Re-designing smart and sustainable learning environments for the inclusion of SEN students improving classroom management and the quality of learning: an exploratory survey of Italian universitary students’ opinions.

To promote the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN), it can be useful to make learning environments smart and sustainable by improving the configuration of spaces also through the provision of innovative learning artefacts and technologies. But is this enhancement really the only action that can further this goal? Or is there something else that is extraordinarily influential and pedagogically significant, which participates in this process? To understand what is needed to create intelligent and sustainable learning environments capable of fostering better classroom management and the promotion of quality, more equitable and inclusive education, the opinions of a sample of Italian universitary students were surveyed. The results showed that the increase of symbolic cultural artefacts, architectural modifications and the implementation of innovative technologies are not the only factors that can facilitate the achievement of this goal. According to the students’ opinions, further factors relating to the preparation for teaching engagement and an intangible capital that characterises didactics of the implicit (Perla, 2021) can be extremely influential. Furthermore, in order for this development of the learning environment to produce positive results and not, on the other hand, prove detrimental to pupils with SEN, due to an excessive wealth of stimuli of various kinds, it is essential to ensure a balance between the intellectual capacity of the learning environment and the sense of sustainability, which, in this case, equates to protecting diversity, eliminating all forms of discrimination and power hierarchies in relationships, increasing the level of equity and justice and the soundness of sustainable education.