Abstract:

In accordance with the needs of an increasingly technological society, the current Spanish primary education curricula pay special attention to the contents of natural sciences and technology [1]. The compulsory contents of the Natural Sciences area (NSc) aim to provide students with the basic knowledge to understand the natural world surrounding them, and develop new and more complex scientific concepts on the further education stages.

In line with the Council and the European Parliament [2] the Spanish primary education system is based on learning by competences, being the basic scientific competence (i.e. the ability to interact with all aspects of the physical world and to know how to interpret them) one of those stated by educational law to be acquired by the students.

Experimental work is an essential tool for the meaningful learning of scientific and technological concepts, even in primary school [3]. Unfortunately, in many curricula of primary school teachers (PT), in a clear gap with the 2014’s educational law, scientific experimental work is poorly valued [4]. Therefore, a good part of the pre-service teachers leave university with little knowledge on such skills.

Taking into account this situation and with the purpose of responding to the demand for scientific training of in-service teachers, a group of professors from the Department of Chemistry of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) has developed the didactic project Aula Didàctica d'Experimentació en Ciències per a l'educació primària (ADEC).

ADEC, launched in 2018, is held annually and consists of two experimental workshops dealing with the physical and chemical properties of matter, energy and technology. The experiments were chosen attending to their fit to the compulsory NSc curriculum, safety, simplicity and everydayness of the materials used and their close relationship between the experiment and daily life.

The workshops are carried out with a didactic methodology that follows the principles of learning by doing [4]. During the sessions, an environment of mutual trust between tutors and the participating PTs, where all scientific questions could be asked and answered, was achieved. This is a fundamental part of the project and was especially well valued in the final assessment survey (3.9/4). The practical work was complemented with didactic units.

We are currently working on an online public platform to allow a more fluid relationship between tutors and PTs participants and to serve as a public repository of Open Educational Resources (OER), accessible to any teacher interested on the workshops contents.

To date, about 80 PTs have participated, 35% of which have participated in both the 2018 and 2019 editions. Almost all the 2018 attendants have implemented the ADEC’s experimental work in their primary classrooms and are greatly satisfied with the outcome.

References:
[1] R. D. 126/2014, de 28 de febrero. BOE-A-2014-2222
[2] Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning. OJ L 394, 30.12.2006, p. 10–18.
[3] I. Abrahams and R. Millar, Int J Sci Ed, vol.30, no.14, pp.1945-1969, 2008.
[4] H. W. Reese, Behav dev bull, vol 11, pp 1-19, 2011.

Keywords:

Natural sciences, scientific competence, primary school, practical work, learning by doing.