According to the European Agency for Development report in the Special Needs Education "Profile of inclusive teachers" in 2012, inclusive teaching approaches are relevant for supporting better students with special learning needs. In education, inclusive teaching and learning mean that everyone is supposed to possess the same opportunity, without boundaries such as ethnicity, gender or disability. All students should feel valued, be able to mix and participate with all members of the group and be in a safe and positive environment.
Currently, different pedagogical approaches are recognized as enhancers of social inclusion in the classroom, such as participating and collaborative methodology focused on motivation improvement and emotional and cognitive development through the use of different intelligence.
In this context, this paper describes two inclusive teaching and learning approaches that exploit the creativity and potentiality of using the Arts for STEM skill development.
The first one aims to introduce the artworks in a defined pedagogical approach which follows Singapore’s method structured into three phases (concrete, pictorial and abstract) for studying mathematics. It starts from a concrete phase in which students are called to make an experience through object manipulation up to reaching the abstract concept by recognizing and re-producing the mathematics formula studied through an artwork. In the second teaching approach, the use of the artworks by the students is made through the development of mini-games settings and scenarios. This last is a part of the project co-funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus Plus programme.
Key words: STEM, Learning by doing, Arts, Inclusive teaching.
ITA