Inglese nel concorso per Dirigenti scolastici - Learning Environments and Education Systems in the European Union

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Chapter One

Learning: Comparative theoretical models

technology available to all, in a context that should be relational, sup-

portive and cooperative, i.e. a context of active participation - includ-

ing research and discovery - where the diversity of each student must

be recognised allowing him to bring out the best of his potential.

1.3

The relationship between learning and

development

Attention to the existing relationship between learning and the de-

velopment of the subject is essential if, as part of educational ini-

tiatives, you are in the position of having to organise stimulating

environments, i.e. those with potential effects on the development

processes.

In fact, the nervous system receives stresses from the environment

(sensations, or impressions of the sense organs and perceptions,

namely recognition of sensations) to which it reacts according to a

series of complex inter-neuronal connections.

The levels of reaction, both in terms of quantity and under the quality

profile, depend on a network of inter-neuronal connections that con-

stitute, in functional terms, the propulsive element of each response.

The relationship between the brain structure and its functionality ap-

pears to be evident.

Structure and functionality must be framed according to the genetic

code, which ensures both the stability, relative to the “specificity” of

species, as well as the variability, relative to the differentiation of the

individual. Structure and function are outlined, therefore, according

to a programme encoded in which invariable elements are integrated

with variable elements.

The latter are vital in differentiating the ways of being and the per-

formance of the subjects that will characterise the individual learning

processes.

The nervous system responses to stimuli that are conveyed through

the sense organs, that is, the receptor organs of the stimuli, are char-

acterised by levels of plasticity that, in the functional processes, make

up the set of availability and potential of the individuals.

The changes that the environmental stress can bring to the func-

tional dimension of the nervous system appear of primary interest

to identify the correlations between the learning and development

processes.