Monday Keynote: A Model for Blended Course: Psychological Aspects
Abstract: The crises in the job market recorded in the last decade has psychological implications in particular for young people attempting to enter the professional world with higher education. It is expected from them to have high competences and great flexibility. To accomplish such expectations, educational agencies, and universities in particular, are required to re-define their educational proposals and methods. Blended courses seem to be able to offer the possibility for students to appropriate not only content but also ways to learn and work together, producing changes at the psychological level, in terms of modification of individual and collective positions. In this presentation, a blended educational model developed at the University of Bari (Italy) will be presented, reporting data and results. The model it is inspired to well-established theoretical roots – such as socio-constructivism, knowledge building, dialogism – and innovative approaches such as the “trialogical” theory. Furthermore, various pedagogical methods (such as Jigsaws, peer-tutoring, role-taking, progressive inquiry) are combined and adapted to blended contexts.