LEARNING OUTCOMES

This teaching aims to provide students with critical knowledge about psychological intervention in educational contexts, such as school and preschool. In particular: (1) provide students with solid basics on the main contents of educational psychology, (2) offer examples of models and strategies for intervention in schools, (3) improve the students' ability to plan and evaluate critically psychological interventions in educational contexts.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPREHENSION: Comprehension of theoretical models, concepts, and the conceptual bases of psychological tools, is regarded as a fundamental goal. Instead, very little importance is given to verbatim memory of the textbooks and the lectures.

ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND COMPREHENSION: A student's ability to compare, distinguish, make connections between theoretical concepts and models is highly valued. Students should also demonstrate some ability to apply the acquired knowledge, i.e. to orient themselves (at least broadly) in the evaluation of real cases.

INDEPENDENT JUDGEMENT: A student's ability in independent judgment and reasoning is highly valued.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS: It is useful to acquire the techincal language of the discipline in order to communicate clearly with both specialists and the general public.

LEARNING SKILLS: It is important for students to develop adequate learning skills that in the future enable them to continue to deepen independently their knowledge of this subject, especially when they will be working in educational context, because this discipline is continuously and rapidly evolving, and in twenty years the knowledge acquired in this course will probably be outdated, at least in part.

TEACHING METHODS

Active participation will be encouraged and there will be group activities that students can choose to work on as a part of the final assessment. 

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The lectures will introduce some possible areas of intervention in relation to basic themes of educational psychology including models of learning and its relation with cognitive development, motivation, socio-emotional development, the role of metacognition, and learning difficulties. Some tools and applied examples will also be presented.

(It is assumed that students already have some basic knowledge of developmental psychology and cognitive psychology.)

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Required readings for students who attend the lessons:

- C. Cornoldi e L. Molinari, Lo psicologo scolastico, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2019 (tutto il volume).

- P. Boscolo, Psicologia dell’apprendimento scolastico, Edizioni UTET, Torino, 2006 (the whole book, except chap. 13).

- G. Amoretti, S. Morra, M.C. Usai, P. Viterbori, Processi cognitivi e apprendimento scolastico, Carocci editore, Roma, 2020 [chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 (except sections 7.3 and 7.4), 8, 10 (except section 10.4), 11 (except section 11.6)].

- Notes from the lectures.

Required readings for students who do not attend the lessons:

- C. Cornoldi e L. Molinari, Lo psicologo scolastico, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2019 (tutto il volume).

- P. Boscolo, Psicologia dell’apprendimento scolastico, Edizioni UTET, Torino, 2006 (the whole book, except chap. 13).

- G. Amoretti, S. Morra, M.C. Usai, P. Viterbori, Processi cognitivi e apprendimento scolastico, Carocci editore, Roma, 2020 [chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 (except sections 7.3 and 7.4), 8, 10 (except section 10.4), 11 (except section 11.6)].

- Notes from the lectures.

- a text or two articles from a list provided by the professor. 

Although the lectures will be delivered in Italian, the professor can indicate and/or provide some teaching materials in English. The students who wish to use teaching materials in English are kindly requested to contact the professor personally, for him to get an idea of the student’s interests and consequently agree on a set of teaching materials (partly or totally in English).