Abstract:

The transition from traditional to competence-based teaching requires from teachers a readiness for change, professional updating, and a different organization of learning spaces and environments ([1],[2],[3]); the complexity embodied in competence-based teaching, from the design level, through assessment, to the organizational level requires a rethinking of the school model and calls for a participatory and collaborative approach, where all actors contribute to change and innovation ([4]). In the Italian context, the National Institute for Documentation Innovation Educational Research (INDIRE), through the project called Avanguardie educative (Educational Avant-garde), investigates possible strategies for propagating and systemizing innovation in Italian schools. Its aim is to promote educational and organizational innovation with twelve “Ideas for innovation”, which support a methodological reflection on the school system as a whole. In 2014, in a joint action with 22 founding schools, the project became a real Movement with the signing of the Educational Vanguards Manifesto. Among the Ideas proposed by Avanguardie Educative, 'Beyond Disciplines,' is a pedagogical-organizational framework that consolidates the transition from content-based to competency-based teaching ([5]) through activities based on interdisciplinary workshop practice, but fully integrated with the curricular teaching; and with the specific goal of promoting the development of cognitive, metacognitive and transversal skills, redefining the school's function with respect to students' educational needs. Taking into account the paucity of research, at the Italian level, on the significance teachers attach to competency-based teaching, it seems relevant to initiate an exploration of the link between teachers' dispositions toward teaching competencies and the actions planned and implemented in the classroom ([6],[7]). The present contribution aims to present a research project which has the objective to carry out a reconnaissance of good practices implemented by teachers in secondary education, complemented by the survey of their dispositions toward didactic methodological innovation, within the framework of the INDIRE Avanguardie Educative "Beyond Disciplines" idea.

References:
[1] Castoldi, M. (2021). Progettare per competenze. Percorsi e strumenti. Roma: Carrocci editore.
[2] EUR LEX (2018). Council recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning. Official Journal of the European Union, C 189/01.
[3] OECD (2017), The OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments, OECD, Publishing, Paris, http://dx.doi.org/9789264277274-en.
[4] Kools, M. and Stoll L. (2016), “What Makes a School a Learning Organisation?”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 137, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlwm62b3bvh-en
[5] INDIRE. (2018). Avanguardie educative. Linee guida per l’implementazione dell’idea “Oltre le discipline” versione 2.0
[6] Guskey, T. R. (1988). Teacher efficacy, self-concept, and attitudes toward the implementation of instructional innovation. Teaching and teacher education, 4(1), 63-69.
[7] Nie, Y., Tan, G. H., Liau, A. K., Lau, S., & Chua, B. L. (2013). The roles of teacher efficacy in instructional innovation: Its predictive relations to constructivist and didactic instruction. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 12, 67-77.

Keywords:

Active teaching methodologies, “Beyond Disciplines”, Teachers’ dispositions, secondary education.