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Learning to Teach: It's Back to School Day for Bocconi New Faculty

, by Fabio Todesco
The professors that joined the University in the last few months start today the innovative Bocconi Excellence in Advanced Teaching, a program that will last until mid December

It's back to school day for Bocconi new faculty. The professors that joined Bocconi in the last few months will in fact attend the first module of the 2018 Bocconi Excellence in Advanced Teaching (BEAT) Program this afternoon. (Pictured above: a teaching program at SDA Bocconi School of Management)

The teachers training program was designed by Bocconi University Innovations in Learning and Teaching (BUILT) with the aim of perfecting and homogenizing faculty's teaching abilities. "Teaching in an effective way is a challenging goal for everyone and a relevant part of a University's mission", says BUILT's Director Leonardo Caporarello. The six-module program, that will last until mid-December, will be taught by BUILT's instructional designers, Bocconi professors and special guests chosen among professors of prestigious international universities. "The teachers of any module will be those professors with the best experience in the topics the module deals with", explains Caporarello.

BEAT is an experiential program: it not only makes use of some of the taught methodologies, but it also recreates in the classroom some of the predicaments professors can face in their teaching activities. Participants, furthermore, have the final assignment of redesigning one of their courses according to the guidelines provided by the program.

A couple of weeks before a module starts, readings will be shared online, in order to give a theoretical basis to the experiential sessions and in the weeks between modules participants can immediately apply what they have studied.

"Ours is the most articulated teaching program for new faculty I'm aware of in Europe", Caporarello says. "The main focus of the PhD programs most of our new faculty come from is research and it's important to give them awareness of new teaching methods and to make clear that, even if good teaching is a demanding activity, here at Bocconi they have a strong support, that can help them save time to devote to research".

Teaching