: teachers are increasingly becoming tutors and coaches, i.e. with the task of accompanying students in learning, always connected thanks to fibre optic expansion. There are educational models that need to be transformed, in terms of ways, times and places. We have to modernise school buildings, not invest resources in an inefficient system. It is not teaching but learning that is to be modernised. She reports that there are 1,200 innovative schools in Italy. That would have been a good number 10 years ago. Aprea also highlights the importance of some elements: Stem / Sport / Digital Citizenship / Investing in recruiting new generations of teachers. In Italy there is a choice in education between public and private. It should be seen as a uniform standard cost to be spent by the student who is free to choose which educational institution to invest in. The economic fund could be used to create campuses, technology centres, smart academies, recruitment services. In addition, also invest in a safe school with health care/medical school, prevention tools and transport in order to guarantee some of the autonomy to the institutions so that they are free to organize a staggered access with a rotation of the schedules. Aprea concluded with the words of Archbishop Delpini in Sant'Ambrogio: "It is up to us all together".
Dr. Roberta Galentino, clinical psychologist & psychotherapist in training: "Cognitive functions in the world of digital education". It gives an overview of scientific studies that have been carried out on this topic in recent years. It starts with a thesis: It is possible that many children will end up in new areas of work that do not yet exist. This must make us think that we cannot continue teaching this way. Understanding the data found on the Internet and being able to interpret them with critical judgment is a skill that should not be underestimated and which can be taught in our schools today. She affirms that digital learning is not distance learning, but rather a set of tools that make learning easier. The question we ask is: "How do technologies affect cognitive functions?" In the literature of the 2000s it became clear that it is better to avoid technology. Today, technology as an obstacle to intellectual development is more of a concept to be debunked as technologies have changed. There is even a positive influence of technology on the attention span, on multitasking. When the right technology is used, we can improve some of our students' skills. However, we need a balance between tradition and innovation: today we are in a time of experimentation.
Giulia Bar, Industry Executive, Team EDU Microsoft Italy "A new model of teaching: from distance learning to hybrid learning"
Alessandra Valenti, Customer Success Manager, Team EDU Microsoft, "Socio-emotional learning with Microsoft"
Ikrame Daouane, Academic Territory Channel Manager, Microsoft Italy, "Office 365 and Minecraft Education Edition for Schools"
Angelo Varrati, Sales Solution Professional, Microsoft Italy, "Virtual laboratories with Azure Labs"
Alessandro Simonetti, Surface Specialist, "Digital education integrated with Surface Hub 2"
The five speakers gave an overview of Microsoft tools aimed at student inclusion and accessibility. Among other things, the tools support computational thinking and help "to learn to learn". Microsoft offers a wide range of solutions, from supporting the educational institution to supporting teachers to supporting more traditional teaching, without forgetting about inclusive approaches and emotional learning.
Prof. Giuseppe Scaratti, Professor of Industrial Psychology at the Catholic University “Sacro Cuore”, Vice President of the Luigi Clerici Foundation, “Digital approach in the dual system”: The digital approach, accelerated by the dramatic situation, but also by industrialization 4.0, is available in his Focus of this speech. The professor stands behind a hybrid perspective between distance and presence, also due to his university experience. He therefore proposes a cross-section of considerations that focuses on a theoretical framework for digitally enhanced didactics. One experience of successful education is "Shape Work", a program developed as a J.P. Morgan funded project: It is a job that has benefited from the teaching and didactics of the project. Today, with the pandemic, we also need technological and digital facilitators for effective teaching and inclusion. The target were students in difficult situations with a challenge for their inclusion. Key factors: collaborative network dimension as well as the sociality that can characterize an educational approach. The framework on which a pedagogical logic is based should be hybrid and combine different approaches. The subject of mediation is a crucial one because it is the basis for all applications available to us.
