Central to the construction of a knowledge society is investment in the develop- ment of core skills and cross-curriculum competencies. In general, competence is an intrinsic characteristic of the individual and is causally related to effective or higher performance in a situation/task and measured on the basis of a pre- determined criterion. Competence is considered to be the ability to coordinate internal and external resources for dealing positively in a complex situation, thanks also to the presence of an expert (Le Boterf, 1994; Wenger, 1998). Among the different types of skills, an increasingly important role is recog- nized in the skills of self-regulated learning.
In educational literature, SRL refers to the transversal competence of ‘learning to learn’ (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1998). It allows young people to activate and maintain attitudes and knowledge oriented steadily in line with the objectives of learning, and motivates them to take greater responsibility for what and how to learn (Gibbons, 2002). SRL also offers young people the capacity to exert control over their learning process: to think strategically, to set objectives, to plan and assess the entire process. There can be many strategies of self-regula- tion and, what is more important, they can be learned actively. In their report on Digital Media and Learning, Davidson & Goldberg (2009) put self-learning as one of the ten core skills for the future.
Initially, this concept was developed by Bandura (2002) who first identified and dealt with the issue of ‘self-efficacy’, a related concept, defined as the belief of young people’s ability to organize and implement the course of action necessary to properly manage the situations they will meet in a particular context, in order to achieve the stated objectives. In particular, the concept of self-efficacy is structured on the basis of three dimensions, namely:
1. the number of tasks that the subject is expected to manage in difficult situations (width);
2. the resistance to criticism or absence of positive results (strength); 3. expectations of efficacy in other contexts (generality).
According to Bandura, people with the same intelligence and specific abili- ties, but with a higher sense of self-efficacy, are more motivated to achieve goals. Whilst the value of SRL has been demonstrated for academic learning (Pintrich, 2000), it is important to explore whether it can be made useful in developing the entrepreneurial skills necessary for new business creation. Entrepreneurship is described by EU Skills Panorama (2012: 2) ‘as an attribute
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gathered personal memories. It is important to apply great caution when choos- ing and dealing with issues, not to create discomfort or embarrassment. Following a brief presentation of the theme from the facilitator, the writing is done by the participants in the activity. The method is usually conducted indi- vidually or in a group: in ‘face to face’ situations, where open and deeper inter- view is used. In group situations, it requires oral sharing of documents produced collectively, discussion of biographical themes that emerged, oral self-presenta- tion as a group, collective use of materials and projective methods with evoca- tive discussions. By listening to the stories of their peers, a participant can gain a deeper understanding of ‘the other’ and at the same time, reflect and become more aware of his/her own experiences. The experience of reflecting on auto- biographical moments is doubly rewarding if translated into an intercultural learning setting, where the autobiography can be surprising, as it may involve different life experiences: different ages for entering educational institutions, religious rites, social and historical events seen through a personal lens. This process is similar but different to the methodology of ‘storytelling’: storytelling is the conveying of events in words, and images, often by improvisation or embellishment; in Narrative Autobiography the story is a ‘real’ personal life history. The tools used to perform the Narrative Autobiography are multiple: personal journals, creative text, documents and testimonies of one’s own per- sonal history, such as family photos, letters, objects, projections of home movies, etc. The facilitator must have active listening skills in order to establish deep trust with the narrators. The trainer (youth worker) must be patient and respect timing, taking into account the importance of pauses and silences, and avoiding the making of judgements. The facilitator and the group agree to respect the ground rules related to confidentiality, respect of privacy and do not to share personal information with others outside the activity. Working with others though, implies previous training: the youth worker must have knowl- edge of interview techniques and facilitation of dialogue. No special pre-requi- sites are needed from the young people involved in Narrative Autobiography, besides writing, listening and the will to share emotions and personal experi- ences with an open-mind attitude.
As a pedagogical tool, the method works in a chronological dimension which, during the first stage, involves the reconstruction of key breakthroughs and existential trajectories. The variety of start points is endless: take a cue from other autobiographies or texts. It is also possible to use sensorial start points (colours, smells and tastes), art and drama (descriptions of roads, housing and places). The writing is free, respecting the style of each individual. The facili- tator invites the parties to respect the ‘principle of condensation’, narrating episodes in a clear and simple manner.
