Abstract
This chapter presents research on an Italian education project implemented with immigrant students attending C.P.I.A. courses in Bergamo (Centro Provinciale Istruzione Adulti – Provincial Adult Education Center). This contribution proposes an educational experience characterized by an interactive approach among different disciplines. The title of the project was Cinema as a resource for enhancing interdisciplinary teaching and learning by harnessing knowledge and skills from across different subject areas: from Italian language to geography and history, and from science and maths to the visual arts. Over the four years of the project, film was used in multiple ways as a tool/resource for teaching-learning focused on developing school inclusion. The overall aims of the project were to incorporate the cinema into the construction of an interdisciplinary teaching/learning path, while seeking to integrate theory and praxis within a collaborative professional development and research model. The project activities were designed in keeping with EU recommendations on core competences for ongoing learning. From 2006 to 2018, the European Parliament and Council approved a set of “Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning,” that is to say, knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will help learners find personal fulfilment and, later in life, find work and take part in society. The project was also informed by recent Italian legislation encouraging the use of cinema in education, particularly Law 14 November 2016, No. 220, containing “Discipline of Cinema and Audiovisual” and the Law 13 July 2015, No. 107, the school reform framework “La BuonaScuola.”
Top1. Background
1.1 Competence-led Teaching-learning - key Competences
The concept of competence-led learning emerged in the mid-1990s, in EU policy documents such as the White Paper on teaching and learning drafted by Edith Cresson - then European Commissioner for research, education and training - which reads: All European countries are attempting to identify ‘key skills’ and the best ways of acquiring, assessing and certifying them. It is proposed to set up a European system to compare and disseminate such definitions, methods and practices.1
The European Commission adopted the terms “skills” and “key skills” here in preference to “basic skills”, which generally refers to basic competence in reading, writing and arithmetic. In contrast, in EU policy documents, “skill” or “competence” came to mean a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the context. At the same time, key competences are those that support personal fulfilment, active citizenship, social inclusion, and employment.2
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cinema Education: Education towards the cinematographic heritage, culture of cinema and the analysis of images moving language. The educational aims on cinema and its use at school and in the educational contexts are dedicated to development the teaching and the learning by harnessing knowledge and skills from across different subject areas.
Immigrant Students: Students from other countries and other cultures who attend school in a country other than their country of origin.
Language of Film: The multimedia dimension of film is based on a complex structure composed with a plurality of more or less specific audiovisual codes.
Interdisciplinary Approach: It is the teaching and learning mode referred to the ability to relate knowledge to each other.
Cooperative Learning: The Cooperative learning is a method that involves students in a group work, thanks the interaction of students, the knowledge connections and learning work origin the construction of new knowledge.