“Teaching models” is an Indire’s research on the best methods for teachers’ professional development. In this project, the Institute aims to try out teaching models, strategies and new environments for in person and online training addressed to teachers, schools and school networks.

The “Teaching models” project is carried out through exploratory research and action research.

Exploratory research studies schools’ needs, good practices and teaching models emerging from Indire’s training initiatives and didactic research carried out through systematic reviews and case studies.

Action research tries out methods, tools and strategies for in-service training, verifies research hypothesis, evaluates effectiveness and sustainability of the experimented models and develops tools for entrusted projects and Indire’s training projects.

Exploratory research is a permanent observatory on in-service training, while the action research activities arise from specific problems highlighted in former training activities, through monitoring and Indire researchers’ analysis.

In this framework, the research activities are focused on practical training, especially for those strategies aimed at filling the gap between theory and practice at work. According to surveys this gap is perceived by teachers as a general problem of in-service training.

So far, the activity received a positive feedback from the participants but Indire’s monitoring and analysis revealed some criticalities concerning teachers’ need of contents based on actual school practices.

Therefore, research on the field was set out to address teachers’ needs. The aim is to single out new practices and formats to produce contents focused on hands-on activities for in person and online activities, and experiment the use of video as an instrument for indirect observation and sharing experiences.  The research focuses also on the experimentation of a new open and flexible online teaching training model for teachers’ lifelong-learning.