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The practice was conducted in the school year 2001-2012, at the Local Professional Centre Zanardelli in Brescia ΒΆ
in a class attending the third year of the hairdressing course offered by the Centre
There were 24 students in the class. The students profiles were varied: two failed students, 4 foreign students, many students with family disadvantages
2 with health problems, often not attending the lessons because of hospital recovery and two with severe specific learning disabilities.
Finally, there was a very unsecure girl who had changed school, with low self esteem, presenting behavioral and relational problems.
Physics and Mathematics were among the most disregarded school subjects. The general objective was to learn the mathematical model and apply it in the scientific explanation of phenomena.
Two main topics were investigated: 1. the modeling process in physics and the use of statistics in physical phenomena description;
2. Acoustics and the connection between music and sound waves.
The teaching methodology was a mixture of interactive tasks based on problem solving, performed both individually and in small randomized clusters of 4-5 students, using the cooperative learning approach.
The main teaching scenario was the lab, where students were required to use scientific tools, data processing software and hand-made measurement instruments.
The class also took part in a Science and Technology Museum's initiative where sound analysis had to be applied for solving forensic cases.
In this activity, students were asked to identify with investigators and solve a *** case, by starting from the analysis of the evidence gathered on the crime scene,
in particular the suspects' footprints and their movements during the night of the ***. They had to calculate the statistical probability that the ***'s footprints matched each suspects' own footprints.
In this activity, students had to identify the probable killer on the basis of the analysis of the sound
coming from the mobile buttons used by the murderer.
The students were so motivated to solve the enigmas that they attended the school lab during extracurricular time.
The majority of them chose scientific topics as the main focus for their final dissertations, even though the course was about hairdressing. Their score was very good, the mean was over 8 out of 10.
Some of them decided to continue with higher education and some of them expressed the will to enroll for university.
The teacher used the Universal Design for Learning principles when planning her lessons, which means providing students with multiple ways of expression, engagement and representation.
For instance, in the problem solving activities, there were manual activities to be performed, use of video and audio inputs, writing of textual and audio reports according to students preferences and special needs.
