The videos to document actions in situations: the workgroups in the Rimedi@ Lab

Abstract

The analysis of the results of the OCSE PISA 2015 survey shows a strong criticality concerning the incapacity of Italian 15-year-olds to work with others to solve problems. Our work aims to highlight how the practice of workgroups
could be used in university teaching to encourage the development of social skills. The need to implement innovative teaching methods, such as the collaborative problem solving that combines the social and individual dimensions
in the management and resolution of complex situations, represents a valid answer to the educational challenges underlined in the European policies aimed at encouraging employment in the labor market. This survey, by using tools and techniques of video-research, aims to describe the organizational practices that have distinguished the group activities, carried out by students enrolled in the second year of the five-year single-cycle Degree Course in Primary Education Sciences at the Salerno University. From the reference literature, it emerges that the video, besides being a valid tool to be adopted in the documentation of the observed phenomenon, allows focusing the attention on videotaped educational scenes. In this way, it was possible to grasp the structuring, the modality and the management of the work, as well as the contextual variables of each group, so as to draw an overall view of the educational experience that was dominated by collaboration and negotiation in the elaboration of the task of learning.