Teachers for an Inclusive School

2.1 Didactic Models Underlining Different Conceptions of Learning

This section presents some of the teaching and learning methods that can be used to promote the development of intercultural competence in the classroom. For a teacher awareness of the didactic model adopted in the classroom is important because it determines his or her conception of learning. Depending on the didactic model, a teacher can propose different learning objectives or establish different relationships with students. Approaches to learning can vary depending on how intercultural education is proposed in class, as well as the efficacy of the didactic activities.

Grassilli and Fabbri (2003) proposed and defined four types of didactic models.

The classic model is focused on the teacher and on the subject content that needs to be transmitted. Lectures are the most typical method used and students have to repeat and memorize notions. The strengths of this model are the ability to program activities in class and evaluate learning easily. Two weaknesses of the model are the creation of passive listeners and the fact that students are merely receivers. Moreover, this model does not allow students to collaborate, to develop curiosity, the ability to judge or decision-making skills and neither does it foster the development of the ability to find solutions in unfamiliar situations.

The active model is focused on the learner. He/she is responsible for his growth and development. The didactic activities are based on learner needs decided by the learners themselves. The teacher facilitates learning by allowing student participation and enhances the learning environment by proposing even more resources to expand learners’ competences. The strengths of this model are the recognition of the learner as an active participant and the promotion of research to find resources, solve problems and learn. The weaknesses are related to the fact that giving freedom to the learner means producing a weak didactic action without a definite plan and only based on the teacher’s experience.

The main features of the technological model are planning, orderliness, and control. The requirement to achieve results characterizes the model and involves the need to measure and quantify in order to avoid subjectivity, intuition and unpredictability. The learner is the recipient of positive and negative strengths and the teacher plays the role of a scaffold. Learning develops through collaboration, negotiation, sharing, and the activation of multimedia and metacognitive processes.

Finally, the interactive model sees learning as a situated process. What happens in the given situation is relevant – the decisions made, and the real-life experience of solving real problems. The person who learns acquires awareness thanks to the activation of rationalization processes built through reflection and dialogue.

It is essential then to mention that all these models should enhance active learning as the improvements gained from them, “in which students engage actively in the learning process throughout a course, are substantial” (Karlsson & Janson, 2016).

Online Resources

• Bianca Grassilli, Loretta Fabbri, Didattica e metodologie qualitative. Verso una didattica narrativa, La Scuola, Brescia 2003This text has a methodological basis that considers research as a source of rich development opportunities if it generally satisfies the qualitative paradigms and, more specifically, the narrative ones. Tales, professional autobiographies and stories can represent, in a new and constructive bond between didactics and narration, action and speech, an empirical basis on which to build didactical theories.
• Didactic Models Underlining Different Conceptions of Learning. Active Student LearningGunnar Karlsson, Sverker Janson (2016), The flipped classroom: a model for active student learning. Portland Press Limited.
• J. Lave. (1991), Chapter 4. Situated learning in communities of practice.In Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) by Lave, J. & Wenger, E. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.