Teaching innovation
Ongoing project: Containment of dropouts and improvement of students' academic performance
The project is aimed at freshmen of the three study program locations and aims at building a profile of the strategic skills involved in the learning processes. On this basis, a path to strengthen or enhance these skills is offered in order to improve academic outcomes. The project is part of the actions promoted by the PLS and sees the involvement of the Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso-Montanari", the Department of Chemistry "G. Ciamican” and of the Department of Educational Sciences “G.M Bertin”.
The initial phase involves the administration of the QPCS questionnaire (55 items) to freshmen at the beginning of the Academic Year. The questionnaire is processed and the results are sent confidentially to each student. Meeting in plenary with an pedagogist who helps to read the results by explaining the meaning of the scores and a clarification of the objectives of the subsequent path which consists of a series of tutoring meetings, to which students can register on a voluntary basis.
Students who join have an initial individual interview with two tutors, one disciplinary and the other pedagogical, for an in-depth study and a more precise definition of the results of the questionnaire and an initial identification of the strengths and weaknesses of their profile.
Subsequently, a path of reflection on one's own learning processes begins through three afternoon meetings organized for small groups In the period between the administration of the questionnaires and the start of the tutoring process, the tutors are specifically trained by teachers of Educational Sciences.
The project started in the experimental phase in 2017-2018 and in the a.y. 2018-2019 has been optimized in its timing and in the timeliness of the tutoring process (which ends before the start of the first exam session). The intention in the future is to continue the project to have at least an entire pool of freshmen and to monitor, always anonymously, the effectiveness of the intervention by observing the evolution of the students' training path.
Recipients: Students of the three-year courses in Industrial Chemistry (three locations) and Chemistry.