Movement Settings in Early Childhood Education 3-to-6

Project Description

Movement plays a crucial role in early childhood education and care (ECEC), but sometimes, this significance is underrepresented in preservice teacher training courses or even in preschools. In fact, it is agreed that movement influences positively in all domains of either individual or social development. Areas such cognitive, emotional or social development are benefitted by a consistent, pleasant and positive movement experience in early ages. However, the agreed importance of the movement in ECEC is not translated into a larger interest in providing such movement experiences. Such a problem seems to occur in both countries (Germany and Catalonia) participating in the project. Therefore, in this context, this COIL has a twofold aim: to increase the interest of preservice ECEC teachers to movement, and to engage students to prioritizing movement-oriented curricula into ECEC ordinary settings.

Participating institutions and countries

Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya (Spain)
HSNR – Hochschule Niederrhein (Germany)

Years running

From 2024-2025

Languages: English

Students: Students from BA degree programs in education.

UVIC-UCC. 2nd-year-students of the Double Degree in Early Childhood Education and Primary School Teaching, majoring in English (DGMEIMEPA). Subjects involved:

Nursery School. 3-6 Years. (Prof. Francesca Davoli)
Psychomotor Development (Prof. Gil Pla-Campas)

HSNR: 3nd-year-students at University of Applied Sciences Niederrhein

BA Degree in Childhood Education
(Aida Kopic and Sabrina Blenz)

Project description and goals

The following topics will be covered:

In-depth knowledge about curriculum in early stages in Germany and Catalonia.
Movement in infancy and in ECE settings.
Psychomotor intervention therapy.

Students from both universities will collaborate online to achieve the following objectives:

To discuss about the importance of movement settings in Early Childhood Education.
To learn the attitudes needed for becoming an engaged professional into movement according to the curriculum 0-6 years.
To discuss about psychomotor intervention approaches and learn to promote a movement-oriented setting in preschool environments with children aged 3 to 6.

Activities

Students are required to work in groups to hand in assignments related to each of above-mentioned topics.

There will also be two online but synchronous sessions on Feb. 24^th and on March 10^th, 2025, conducted by Professors Francesca Davoli and Gil Pla (from Universitat de Vic – Universitat Central de Catalunya) and by Aida Kopic and Sabrina Benz (from Hochschule Niederrhein).

Contact

(UVic-UCC):

Francesca Davoli francesca.davoli@uvic.cat

Gil Pla-Campas gil.pla@uvic.cat

(HSNR):

Aida Kopic aida.kopic@hs-niederrhein.de

Sabrina Blenz sabrina.blenz@hs-niederrhein.de