THE DADA MODEL (DIDACTICS FOR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS): A PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION IN THE ITALIAN SCHOOL CONTEXT

The present paper aims to describe a pedagogical-didactic and organizational innovation founded in 2014 by the school principals of two upper secondary schools in Rome (Italy): the DADA model (https://www.scuoledada.it/). DADA stands for Didattiche per Ambienti Di Apprendimento, or “Didactics for Learning Environments” and it is characterized by the presence of “classrooms – learning environments”. In a DADA model school, each space is assigned to one or two teachers of the same subject and students move from one classroom to another, during school hours. In the Italian context, the DADA model represents a real attempt to overcome the traditional frontal teaching. It draws inspiration from the international debate on the role of learning environments in students’ academic achievement and well-being at school; it is based on Dewey’s theory of pedagogical activism for challenging conventional attitudes about child education and discover that school can be a cooperative community, in which students can actively build their knowledge. Experiences of reorganizing educational spaces into "laboratory classes" have many affinities with Swedish or American high school models. However, DADA is based on autonomous pedagogical-scientific assumptions that have allowed to define the construct of "didactics for learning environments". The DADA construct includes 5 general postulates (e.g.: classroom – learning environment, choral involvement of the educational community) and 5 characteristics (e.g.: movement as functional to the teaching-learning process, school as a “learning building”) defining the principles on which the model is based. Currently, about 140 Italian schools have formally applied to the "DADA School Network", and about 50 of these schools have already put the DADA model into practice. Since its foundation, the network of DADA schools has established a collaboration with Sapienza University aiming at monitoring the results of this pedagogical innovation. Specifically, the Department of Development Psychology and Socialization Processes (Sapienza University of Rome) was involved in a monitoring study according to the Teacher Professional Development Research (Ricerca-Formazione). It means doing empirical research using different research methodologies to promote the professionalism of teachers through the construction of common research paths, in a framework of inter-institutional collaboration. The monitoring study mainly included the observation of teaching times and practices. Sharing the results of the observations leads to a comparison between researchers and teachers, highlighting the training needs of teachers and building a shared research context aimed at improving teaching in the renewed learning environments. During the pandemic, DADA schools were not able to use the learning environments, but nevertheless they maintained the other characteristics that underpin the model. Also, the collaboration between Sapienza University and DADA schools continues and new monitoring studies are restarting, with the aim of improving the pedagogical innovation offered by the DADA model.