«Being a teacher is a demanding job!»

Abstract

The interdisciplinary project presented here focuses on an experience related to communication between classes of different compulsory school orders and to collaborative learning in mathematics. The pupils of two eight-grade classes at the lower secondary school in Minusio took on the role of teachers: they prepared an itinerary on triangles, consisting of some didactic videos introducing the activity and the respective accompanying sheets, to be submitted to the children of two third-grade classes in the Locarno area; they managed the video calls and group work with the children; they answered their curiosities, and finally corrected their productions. When the activity was over, the lower secondary school students devised a series of games to consolidate the children’s learning and prepared summary reports, together with their Italian language teachers. Through such reports they presented, in different ways, their personal experiences and what they had learned about communication and about the teaching profession.