Innovative teaching methodologies for the school of the future

Innovative teaching plays a fundamental role in the educational growth of children, and in refresher courses. At the center of the innovation of teaching methods are the teachers, who are required to have considerable flexibility and the ability to continually get back into the game in the face of new challenges that arise.

Teaching Styles

In the exercise of his profession, the teacher tends to reproduce his personal learning style and his own cognitive style. The innovation of educational training must lead the teacher to contrast this trend, diversifying the activities and allowing all learning styles to find fertile ground for development.

The ultimate goal of teaching is in fact "meaningful" learning, i.e.:

• intentional: the student is considered an active subject, a builder of knowledge;
• collaborative: the classroom context is seen as a forge of cooperative learning;
• constructive: in which present knowledge is grafted onto past knowledge;
• thoughtful: who pays attention to metacognition, i.e. the processes set in motion during learning;

Teaching styles and Special Educational Needs

Adopting teaching styles tailored to the needs of learners with Special Educational Needs is one of the most effective tools adopted by inclusive teaching.

Some teaching strategies to avoid in the case of pupils with Special Educational Needs are for example:

• dedicate all the school hours to frontal lessons;
• dwell in too long explanations;
• have the information mechanically transcribed from the blackboard;
• insisting excessively on errors or deficiencies;
• require fast performance and immediate results;
• expose the student to failure in front of the class group;
• submit the pupil to checks or tests not agreed in advance;
• addressing the student with abrupt or humiliating expressions of dissent;

In view of these behaviors to be avoided, the following can be adopted virtuous behavior:

• engage in interactive lessons that involve the student in the first person;
• provide the student with simplified materials, accompanied by visual aids;
• don't demonize the mistake, but use it as a learning opportunity;
• allow relaxed and dilated times;
• agree with the student on the timing and methods of testing, avoiding taking him by surprise;
• always reward the active contribution of the student, regardless of the results.

Strategies for innovative teaching

There are many proposals to support didactic innovation, and they involve both learning methodologies and real activities to be carried out by the class.

The methodologies are part of the broader panorama of a didactic approach that pursues other educational objectives in addition to the development of the programmes, from the emotional well-being of the pupils to a truly inclusive didactic.

The main innovative teaching methodologies consist in reversing the pre-packaged character of the frontal lesson and the traditional development of the training hours.

They belong to this type:

• metacognitive teaching, which aims at the awareness of male and female students
• teaching by skills, centered on thematic cores
• game-based teaching strategies
• peer education, which focuses on the internal comparison between male and female students
• laboratory and cooperative teaching.

All these innovative teaching methods that we will deal with are aimed at a better understanding of the individual learning processes of boys and girls and of the group dynamics that are triggered in a class.

A greater knowledge of both, together with experimentation and skills on the part of the teaching staff, can contribute to the achievement of educational and teaching objectives.

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