fare insieme #squola_pubblica. Arte come ricerca nella didattica digitale

Training course for primary school teachers

The Educational Department of Pirelli HangarBicocca presented fare insieme #squola_pubblica, a free training course for primary school teachers, designed together with the artist and performer Marcella Vanzo, with the collaboration of the Primary Education degree course at the Riccardo Massa Department of Human Sciences for Education of the University of Milano-Bicocca.

In the year 2020, which has presented schools with new and unforeseen educational challenges, the course learned from the vision and work of an artist to create new forms of teaching. The children are placed at the centre of a learning system involving artistic expression and use of the body in the field of distance learning and digital communication, while their teachers are provided with the tools, ideas and courses that can spark creativity and positive relationships within the class.

The decision to work with Marcella Vanzo was inspired by the positive experience of #squola_pubblica, a participatory art project created and developed by the artist, in which interaction, personal involvement and freedom of imagination are at the heart of the educational program. This second stage of the project is designed for teachers.

After the online presentation of the project, twenty teachers were selected to take part in the training course on art as research in distance learning.

The course consisted of five meetings, which examined Marcella Vanzo’s artistic work and its applications in the field of education, as well as exploring the potential of contemporary art in distance learning, and there will also be practical activities designed to create courses based on the idea of “art as research”.
The selected participants worked with the artist to design new distance learning courses for their students and they have been provided with study materials and bibliographies for further reading.

After an initial study phase, which included activities for reflection and analysis, the participants have been asked to design distance-learning courses based on their own disciplinary skills. These have been then shared and discussed with the whole work group.

Calendar:

• Monday 9 November 2020, 6 PM
  Meeting open to all with a presentation of the fare insieme #squola_pubblica project
• Saturday 28 November 2020, 9.30 AM—1.30 PM
  Launch of the project with a presentation of all those involved
• Monday 30 November 2020, 5—8 PM
  Personal experimentation of the distance learning courses led by Marcella Vanzo
• Monday 14 December 2020, 5.30—8 PM
  Art as research: strategies to make every object interesting
• Saturday 16 January 2021, 9 AM—1.30 PM
  Concept and planning for new distance learning courses, involving all the participants
• Monday 25 January 2021, 5.30 PM—8 PM
  Speeches by the lecturers Franca Zuccoli and Alessandra De Nicola of the Primary Education degree course at the Riccardo Massa Department of Human Sciences for Education of the University of Milano-Bicocca