Dr. Luisa Treccani, CISL General Secretary, Delegate for Vocational Training, “Didactics, New Technologies and Work Organization”: Dr. Treccani focused on the three subject areas of new technologies, the role of didactics and work organisation. The current leap in technology encompasses several different technology families. We have a wide variety of very diverse situations. In terms of prevention and safety, they can be beneficial. There can be 2 approaches: one by replacing and one by expanding. The first is technocentric, the other complementary: technology that supports workers' skills dictates that they have more decision-making autonomy and more horizontal coordination. Technologies enable the reduction of waste, an increase in production, a reduction in costs and time for the realization of products and / or services. In the second point, Dr. Treccani points out the need to design a disciplinary curriculum (technical skills) alongside a transversal one (skills for life). A diatribe exists between the world of school and the world of work. Digital education must overcome purely transmissive teaching. There is a need for personalisation of the lessons, for the active role of the students: we have to learn by learning from experience and think about experiences. As part of vocational training, workshop activity is already well developed and schools in general should be open to this vision. It is imperative that this type of competency transfer is already used in elementary school. With regard to the third point, the organization of work, we find that it is in constant evolution. She quotes Baldwin's "Globotica" where she discusses the emergence of dependent jobs that require greater autonomy, such as knowing how to manage platforms. It is shown that it is necessary to keep up with the times. You have to master technology and organisation, otherwise there is a lack of harmony. Historically, there have been many dichotomies and they still exist today. For example, think of a job based solely on the job at hand, based on the organisation of Fordist work (rigid framework); on the other hand, we have to think of a vision of work based on role, a dimension with responsibility based on goals, more autonomy and broadening of skills. In the relationship between school and work, variety and teaching must be the focus.
The role of the trade unions: revision of contracts, reflection between national and local negotiations, intervention in company decisions, participation of employees in the life of the company, reintroduction of the bilateral dimension as active policy. We need investment in active politics. Work on the employee's skills as an investment, centrality of training, work-life balance.
Dr. Treccani closes with an example: the community pact between school and work under all realities of Brescia (stakeholders). A concrete commitment to get out of the pandemic emergency together and rather to use the possible opportunities. We see distance learning as an opportunity and gain experience from the perspective of key competencies.
"Compare models: comparison of European experiences on the subject"
France: Laurent Da Dalto, CEO and founder of MIMBUS. He talks about how to use virtual reality training to increase inclusion in manual occupations.
Italy: Marzia Maiorano, CEO Mida Services, “On the right track: a 1970 bus that educates!” She tells of an experience of creating a digital alphabet by playing with teams. She combined the human and digital parts by searching for and understanding the meanings of what we use as technology on a daily basis. www.jblackbus.com
Greece: Vaida Saulyte, Director of the Social Hackers Academy, “How e-learning can democratise education”. Their reality wants to enable hands-on learning and ensure activities of social value. It's not just about skills based on cognitive learning, it's also about hands-on learning. You work on motivation; they are very focused on teaching soft skills and helping people get into work. Their users are supported in their job search with challenge tests, problem solutions and mock interviews. There is also support after the training and they organize career days. Dr. Vaida says the dropout rate has dropped significantly thanks to the collaborative and peer-based learning approach. For students, free access to their mentors was crucial: real support between students. The Social Hackers Academy has also cut costs by 50% without sacrificing quality. They sell courses to companies online. They increase the quality of education by increasing the number of students. They continue in a hybrid way. They are a best practice case in active employment policy. This aspect was paradoxically neglected during the pandemic. There are many people in trouble who can be helped.
Portugal: Maria Reina Martin, responsible for social policy at Fidestra, "Digital School: And tomorrow, young people or machines?": Maria Reina Martin began her professional life until 2011 as a teacher at high schools. In 2020, an atypical year, many new technologies were used in the classroom in Portugal. However, your question is: will there be young people or machines in the future ...? It's a provocation. You yourself used technology in the 1990s to attract student attention. Then the situation changed, and it changed quickly: the students knew more tools than the teacher. What will 2020 bring us? Democratic society and organisations cannot allow a reality to be created by machines in 2020. In Portugal, schools were 100% closed from Easter until the end of the year. Some say that young people lost a year of life as students, but maybe they also lost a year of life in general. There was already an experience of distance learning in Portugal: a teacher for each subject explained some content on the screen. This was because the schools were very small and not all teachers were available. The distance learning model was reintroduced in 2020. In 2020, it turned out that in Portugal, a digitised country, all children had cell phones but no PC on which they could install work tools for class. Another point that emerged was the difference in the situation between city and rural areas. In Portugal there are citizens who still do not have access to technology.
In his closing remarks, Cesana emphasises the importance of the human factor. Indeed, technology is not a substitute for human relationships. Social life is everything. Hybrid didactics is good if it is intended as an extension, ie "extended didactics" to use the words of Prof. Scaratti to express it.