A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO COMPETENCES (KEY AND PROFESSIONAL)

A holistic approach is suggested for a total involvement, aimed at building up a synergy between all available resources while mobilizing competences in problem solving activities. In presence and on web, the learning community defines itself by activating the individual capabilities, the personal knowledge and the point of view of a specific domain (Business Economy and Administration) in order to mobilize a constellation of competences (key and professional). Self-evaluation and co-evaluation constantly interwoven allow generating best practices, expertise and inter-subjective knowledge. An inductive-deductive process handled by a peers-group (students/teacher trainees) starts from a case-study to approximate the solution through a common shared model. If this model is made to fit the specific context, it allows its proper handling; otherwise the handling of mistake represents a source of intellectual enquiry and is conceived as a well-aware change. Every unit is focused on a specific task, developed in a real and virtual environment. It is oriented by three coordinates: - Premise: Directly linked to the skills and knowledge owned, it works as an intellectual stimulus to activity. - Situation: It outlines the problem, gradually increasing the number of variables and the complexity and is tightly linked to the peculiarity of the case under study. The situation raises the fundamental questions, gives starts and keeps the analysis focused. - Work proposal: It defines the expected result and mobilizes knowledge, capabilities and abilities to build the skills concerned. To enhance the participants' autonomy in taking decisions as well as to improve individual and social responsibility the process leads to modelling, which converges energies and resources both towards conceptual maps and dynamics nets. The holistic praxis is focused on the iteration of some basic moments: - Teamwork. The moment of sharing requires to be linked to a real case study to be meaningful for the entire community. - Inter-group. The externalization of the final product and of the process embedded in it has a high added value. Multiplicity of models prevents self-reference and promotes the awareness of participants about their strengths and weaknesses: the best practices and the expertise can take root. - Systematization. The generalization handled and ruled by the teacher, expert on the field, enables the community to move from practical/pragmatic knowledge to the domain knowledge. - Training Evaluation. Existing tests on e-learning platforms are integrated with documents recorded in personal and group portfolio and with the participation in Chats and Forums, stimulating a continuous adjustment. The coevolution is not linear but moves from one element to another, finding its way through chaos, uncertainty, selection, reorganization: feed-back is continuous. The teacher, as "agent of synergy", aims at integrating all resources, promoting the development of contextualized processes. This approach minimizes distances and differences both cultural/social and professional/technological. Negotiating views, meanings, models in presence and on web leads to a remarkable change of the cognitive structure of the subject and improves the acquisition of competences.