Designing problem-based learning for blended programs: the collaboration among practitioners and researchers

The background for this contribute is provided by a reform promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education concerning the preparation of educators. In December 2017, indeed, the law 205 established for the first time that educators are required to possess an academic title and invited departments and schools of education to organize mandatory intensive programs to train professionals already working in the national educational system with no bachelor’s degree in educational sciences. Different Italian academic institutions tried designing a program potentially meaningful for workers in terms of both topics and teaching approach. In order to develop the program, researchers in education at University of Siena and University of Florence involved representatives of cooperatives and associations in the field of education as “insiders” of the professional contexts. This collaboration allowed researchers to intercept data that emerged from the experience, especially those situated problems, that academic researchers were not able to collect differently. In this frame the co-design of the program represents the opportunity to share knowledge that is close to the professional problems that educators live (Shani, Guerci, & Cirella, 2014). The developed core contents have been implemented in a six modules blended program. Each module starts with a face- to-face session, involves participants in online activities and ends with a second face-to-face session. The modules include each two on-line activities designed following a model of Problem Based Learning (PBL) that will be presented in this contribute.