Learning outcomes

Educational aims
The course has a double aim:
• Cognitive aims: to give a general introduction to the meaning of education (“what is education”?), pedagogy (“what is pedagogy” and “why many pedagogical branches”) and the presence of other subjects during the studies of educational sciences;
• Formative and professional aims: to make understand the existential, social, cultural and professional value of the educative practice and the pedagogical reflection.
At the root of these general and formative aims, the lessons propose three specific educational aims, in connection with the three parts of the course:
1) educative part: to identify the basic structure, the thematic, the problems and the concepts that are present in every educational experiences;
2) epistemological part: to understand the unitary and at the same time interdisciplinary nature of pedagogical knowledge;
3) professional part: to reflect on the meaning of the educative work, as it is lived as a professional activity.

Program

Programme
Contents
The course will deal with the following topics, related both to the general and the monographic part:
- the individual, social, cultural need of education;
- analysis of the structural elements of every educational experience;
- meaning, aims and branches of the pedagogical knowledge;
- from “pedagogy” to “educational sciences”;
- the theoretic, empirical and the planning dimension of pedagogical knowledge;
- education and professional choice;
- the professional ethics of educator.

Examination Methods

Texts for the exam:
For the exam preparation to two of the following texts are mandatory for every students:
- D. Loro, Grammar of educational experience. To search the essence of education, Milano, ed. Franco Angeli 2012.
- D. Demetrio, Education isn’t finished. What ideas to defending hit, Milano, by Raffaello Cortina, 2009 and following publications.

One book to be chosen from:
- V. Andreoli, The (im)possible education, Milano, ed. RCS Libri- Rizzoli, 2014.
- M. D’Amato, We have lost the children. Because childhood is disappearing, Roma-Bari, ed. Laterza, 2014.


Teaching Methods
Lessons will be frontal in the main, with the possibility to intervene with questions, short debates and educational training related to the themes of the day.

Exam
The exam consists of a two-hour written text. It consists of 5 open questions of different types. (e.g.: descriptive, summarising, argumentative type, analysis and comment of a sentence, etc.). If the students who have enrolled outnumber the places available, the exam will be split into two sessions, following the alphabetical order. In this case, the previous day of exam, the professor will name the students who will sit the first and second session respectively.