Education

Educational big data analysis consolidates information to provide teachers and administrators with the big picture of trends and patterns that can be used to evaluate and streamline processes, create efficiencies, and improve the overall students’ experience. In this course, students learn:

a) learning theories and instructional design models for developing educational program;

b) the characteristics of educational data;

c) the basic programming language to operate big data analysis; 

d) some machine learning algorithms that allow computers to learn data and to predict unknown results; and,

e) the skills to embed the machine learning model into the real online educational program.

Processes of globalization, migration, marketization, and socioeconomic change have transformed the landscape of children’s educational and occupational trajectories across the world. This course explores how such broader macro-level changes have influenced micro-level experiences, interactions, and individual beliefs influencing learning and schooling. This course covers various topics from the home environment to structural and cultural factors shaping learning experiences through lectures and a discussion of readings. Students also have the unique opportunity throughout this course to pursue a project of their own interest relevant to the topics covered in the course. This course aims to familiarize students with key contextual factors shaping education and develop students’ ability to think in a cross-cultural and international perspective by introducing case studies across the world. This course aims to provide theoretical background to structural and cultural factors shaping learning experiences. This course aims to expose students to research by providing them with an opportunity to formulate their own projects. 

This course is designed to delve into the world of early childhood curriculum, exploring its definition, philosophical and theoretical foundations, and practical implementation. Throughout the semester, students develop knowledge and skills in planning and interpreting curriculum, observing classroom practices, and understanding teacher roles. In addition, students gain deeper understanding of various early childhood curriculum models as well as current trends in the field. The goal is to understand the concept of early childhood curriculum and its core components; to understand how philosophical and theoretical backgrounds are associated with early childhood curriculum; to develop skills in planning, developing, and implementing early childhood curriculum; and to analyze current trends and the future of early childhood curriculum.

Prerequisites: majoring in Child and Family Studies

This course focuses on the question of public policy in education. It examines what it means to evaluate educational public policies and studies the large international actors in educational politics.

A sustainable future requires to focus not only on the responsible use of natural resources but also on the social, economic, and cultural challenges we face as a global society. This course explores the role education plays in key global issues such as poverty, migration, conflict, human rights abuses, and climate change to better understand how it can contribute to a sustainable and equitable society.

Topics in this Educational Research Methods course include: introduction to statistics; types of variables and data characteristics; descriptive analysis for the study of social and educational phenomena; aspects of the logic of statistical interference applied to educational research.

This is a service-learning based project promoted by the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology in cooperation with the Projects and Mobility Office and it is designed for exchange students staying at the University of Padova for the entire academic year or spring semester. Students on this service-learning course participate in the program called Erasmus@School. Service-learning is an experiential educational method in which students engage in community service, reflect critically on this experience, and learn from it personally, socially, and academically. Students are involved in activities such as theater labs, foreign language learning, and science labs in a primary (six-10-year-olds) and secondary (11–13-year-olds) school in Padova. The course is graded pass/no pass only.

This course introduces students to (1) the main disciplines which shape education, including sociology, philosophy, economics, history, and psychology, and the accounts they give of the relationships between education and social change; (2) the structures of formal education in the UK and the different conceptions of the value and purposes of education they represent; (3) how key stakeholders, such as policymakers, professional associations, teacher unions and employer bodies, have influenced the ways in which education is organized, for example, by raising the school leaving age, the introduction of a National Curriculum, or Academies; (4) the potential of education to create a more just and socially cohesive society, and what structural, organizational, and individual barriers help or hinder the realization of this vision; and (5) the role of educational theory and research in identifying and analyzing critical educational changes, using concepts such as, marketization, widening participation, social justice, and social inclusion.

This course aims to support participants in establishing a general overview of qualitative educational research, enabling them to critically read and review qualitative academic writings. Participants will also use qualitative research methods to understand the complex and multifaceted nature of educational phenomena based on their own experiences. This course provides the essential foundation for participants to develop as educators (and educational researchers).