Detailed Program of the Conference

To facilitate inclusion process of adults into a completely new social, economic and cultural context, it is necessary an assessment of their potential and their training needs, trough a personalised approach that can make visible their cultural and professional heritage, so that an adequate response is activated in terms of educational offer and orientation in the labour market (Morgan-Klein, Osborne, 2007).

Therefore it is necessary to activate a help relationship of a pedagogical type, this helping relationship must provide for an effective analysis of the biographical dimension (Bertaux 2008; Bruner 1990), tackling the reconstruction of experiences, expectations and self-representation, carrying out a reflective activity that leads to the construction of an aware formative demand (Di Rienzo 2014).

The Centers for Adult Education (CPIA) today are the gate of access at education for adults

"Competences and education reception in a network perspective" is a project based on action research model and dealt with a study about practices used by Cpia located in Lazio region during reception and orientation activities, to define profile of teachers’ competences necessary to carry out these phases and to train a group of teachers. The general structure of research was mainly of a qualitative approach. The project produced a device aimed at drawing up a competences portfolio of adult students and at the end of training each teacher assisted a student in building his competences portfolio under the guidance of an experienced supervisor.

References

Bertaux, D. (2008). Racconti di vita. La prospettiva etnosociologica. Franco Angeli: Milano.

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Harvard University Press: London.

Di Rienzo, P. (2014). Recognition and validation of non formal and informal learning: Lifelong learning and university in the Italian context. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 20, 1, pp. 39-52.

Morgan-Klein, B., Osborne, M. (2007). The concepts and practices of Lifelong Learning. Routledge: London.

TEACHING METHODS, TEACHER TRAINING AND ADULT EDUCATION. A SURVEY IN THE MOLISE REGION (ABSTRACT)

Filippo Bruni

University of Molise

filippo.bruni@unimol.it

keywords: teaching methods, adult education, CPIA, digital literacy, communities of practice

An important issue in relation to adult education is the initial and in-service training of teachers and the teaching methods they use. Nationally and internationally, there is an established focus (e.g., Demetrio 2003, Brocket 2015) on the teaching methodologies to be used within adult education.

The survey presented here involves and concerns the teachers of the Centers for Adult Education (CPIA) of the Molise region. A questionnaire structured in five sections was proposed to them. The first is related to previous experiences and motivation that led them to work in adult education, the second to their training, the third is centered on the methodologies used, the fifth concerns collaboration among colleagues, the sixth and last is instead related to desires and expectations.

The results that emerged highlighted a number of positive elements and some critical issues, offering insights into possible actions to support their professional action.

The following positive elements emerged:

- high motivation of teachers in choosing to work in adult education often gained from prior experience;

- a good familiarity with digital literacy in relation, for example, to the retrieval of resources from the web for teaching activities;

- extensive use of images and video perceived as effective from a learning perspective;

- a widespread desire to pursue a professional career in adult education;

- a high level of satisfaction;

- a broad willingness to produce and share instructional materials.

Critical issues are related to:

- gaps in initial training;

- difficulty in finding a balance between traditional and predominantly passive methodologies (such as lecture) and active methodologies (such as cooperative learning);

- not high levels of video production;

- wide possibilities for improvement in collaboration among colleagues.

The results that emerged, clearly related to the specificity of the sample, allow us to offer useful suggestions for interventions to support teachers, both starting with explicitly formulated requests such as those related to digital literacy, and considering those indirectly reported such as support for professional communities of professional practice (Wenger 1998).

References

Brockett, R.G. (2015), Teaching adults. A Practical Guide for new teachers, Wiley,

San Francisco. Demetrio, D. (2003), Manuale di educazione degli adulti, Laterza, Roma – Bari.

Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Pactice, Cambridge Univesity Press, Cambridge.

The paper is the result of a substantive interest concerning the mechanisms and the processes that are leading the Italian institutions to redefine the “Third mission” in a Lifelong learning perspective. What is the role of the different actors? The practices of Lifelong learning for European citizens have a number of specific characteristics of the different institutional contexts. According to a postmodern perspective, a welfare-oriented policy agenda allows to rethink of society or learning cultures as integrative ideologies of social policy. The implementation of any theoretical-operational model requires consideration of different national guidelines, and organizational structures at the local level, where most decisions are made in order to combine efficiency and flexibility of intervention. The research show a case study of cooperation between a network of adult education centers and universities, which transformed Adult education into Lifelong learning. Through the implementation of both research and teaching activities, the “LLL Regional Research Centre” has been building a learning community for the Vocational Education and Training system in Campania. Teachers and researchers have been involved to increase both human and social capital and develop capacity building. Educational institutions redefine continuously functions and objectives in order to expand the citizens’ dimensions of meaning since they represent a collective intelligence heritage. Lifelong learning Universities and Adult School Centers represent a “clearing house” of the institutional systems dystonias, which are observable through the “agency” of the decision makers.

The work illustrates how the construct of lifelong learning has conceptually and widely exceeded the limit of being considered a "service" and has come to be recognized as a subjective right. It is therefore intended to highlight how the purpose of ensuring the person is actually trained requires a relatively "new" type of organization that involves subjects with different qualifications who offer services in the field of training and work. In our country, the task of carrying out synergistic operations, in order to provide each person with a training offer that meets their needs, the assessment of specific needs, guidance services and credit recognition is entrusted to the territorial permanent learning networks, in which the CPIAs (Provincial Centers for Adult Education) play a leading role. The attempt to ensure the citizen has access to lifelong learning in a continuous and stable way, not only revolutionizes the cultural aspects related to the concept of education and its implications but means rethinking and redesigning the role of actors and activities according to the supply of integrated services which must be directly matched by the offer of an equally integrated, non-hierarchical, open and flexible organizational system, strongly oriented towards collaboration in order to achieve common and shared purposes. The results of a desk analysis will be shown; according to it the organizational models of the current territorial networks, although provided for by European and national regulatory provisions, leave the possibility of guaranteeing everyone the opportunity to always learn almost unachievable. It will be highlighted that there is still a lot to do, especially in terms of network design, strengthening multilevel, national, regional and local governance and how it is necessary to commit to improving institutional relations between systems for the provision of education services, training and work. The difficulty encountered in what we interpret as a process of social change, if on the one hand brings with it the awareness of the complexity of reality, on the other hand it cannot make us retreat from the objective, mainly of the public administration, of guaranteeing fundamental rights of the person.