From 2020/2021 the evaluation of students' learning in primary school is no longer expressed through a decimal-based score, but through a descriptive assessment, in a more formative perspective of evaluation. In addition, the widespread use of technological tools in school has changed the teaching/learning process and it has highlighted the need…

Schools have been increasingly paying attention to the rapid diffusion of new technologies as a means to improve the pupils' learning experience. Research suggests that use of tablets in school are a particularly versatile technology, since they allow students to learn to manage the amount of information that they face nowadays. The iPad is one of…

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) state of emergency has brought about a radical change in the way of teaching. In a questionnaire, we asked 120 teachers from Italian Primary, Middle and High Schools about the advantages and disadvantages of online teaching, the students' conduct during lessons and the methodologies applied to students with…

Innovation and learning come together in a vibrant manner during dynamic arts education classes led by teachers who understand the importance of collaboration and student improvisation.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several women in Italy, who gave pedagogy a new impulse. Among those women, two educationalists, Maria Montessori and Giuseppina Pizzigoni introduced new visions of the school by designing strategies that overcame the barriers to education. The first, with the structuring of a method, arose in Rome…

Despite government commitments to Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to improve access to education, more than 18 million primary-aged children remain out of school in the Asia-Pacific (UNESCO, 2014). Given the impact of education on individuals, societies, and economies, there is great urgency for governments to…

Complex Instruction (CI) is a cooperative learning approach, which aims at improving the equal status interaction among students working in groups who may be at different academic and social levels. Based on an ethnographic research, the article examines how a group of Italian primary school teachers understand the status problem and how the…

Intended to promote the innovative use of technology in education and promote educational advances all over the world, this volume brings together 16 best-practice cases on technology-enhanced educational innovations. Experts from Turkey, Tunisia, Cyprus, Italy, Malaysia, China, India and Finland have contributed to these cases, highlighting the…

Complex Instruction (CI) is a comprehensive programme relating to curriculum development and instructional methodology, using multiple ability tasks and status interventions as key concepts. In 2006, at the end of a teacher training course, a group of primary school teachers decided to develop and experiment with original CI teaching units in…

Construction work is about to begin on a new "intelligent" primary school for 300 students (later to be expanded for 600) in the Municipality of Solaro in the province of Milan. This is the first primary school building in Italy designed according to the principles of the "intelligent school" as defined by the Centre for…