Experiencias de una innovación en estudiantes normalistas: didáctica imaginativa para la planificación de la enseñanza

Abstract

Abstract Imaginative Education proposes the intentional integration of cognitive tools to foster teachers’ imaginative and emotional connection with students and their learning. In this way, it positions itself as an educational innovation that promotes significant changes in teaching. The implementation of these innovations is often hindered by the lack of awareness towards change and the presence of resistance to move through unfamiliar routines. Precisely, the objective of this article is to analyze the meanings of student teachers of a normal school in Mexico about their experiences participating in an innovation that involved learning the Imaginative Education approach, specifically regarding their motivations, difficulties and learning. Using a qualitative approach and the phenomenological-hermeneutic method, this study is developed in two stages of application of a semi-structured interview to 8 student teachers of a normal school in Mexico who received training on Imaginative Education. Based on a thematic analysis, the results highlight students’ interest in developing their own imagination, at the same time, this training is assumed as an innovation for initial teacher education. This opens up the possibility of learning about teaching strategies based on emotions and imagination to diversify educational practice. Additionally, this study’s findings warn about the experiences of the innovative process, regarding the uncertainty lived by student teachers at the moment of designing lesson plans with a perspective that focuses on the use of cognitive tools, mainly supported in the emotional relevance of the curriculum. In the context of initial teacher education, these innovative actions manage to awaken the interest in knowing and mastering new strategies for teaching, at the same time that they promote the deep understanding of contents by using cognitive tools to favor a learning environment where creativity is nourished. As an innovation, imaginative teaching through this approach, creates opportunities to further develop the imagination of student teachers in this phase of their professional development.