Abstract:

The “Scuola&Sport Project: for an ethic of educational innovation” (http://www.sportescuola.gov.it/progetto-scuola-sport/), is a teacher professional development program of the Italian Ministry of Education University and Research (MIUR),which aims to provide upper secondary school teachers of high level student-athletes and Physical Education coordinators with innovative teaching strategies, methods and resources.

The project involved the Italian University Line (IUL), the scientific high school with sport specialization “F. d’Assisi”, and the "Eurobasket", an Italian professional basketball team.

In the ministerial decree D.M.935/2015, the Ministry of Education, has adopted the European Union guidelines (European Commision, 2012), related to the educational policy aimed to support and promote dual careers of athletes by starting educational practices and learning experiences for high level student-athletes. The objective is on the one hand to prevent high level student-atlethes’ early school leaving, and on the other hand to prevent student-athletes drop out of sports. The project suggests professional development activities for teachers who teach student-athletes, through a highly innovative educational approach which also consider the psychological challenges student-athletes daily face (Wylleman & Lavalle, 2004).

Young athletes are often faced with challenging schedules: intensive daily training and competitions at home and abroad considerably reduce the time to devote to studying. Teachers are not always ready to understand such needs and provide the right support. The Scuola&Sport Project is working on the assumption that it is possible to define an effective blended teaching model, mixing face-to-face and online learning, only by sensitizing teachers to the value of the student-athletes human and sport experience. From this holistic view of the person/student/athlete the search for an “ethic” and social dimension of educational innovation originates.

The educational path focuses on the knowledge and implementation of educational innovation processes aimed to combine traditional teaching approaches with online learning strategies (with in-depth analyses of specific e-learning technologies and innovative educational approaches).

In the first phase of assessment, involved teachers will be presented with the most suitable ways of analizing student-athletes’ needs and developing personalized curricula.

The Professional Development Program, addressed to teacher representatives will affect the whole teacher team through a peer to peer process and thus getting the whole school involved.

The contents, proposed by the IUL University, were divided into 4 modules and provided on the dedicated platform, that hosted video conferencing, synchronous and asynchronous interactions (forums) and documents.

The purpose of this proposal is to create a community of practices and to provide schools with good practices and guidelines that represent an effective support to the professional development and self-development of teachers and aim at the planning and implementation of personalized curricula for high level student-athletes.

Keywords:

Dual Career, Student-Athlete, teacher training, secondary school, educational innovation.