During the next stage, the young person engages in a reconstruction of experi- ences in the space of growth and experience through the evocation of faces, people and significant actors. Each person is free to participate or not, and may decide not to recount experiences which are particularly emotionally strong. The autobiographical narrative has always been present in human his-
tory: human beings have always felt the need to reflect on their own experi- ence and understand its meaning. Currently, the autobiographical story has reached another level of development, due to a deeper theoretical and practical elaboration. For Bruner (1995), the autobiography becomes the main key to understanding and organizing the self: to tell a story means to put the self in a narrative dimension, where the psychological world becomes a possible world. The following section focuses our attention on the Narrative Autobiography, a method that seems to provide a fertile ground for developing SRL competencies and offers the possibility of broad reflection about the self.
In Italy, the Narrative Autobiography [NA] was developed for formal and non- formal learning contexts by Demetrio (1996), founder of the ‘Libera Università dell’Autobiografia’ 18. It involves writing about the self in order to clarify and understand problems, and to remember moments of one’s own life and reshape them. The main understanding behind the concept is that personal experience binds the individual to the context and history of his/her own community; making the lived experience explicit in written form, allows young people to engage in a reflective process. In the perspective outlined, the Narrative Autobiography is considered an educational method, able to bring tangible results in terms of recovery, change and new strategic planning.
The usefulness and importance of this method in educational practices are due to the enhancement of the individual. It is important to note that NA is not a clinical method of psychology but a pedagogical methodology, without medi- cal or other intervention. Central to NA is the subjective point of view, with particular attention to how the individual builds the image of him/herself and of the others: cognitive and emotional processes that tell readers much more than the narrator exposes. According to Demetrio (2003), the effects of the application of narrative practices in education/training are:
1. etero-esteem: the narrator feels recognized and confirmed by the availability of a glance, encouraging words, from the time dedicated by readers to reading the autobiographical story;
2. increase in self-esteem: the narrator is helped to regain his/her subjectivity through the rediscovery of his/her own life story, the pleasure of feeling entitled to recover the dignity of the use of the first person;
3. eso-esteem: at the end of the process, the narrator, alone or with a facilitator, can clarify and enrich what was said through other channels of communication (graphic, visual, photographic).
In practice, Narrative Autobiography consists in a writing activity (with the use of different inputs and prompts) about life experiences, feelings, situations or other consistently deep personal moments. Each session of Narrative Autobiography reflects on a generative theme, which is expanded during the session 19. The generative themes are central aspects of life, around which are Libera Università dell’Autobiografia
www.lua.it
For illustrations of these sessions, please see the Case study bellow.
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plan his/her objectives, designing and monitoring strategies, and assess the achievement of his/her purpose. These general skills are useful and transferable in an attitude of initiative towards entrepreneurship.
The software Synergeia, in particular, is a platform that contains communica- tion environments both synchronous (chat) and asynchronous (forums), draw- ing tools for the construction of concept maps (Map Tool), a calendar to share deadlines and appointments, and other spaces for the individual organization of shared material. The common area is represented by folders that can contain documents, external links and discussion spaces. The spaces of asynchronous communication, forums, are called ‘construction areas of knowledge’: in them one can trace graphically the sequence of conversational exchanges between the various participants. Before it can be posted, each message is classified by means of content descriptors, called ‘thinking types’, which represent the contents of the entire message to be posted (e.g., Problem Statement for the presentation of a problem, Working Theory for illustration of the theoretical point of view, Reflection on the Process). Both Synergeia and Moodle share as a central element the use of the web-forum, a space of asynchronous communication in which par- ticipants can share their experiences, in the form of written messages, and build new ones through the implicit commitment to read the opinions or knowledge of others and to subject them to deep analysis. The first feature of the forum is the asynchronous nature of communication and the importance of the textual dimension, which makes it the favourite tool for storytelling and writing. The promotion of SRL skills with technology allows young people to be up-to- date with the needs of a rapidly evolving society, where the ability to act and intervene creatively in reality is becoming dominant. According to Montalvo & Torres (2004), each person with internalising SRL is better able to achieve the desired result: having developed skills in planning, monitoring and self- evaluation, she/he is able to assess the achievement of the objective and plan corrective action. In this way, developing aspects of SRL in non-formal settings means meeting the needs of a complex society.