Search

Science is a vital part of everyday life as it can help society tackle important topics, such as global warming, pollution, pandemics, and even social inequality (ScienceEurope, 2021). Given this centrality, it seems important to teach science to everyone from an early age so that they can become active agents in modern society. Teaching science to everyone means transforming science education into inclusive science education (ISE). An empirical research, following a naturalistic ecological paradigm, was conducted to see how to implement an ISE in pre-school. It is a multiple case study methodology involving indepth data collection, placed within a qualitative method (Creswell, 2014). A total of 44 pupils from 2 different infant schools took part in the study. Biology and physics laboratories were observed and recorded by researchers, and each recording was coded through an observational grid, revealing different factors that facilitate or hinder inclusion. These factors include the activity design that motivates the learning process, the quality of the classroom environment which predicts learning achievements and adults’ attitudes. These variables suggest that in order to have an ISE environment, practitioners should adopt specific pedagogical styles and a laboratorial approach.

Within the framework of the project entitled, H2020 C4S (“Communities for Sciences – Towards promoting an inclusive approach in Science Education»), the GiocheriaLaboratori educational service of the Municipality of Sesto San Giovanni, in collaboration with the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italian Hub), organised a professional development research pathway. This was aimed at educators and teachers involved in the project, including those practitioners who would be involved in the later pilot phase. The pathway was held on-line (because of the restrictions due to the COVID-19) from February to June 2020, over a total of 10 meetings, attended by 18 teachers and 5 educators from 3 Infant Schools in Sesto San Giovanni, i.e. Fante d’Italia, Monte San Michele and Primavera. The meetings, each lasting two hours, followed a recursive pattern of training and research-action. Therefore, they involved teachers and educators, between the meetings, conducting classroom scientific laboratories with children (140 in total), collecting the pedagogical documentation to review with the pathway leaders during the training. All meetings were videorecorded and fully transcribed; through a thematic analysis of the words of leaders, teachers and educators, the research team tried to answer the following questions: What conditions, according to teachers and educators, promote children’s active participation and inclusion in scientific activities? What are their representations of inclusive science education and their own professional development? Therefore, the analysis identified certain categories to examine the perspectives revealed by a teacher professional development research pathway in the Infant School, in terms of inclusive science.

La Neuroeducación es una nueva transdisciplina que constituye un nuevo campo de conocimiento gracias a las sinergias que se generan de la interrelación entre las Neurociencias, la Psicología y la Educación. Una de sus vertientes más prácticas es la creación de espacios de aprendizaje acordes a la manera de procesar la información y de aprender del cerebro humano para facilitar así el óptimo desarrollo de las capacidades de niños y niñas. Con la finalidad de fomentar el aprendizaje de las ciencias en la primera infancia y de comprender mejor el funcionamiento cognitivo de los niños, surge el Lab 0_6, un espacio que se compone de diversas propuestas de experimentación y manipulación del ámbito de las ciencias, presentadas de forma sugerente y provocadora en un contexto de no directividad. En esta investigación se presenta el estudio de caso de un estudio piloto para una propuesta que formaría parte del Lab 0_6 y que ha permitido valorar la implicación de las funciones ejecutivas (FE) para la resolución de un reto y evaluar el Lab 0_6 como un espacio potencialmente neuroeducativo. Los resultados obtenidos reflejan que propuestas de experimentación de este tipo promueven el uso de algunas FE como la anticipación, la planificación, la flexibilidad y la autoregulación, y que estas FE pueden ser motor de desarrollo cuando se dan especialmente en situación grupal. Por otro lado, se ha considerado que el Lab 0_6 como espacio de aprendizaje en el que las funciones ejecutivas resultarían importante trata de reunir otras características respetuosas con un aprendizaje adecuado a nivel neuroeducativo, como las condiciones ambientales óptimas, la evitación de la sobreestimulación y el respeto a los intereses de los niños y niñas aumentado así su motivación e implicación en el aprendizaje activo., The new transdisciplinary discipline of Neuroeducation emerges from the interaction of three different areas of knowledge: neuroscience, psychology and education. One of the implications of this approach is the creation of learning spaces which takes into account how the human brain processes information and learns so to facilitate the optimal development of the children’s capacities. In order to promote Science Education in Early Childhood and to better understand the cognitive processing of children, the space Lab 0_6 was created, as a space constituted by different experimentation proposals within the area of Sciences and presented in a context of non-directivity and which are presented in a suggestive and provocative manner. In this research we present a Case Study forming part of a pilot study of an enquiry-based proposal which was to be located in the Lab 0_6, thus allowing us to consider the implications of the executive functions (EF) within a problem-solving proposal which would be later on located in our Lab, and thus to evaluate the space Lab 0_6 as a space with a neuroeducational potential, The results obtained show that the experimentation proposals of this type promote the use of some EF such as those of anticipation, planning, flexibility and self-regulation and that these EF can promote further development specially when addressing a problem-solving proposal within a group context. Additionally, due to the fact that the Lab 0_6 is an educational space, where the use of EF’s plays a relevant role, it attempts as well to take into account other characteristics which are respectful with a process of neuroeducational learning, such as taking into account optimal environmental conditions, avoiding the excess of stimuli and respecting the interest of children in different activities thus increasing their self-motivation and involvement in the process of active learning.