Gabriella Mincione: The Quality of the Educational Relationship, Il Piccolo Ascolto
Il Piccolo Ascolto is a web platform (Ida Verna, SIAE, 2021, 2026) designed for use by teachers and students, aimed at providing teachers with information on the quality of the “educational relationship” determined by teaching and learning processes. Specifically, the teacher administers a course satisfaction questionnaire to students, focused on several critical areas of teaching quality (Van Dijk et al., 2020), while simultaneously completing a similar self-assessment questionnaire. Upon completion of both questionnaires, the Il Piccolo Ascolto platform provides the teacher (in real-time) with aggregate information on the distance (gap) between the students’ opinions and those of the teacher, highlighting areas of teaching quality where a discrepancy of opinions, a “relational gap” (Verna I., 2020), emerges. The aim is to trigger a process of reflection-on-action in the teacher, guided by the “relational gap” and supported by a further reflective stage represented by an in-depth questionnaire on the critical issues identified. In particular, the platform provides an additional moment of reflection-on-action which, starting from the “relational gap,” investigates potential problems from which the gap originates through a further questionnaire focused only on those areas where criticalities emerged. The goal is to facilitate and support the teacher in the process of improving teaching quality by listening to the needs that emerge within a specific teaching-learning context and doing so in itinere (ongoing) with respect to the development of educational processes. Although Student Evaluation of Teaching is widely used, international literature often highlights a low correlation between teachers’ self-assessment and student judgment (Matthews, 2025). Studies such as those by Wisniewski et al. (2021) confirm that teachers have “privileged access” to their own thoughts but not always to the behavioral signals they send, leading to considerable divergences with students. Furthermore, literature recognizes the existence of a widespread “perception problem” (Wisniewski et al., 2021) and a systematic lack of alignment between self-assessment and student judgment (Daumiller et al., 2022); in this sense, Il Piccolo Ascolto can represent a contribution to overcoming this limitation. Ultimately, the originality of Il Piccolo Ascolto lies in transforming the “relational gap” from a simple “datum” into a driver for reflection-on-action, allowing for the overcoming of overestimation biases typical of teacher self-reports (Fitzgerald et al., 2020).
REFERENCES
Van Dijk, Esther E., et al. “What makes an expert university teacher? A systematic review and synthesis of frameworks for teacher expertise in higher education.” Educational Research Review 31 (2020): 100365.
Verna, Ida. “Flexibility in learning and teaching styles in an accounting course.“ Deming towards Kolb”.” International Business Research 13.11 (2020): 77-95.
Matthews, V. O. (2025). Towards an Inclusive Approach to Evaluation of Teaching. International Journal of Higher Education, 14(5), 1–1. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v14n5p1
Wisniewski, B., Röhl, S., & Fauth, B. (2021). The perception problem: a comparison of teachers’ self-perceptions and students’ perceptions of instructional quality.
Learning Environments Research, 25(3), 775–802. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-021-09397-4
Daumiller, M., Janke, S., Hein, J., Rinas, R., Dickhäuser, O., & Dresel, M. (2022). Teaching Quality in Higher Education. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 39(3), 176–181. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000700
Fitzgerald, M. T., Danaia, L., McKinnon, D. H., & Bartlett, S. (2020). Differences in Perception Between Students and Teachers of High School Science: Implications for Evaluations of Teaching and Classroom Evaluation. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 45 (11). https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.202v45n11.5
Staff Academy workshops
The INGENIUM Alliance organises Staff Academy workshops to share, transfer and showcase selected innovative pedagogical methodologies from the partner Universities. Each Staff Academy event has ten individual sessions, lasting an hour, with one from each partner university. The Staff Academy sessions are based on proposals submitted by Alliance staff implementing innovative learning methodologies or wishing to develop them in cooperation with INGENIUM partners.
Staff Academy workshops allow participants to gain and enhance their teaching and facilitation skills by providing additional time for hands-on learning and interaction with colleagues from diverse backgrounds and fields. It will also provide an appropriate framework for knowledge sharing and transfer, offer new networking opportunities, and open avenues for enhanced cooperation with the Alliance.
