The teachers’ initial training has a fundamental role in the shaping of new beliefs, the transformation of implicit ideas and the acquisition of professional skills of future teachers with the goal of enabling them for effectively intervening in practical scenarios.

The professors’ practical reasoning constitutes the basis of their activities and decision-making in the classroom (Carter & Doyle, 1995 and 1996). From that reality springs the need for developing quality educational experiences from the very beginning of their initial training. We need to encourage university students not only to know, by basically reading the educational innovations, but also to commit emotionally to them, that is, that they experiment with them.

            We believe that the creation of a network in which the persons involved in the teachers’ initial training and the practicing teachers, considered as valuable professional references, interact with one another, is one way to bring closer and integrate theory and practice (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Jones & Lindström, 2009 and Koper, 2009).

            The collaboration theme of the early learning network is the Project Work method, to be a topic of interest shared by the participating teachers, the university staff and the student teachers. The Project Work methodology relates to the constructivist theory (Coll et al., 1999) and comprehensive approach to school knowledge (Torres, 1996 and Zabala, 1993), the latter understood as a process in which the relations between distinct areas of knowledge are based on the needs that arise when solving problems in understanding and investigating reality. In early childhood education it is important to eliminate the fragmentation of the curriculum in different areas and address the educational experience from an integrated perspective (Aindrés, Lorenzo & Marrero, 1996 and Mollá & Torres, 2003).

Participants and research questions

 This innovation experience, developed during the academic year 2010-2011 as part of the degree of Early Childhood Education at the University of Cordoba (Spain), comprises two early childhood education advisors (in charge of the permanent education of the university staff), twenty-eight school teachers, five university professors, seventy teacher students, and seven hundred twenty children aged between three and six years. The questions that have guided our research regarding the innovation experience are:

-          Is it possible to set up a learning network that includes professors and student teachers from both the initial teacher training program and the permanent education program?

-          Does the collaboration with practicing school teachers improve the teacher students’ capacity to apply Project Work methods in the classroom?

-          What are the strengths and weaknesses that we can identify in this innovative experience?

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