Course Topics
How to teach psychology. Key concepts are the history of psychology, the main theories on the functioning of the mind and human behavior, on the cognitive, emotional and social development in puberty and adolescence.

Teaching format
Frontal lectures with high degree of interaction

Educational objectives
The aim of the course is to provide teachers with tools to master the content specific to the subjects, paying attention to own and others’ experience, interpersonal relationships, educational relationships, and forms of social life. A further objective is to provide tools and methods to create teaching units, lessons and materials, also organizing them in interdisciplinary paths, based on the various recent psychological theories. Learning outcomes: Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: Teachers know the teaching tools and educational methodologies useful for the development of teaching activities for teaching psychology in secondary school. Teachers are able to design a teaching activity (learning unit) that takes into account theoretical reflection on the teaching of the discipline and uses, in a conscious and targeted manner, the methodologies and teaching tools most appropriate to the school educational context. Autonomy of judgment: Teachers are able to recognize, among the different options that will be presented to them, those most suitable for the design of educational activities on psychological themes, using critical and creative thinking. Communication skills: Teachers are able to relate to students and clearly explain the theoretical principles and methods of carrying out the teaching unit/lesson in a hypothetical class of a secondary school, using a disciplinary vocabulary appropriate to the context and a conscious use of educational terminology. Learning skills: Teachers are able to use the theoretical principles of the discipline to critically reflect on their own learning and training process, recognizing their own progress and limitations within it.

Assessment
Oral exam: discussion. The topics will focus on the application of course content to typical classroom situations.

Evaluation criteria
The students' ability to manage knowledge (which can be useful in future work), and whether they can critically motivate the decisions they make, will be estimated. The students' performance will be considered, their "ability to respond to situations/events" that could occur in school. They will have to demonstrate that they can find an optimal perspective on how to: 1. follow a correct course of action in order to get an adequate response to the aims, 2. motivate and elaborate their decision, consistent with both their personal style and scientific knowledge. For such an examination, these are useful skills: ability to argue, to make connections between contents; ability to critically analyse and reflect on theories and models, their application and to be able to criticize them; ability to create timely answers about a topic (without long forewords, digressions or deviations).