Abstract:

In the current socio-economic context, Universities are called to respond to the challenges and changes dictated by an increasingly competitive economy in which knowledge is the main factor to increase the working possibilities of citizens and, consequently, to ensure the civil coexistence and the democratic stability of all countries. In order to favour the acquisition of professional skills, it is necessary to invest in innovation and research, even if we think deeply about the adopted teaching methods. Research activities in evidence-based education show how the learner centred teaching orientation has a positive impact on students' learning outcomes and it is a guarantee of successful training. Active learning methods adopt hypothesis testing, problem solving, and enable prior knowledge activation by means of graphic organizers. The aim of this contribution is to present a case study related to learning based on project works through a laboratory-like approach carried out at the University of Salerno in the course of "Methodology of educational research" highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. Laboratory teaching promotes the intersection between disciplinary knowledge and practical knowledge, designed to guarantee the transposition of the theories into actions; project-based learning aims at the acquisition of specific skills and competences in the planning, implementation and evaluation of a research project. The reference literature agrees with attributing to these two approaches, included in the logic of lifelong learning, an improvement in terms of learning outcomes (disciplinary skills, technical-practical skills and soft skills). The contribution is divided into two parts: the first part describes the theoretical framework, the features of the active teaching strategies, the organizational structure and the main purposes. The second part describes the didactic-pedagogical model of socio-constructivist matrix at the base of the training path. The results are encouraging: the students, working in groups, have improved their social-relational skills and, at the same time, have achieved good evaluations for the exams.

Keywords:

University teaching, quality of teaching, student-centred methodologies, laboratory teaching, project-based learning, project works.