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his/her academic career. But most of all being aware that learning
does not fade away after the years spent in school since it contin-
ues at every stage of life. It follows that the skills should become a
fundamental heritage for all the students, not just for an elite few,
allowing the circulation of knowledge previously mentioned. Com-
petence is not just knowledge or capacity, but it requires know how
to respond to complex requests, which also involves psycho-social
resources to deal with the complex challenges of today’s world, for
successful outcome in life and social functioning, beyond that of an
individual. The so-called “core competences” should stimulate and
act on the internal and external resources required to address the
continuous challenges of life in a constructive way.
In his
Formae Mentis Essay on the plurality of intelligence
, Howard Gard-
ner asserts that “
a competence must imply a set of skills for solving prob-
lems (...) to create valid products and to be able to discover or create prob-
lems, from which new knowledge is acquired
”. Intelligence is not innate,
but gradually built, through the formulation and investigation of
various areas of life. Everyone can develop the various intelligence
required, as identi ed by Gardner, and attain a good level of com-
petence or ability; however, in order for this to occur, one must
create situations and conditions of encouragement, insistence,
curiosity and creativity. Therefore, learning in a profound way is
identi ed as one of the most important objectives that each student
must achieve during the academic process, together with the de-
velopment of intelligence that will guide and support him/her in
solving problems.
According to new stimuli and new changes required by modern
society, the school and the concept of “learning” related to it have
continued to evolve over time. It is therefore appropriate to ex-
amine how psycho-pedagogical thinking in terms of learning was
formed.
First of all, this thought has been developing over the last twenty years,
along two axes of thought: the cognitive one and the socio-cultural
constructivist one. We will address both lines of thought in our study,
but we will analyse in particular the contributions of the constructivist
theories that have inspired the research and experimentation in the
educational and teaching eld.