TOThe first edition was attended by 100 teenagers from 3 schools and 50 university tutors with excellent results: the teachers had declared that at the end of the course 76 per cent of the pupils had improved in scientific subjects and 87 per cent in the humanities. So now we start again, and the second edition of homework @ home – the project of De Agostini Foundation, University of Turin with the support of IGT, doubles: 200 children involved, from 6 middle schools, who are helped by 100 students for a total of 6000 hours of tutoring. The schools in Milan, Turin and Novara are joined by others in Rome and Naples, all connected to the digital platform developed by the University of Turin.
“Let’s clarify immediately: homework @ home is not an initiative with volunteers just giving repetitions», Explains Marina Marchisio, professor of complementary mathematics at the University of Turin and coordinator of the project. «First of all, because university students undergo a training course, before starting the recovery activity, where they learn to use technologies in the most useful way for children. Furthermore, throughout the period, they are in contact with both their university representatives and the teachers of the students involved, who update them on how they are progressing with the program, the deadlines, and introduce them to the children before the afternoon classes begin. “.
The tutoring lasts 15 weeks, and each week includes 4 hours of homework assistance, two for the humanities and two for the scientific subjects. “The pupils involved, all of the lower secondary schools, are half Italian, half instead come from all over the world, and some have difficulties with Italian”, continues the teacher. The fact that the help comes from students who are little older than them is very positive, it makes them feel at ease, confident. Even if the relationship is always at a distance.
“We know all the problems caused by Dad in the two years of the pandemic, but here we are in a completely different situation, where technology is an important support, avoids unnecessary travel and connects people who live far away. For example, we have put students of Campania origin to tutor the pupils of Naples; a beautiful friendship was born», Adds Marchisio. «Our lessons are an appointment with a limited time and in a dedicated environment; a platform that allows you to ask questions of varying difficulty, depending on the pupil’s answers: the very effective result is that of personalized teaching. Also because the tutor, at the end of the lesson, can leave materials for further study, always on the themes of the assigned tasks. Then the boys go on alone ».
And this is precisely one of the objectives: not only improve skills, but allow pupils greater autonomy, which then means self-esteem, greater motivation, more active participation in the classroom. Homework, with the help of the university’s “older brothers”, becomes a driving force for growth and, hopefully, a contrast to educational poverty. The more confident in themselves, the more inserted into the class group, students at risk of early school leaving will find within themselves the motivations to move forward.
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