Adaptive teaching supported by ICTs to reduce the school failure in the Project “Scuola dei Compiti”

Adaptive teaching consists in a teaching style aimed at overcoming inner differences among learners by providing them tailored ways to achieve outcomes according to their learning style, culture and needs. ICTs play an important role in supporting teachers with the adoption of adaptive strategies. Adaptive teaching acquires relevance in contexts of scholastic remediation and in reducing failures. The paper presents and discusses how adaptive teaching is used within “Scuola dei Compiti”, a project proposed by the City of Turin (Italy) in collaboration with the University and the Polytechnic of Turin, aimed at reducing the drop-out rate and at enhancing scholastic success. University students help groups of 5-6 students aged 13-15 with their difficulties in the main subjects (Mathematics, Italian Language, Foreign Languages). Part of the Mathematics courses adopt a set of innovative computer based methodologies developed by the Department of Mathematics of the University of Turin, including a virtual learning environment integrated with an advanced computing environment, an automatic assessment system and a web-conference tool, which support adaptive teaching. The project has involved over 7500 students in the last 5 years; the results achieved, discussed in the paper, show the effectiveness of these methodologies with respect to traditional teaching methods.