Z Lab, digital final events!

With the digital events of the past few weeks, the three-year educational path launched in 2018 has come to an end.
Z Lab, in line with the ministerial indications regarding Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO), provides a three-year theoretical-practical teaching plan with interactive classroom sessions involving group work, experiential workshops and business games.
Students are led throughout the course by colleagues from the Impact Learning unit, who are specially trained as tutors and mentors. First, students explore the world of savings and protection, then they are introduced to entrepreneurship by building their own start-up, and finally they are encouraged to be their own entrepreneur by means of self-analysis tools, which drive their choices towards the academic world and labor market.
In this way they develop technical skills on the one hand and an entrepreneurial vision in building their future on the other, all enriched by work on transversal, aptitude and behavioral skills. During the orientation phase, young people use a methodology that aims to bring out individual specificities and make sense of their possible life choices. This helps to build up a store of knowledge that students will find useful in their further studies or professional life.

Since last October, all Z Labs are held online, after a temporary stop due to the health emergency, the course has been revised in a digital key. We tried to turn restriction into opportunity by using digital technology to find all the solutions that would maintain the didactic effectiveness of the course.
With the help of technology, it was possible to involve students in an active way. The tutors, who undertook this experience, considered it essential to value the personal contributions, the acquisition of autonomy, the sense of responsibility and the collaboration of the students. From the very beginning, they understood that communication is as important as technology, so they consciously and carefully gave students clear messages about methodology, diversity of environment, tools and lessons pace. They worked, planned and experimented everything until they had the right skills to be able to carry out the lessons at a distance.

All digital editions of the final events involved schools in different cities. In this way, the young people, working in mixed groups, were able to share with parents, teachers, school leaders and bank managers the mastery they had acquired in using the tools to manage their savings, their start-up and to face the choice between the academic and working worlds.
From so many signs, it was clear that the final events were moments of reflection and understanding for the students that, in order to face the future with determination, confidence and planning, it is necessary to get involved and make conscious choices.

Also in the digital field, Z Lab fully meets the core goals of our idea of an inclusive school: learning and socialization. Furthermore, by supporting schools, teachers and parents in the difficult task of orientation, we want to continue to bring the common consideration on the specificities of each individual. In addition, by supporting schools, teachers and parents in the difficult task of guidance, we want to continue to bring common reflection on the elements that concern the specificities of each individual, without which early school leaving and school drop-out would increase.

Z Lab once again expresses our sense of social responsibility and how much we care about the education and development of young people. We want to convey them the meaning and values of work and doing business, preparing them for the future.
We want to encourage them during the process of growth and responsibility, supporting them to find out their own dreams and purposes for a life project.                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                    March 2021