The challenge of training about the “second level” of education: developing and implementing an experi-mental University traineeship

The paper aims to propose a specific reflection about the “second level” ed-ucation professionals’ training. For “second-level” education professional we mean a professional who is trained to act as a supervisor, trainer, evaluator, coordinator, or counsellor in the field of education, and who has therefore acquired a “second-level” perspective on educational work. In Italy, a very important passage for the definition of the adult educators professional profile and training happened at the end of 2017: a new Law (29th December 2017) (Iori, 2018) has clearly thematised the profession of adult ed-ucators at a legislative level, specifying the Master courses that are specifically designed to train these professionals: LM 50, Projecting and Managing Educa-tional Service; LM 57, Educational Sciences for Adult and Lifelong Learning; LM 85, Advanced Educational Sciences; LM 93, Theories and Methodologies for E-learning and Media Education. These professional are involved in activities such as designing, managing, and evaluating educational services in different contexts of intervention. Deve-loping such skills represents a challenge for university didactic because it en-tails strong connections between thinking and acting (Schön, 1984), instrumen-tal dimension and meaning making, theoretical and practical knowledge (Pal-mieri et al., 2009; Riva, 2011). In relation to this, the university apprenticeship programme could represent a fundamental place for synthesis and composition (Galimberti, Gambacorti-Passerini and Palmieri, 2016). The Master Degree Course in Pedagogical Sciences of Milano Bicocca University elaborated an experimental programme meant to enhance the learning potential for students, firstly carried out in A.Y. 2015-2016 and labelled Tirocinio Formativo e di Orientamento (TFO) or Traineeship and Guidance Programme (Galimberti et al., 2015). The University traineeship programme for adult educators will be presented, highlighting its pedagogical assumptions.