Desci aims to improve the capacity of secondary school to prepare students intercepting the needs of the labor market and encourage the development of an european working methodology in secondary schools to ensure equal quality standards, at European level, in the management of the alternating training. Indeed, the Project is focused on the improvement of an European methodological standards of alternating training in secondary technical and professional School system, through the development, at European level, of a kit of methodological tools for teachers, student and tutors, focused in TIC sector, that will be modular, simple and easy to use. Will be created 3 different toolkits for the management of the alternating training: - 1 toolkit for teachers - 1 toolkit for students - 1 toolkit of evaluation of competences. The process of design and testing of the toolkit will be developed in a participatory way (Living Lab methodology) involving groups of teachers, representatives of the business community and researchers, who will work together every step of the process. The toolkits will act on two main groups of skills: - Basic skills: o Problem solving and scientific thinking: ability to apply to the exploration of reality and the resolution of problems connected with it, the process of the applied scientific investigation o TIC skills - Technical and professional skills that are expendable in the workplace by encouraging alternating training-job (create the opportunity for students, in synergy with business system, to apply the technology skills acquired, in real contexts, providing solutions to real problems and creating new marketable products) DESCI TOOLKITS METHODOLOGIES- BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Using problem solving, inquiry based and citizen science approaches the students will develop and integrate transversal, scientific and technical skills and will improve their attitude for creativity, problem solving and innovation. The training will start at school. A phases of problem solving and inquiry based education with elements of creative and cooperative learning will stimulate the basic scientific skills. In this phase DESCI will also be introduced the social citizen science methodology: direct involvement of citizens in scientific research. Many scholars analyze the role of non-experts in knowledge production (Callon, 1999; Collins & Evans, 2002; Epstein, 1996) and the role of citizens in supplementing the contributions of professional experts (Jasanoff, 2004). Subsequently, will start the work on the technical and professional skills, stimulated by the intervention of outside experts and innovative technological support made available by the hosting companies. The second phase will be in the field of social community and in enterprises: students will analyze needs of the social environment, using the provided tool-kit, then, in enterprise, they will design their solutions to answer the detected needs and finally students will realize this system.
DESCI was aimed at developing a methodological pattern for Alternating Training (AT) in secondary schools: - improving connections between school, research, enterprise and territory - creating a participatory methodology centred on schools developing students’key competences mainly required by the world of work: digital competences, personal, social, citizenship, entrepreneurial and learning competences, and creativity (with reference to the EU Rec. on Key Competences 2006/2018). Moreover, fostering teachers’, student’ and tutors’ engagement and connecting networks of stakeholders actively involved in the improvement, testing and validation of the educational tools provided, DESCI aimed to help the school to become an incubator of innovation and creativity where the students develop deliveries of social utility under the mentorship of research bodies, associations and enterprises. PARTNERS INVOLVED CNR IRPPS(project coordinator)and UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS (NKUA),have a strong experience in participatory methodologies for the science-society relationship. POLIBIENESTAR has a long and enduring experience in the evaluation of the impact of social policies. FORMASCIENZA and SCIENCE WIEW have experience in designing innovative didactics and practices and in developing training materials. ASSOKNOWLEDGE: is the Italian Association of Confindustria for Training and represented the entrepreneurial and industrial component. 1st EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOL OF ATHENS, ITS E. FERMI and CENTRO DE FORMACION SOMORROSTRO contributed to the design of the toolkits and to organize and implement the testing of the toolkits. ACTIVITIES The central methodology and the main learning environment adopted within the DESCI project was the Living Lab that was firstly introduced at MIT to develop and test new technologies. DESCI apply the LL to an educational context, in which schools can design, implement and evaluate the DESCI AT paths, through the sharing of ideas and collaboration between the stakeholders involved. The DESCI AT participatory approach is described in 3 different toolkits targeted to Teachers Students and Evaluation. Each toolkit provides the basic elements and tools for planning AT at school and pursue a modular approach showing sets of activities and methodologies that can be adapted to the specific school environment. In order to implement the above mentioned issues, a Comparative analysis of european alternating training systems was realized to systematize a common working framework on AT in the European area. On the basis of this study the DESCI AT approach and the 3 toolkits were realized: Teachers’ and students’ toolkits showing sets of activities and methodologies that teachers, tutors and students can adapt to the specific school environment Evaluation toolkit, developing a system for evaluating the competences acquired by students during the paths of AT (transversal and professional) by means of rubrics, questionnaires and focus groups, integrating the evaluation of the student’s performances and learning process (endogenous evaluation) with the evaluation of the deliveries generated by students during the working process (exogenous evaluation). The testing of the tentative educational toolkits has been designed as a participatory complex process encompassing: •the involvement of schools with societal actors in participative tables during the DESCI 9 OCs intended at the same time as an occasion of: inquiry on methodologies and competences, implementing toolkits and scenarios, building networks to disseminate DESCI; •the testing of the tentative Toolkits in the partner schools (2 testing phases); •the constitution of DESCI NABs in which various social actors from the world of school, business, policy making contributed with comments on the toolkits and the testing process. Polibienestar was the partner in charge of the evaluation of the testing. The evaluation reports gave indications to implement and validate the toolkits. RESULTS The testing phase demonstrated that DESCIcan improve the connection between school, research, enterprise and territory enhancing the capability of secondary school to become an innovation hub for the local community. In the testing phases the enterprises and the communities came into the school and collaborated with students teachers and tutors in the AT process PERCENTAGE OF REDUCTION OF DROPOUT RATES:the inclusive and participatory approach promoted by DESCI demonstrated to influence positively the school rates of drop out (the rate of drop out detected in the schools before the DESCI testing phase was 3,5% c.ca; after the testing phase the dropout rate in classes involved in DESCI activities was to a 0%) GENERAL IMPROVEMENT OF TRANSVERSAL SKILLS ON DIRECT TARGET:as emerged from the school reports, the DESCI approach to AT helped the students in reinforcing transversal skills classified in DESCI with reference to the EU Commission recommendation on Key competences 2006,revised in 2018