
GIREP Seminar
2003
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The connection between Secondary School and University represents a
difficult problem non yet completely solved; in particular, from
the point of view of disciplinary contents, a lot must still be done.
University teachers say that, according to their experience, students,
in particular during the first year of Scientific Faculties, have
problems when they are required to articulate concepts in a formal
way; it seems that they are unable to find a link among disciplines
that seem to be kept in separated boxes, without possibility of any
interaction. As a result of this fact, study and learning are fragmentary
and not effective. We are referring, in particular, to the field
of scientific disciplines (such as Physics, Biology, Chemistry and
so on ) in which mathematical formalism is required to solve problems,
in particular in modeling. Some Scientific Faculties realized projects
in order to help students at the beginning of their University experience
( in particular the University of Insubria in Varese has been doing
it for three years with apposite tests, courses and so on); however,
according to us, the problem should be tackled much earlier, when
the students are still in the secondary school. For this reason the
project “Precampus” has been realized in order to create
a link between the two levels of instruction (secondary school and
University) for what concerns contents and methods of Mathematics
and Physics. The project was sponsored by European Community Funds;
seven different institutes of secondary level of instruction and
the University of Insubria took part in it. The results of the experimental
project will be showed
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