Abstract:

Educational innovation is a global process that transforms the educational praxis and it requires continuous review and evaluation of its relevance and quality. Furthermore, it entails changes in how we conceive of the school as an institution, the education system, its organization, and pedagogical and didactic renewal. One hypothesis of the study is that continuous teaching training and reflective practice on their performance and relevance in the teaching-learning processes, can influence the educational innovation proposals to be of high quality, participatory and viable. Within this framework, teacher training and its spirit of change are fundamental pillars for pedagogical innovation in the classroom, which is reflected in teaching practice, curriculum, didactics, assessment, and management. Educational innovation, therefore, makes it possible to realize the aspirations for quality education, adapted to a changing society. These are the objects of study and the problems faced by this research. Questions are answered about how to elevate the implementation of an educational innovation project based on educational micro-projects designed from the Project-Based model and focused on the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology approach to the level of applying educational science to practice, for transformation and profound change. In this context, the research contributes to designing an instrument that allows evaluating the quality and relevance of these educational innovation proposals based on scientific, pedagogical, didactic and systemic criteria. The tool is called: “Scientific Inventory of Quality and Relevance (SIQR)”. This tool has been tested for its efficiency and functionality, within the framework of the development of an innovation project for pre-school education. The research is carried out within the framework of a doctoral thesis from the action research paradigm, based on the Didactic Engineering design method, and under evaluation models of plans and programs. The results indicate that the theoretical foundations of the evaluation are related to the dimensions: epistemological (the way of understanding innovation); institutional (the school educational project); formative; pedagogical and didactic; curriculum; of educational participation; psychosocial (such as the motivation of the subjects) and; generation of specific resources and progressive application. Likewise, at an experimental level, the results show that the scientific foundations shape a school and a classroom where the use of PBL guarantees adjustment to the educational needs of the students and the context in which it is implemented.

Keywords:

Pre-school education, educational innovation, Project-Based model, Project Based Learning, Evaluation of innovation projects.