Our research analyses the laboratory approach in different disciplines teaching, highlighting some peculiar aspects of the curriculum. In particular, it has been analyzed how learning could be meaningful when the contents are taught with an experiential approach and taking into account the reality of the students. That is, when instructive and educational aspects can be combined into meaningful learning paths. Our work is part of the ‘Laboratori del Sapere’ project, a research-action pathway carried out with schools of all levels, for the renewal of teaching practices, as part of the Avanguardie Educative movement (INDIRE). The Laboratori del Sapere propose a school model based on laboratory teaching applied to each subject area. The approach, originally conceived for the mathematical-scientific sphere, is now also applied to the linguistic-humanistic and historical-artistic spheres. It combines the laboratory model of teaching-learning with attention to the discipline as an organized body of knowledge structured by fundamental content.

Starting from well-structured didactic pathways on the essential nodes of the curriculum (from infancy to the two-year second grade school), the phenomenological-inductive approach does not limit itself to providing interesting or motivating experiences for the students but proposes a very elaborate model for a re-elaboration of experience that is a collective construction of knowledge. In fact, initial observation (of phenomena, events, problems, texts) is followed by repeated and gradually more significant moments of individual oral and written verbalization in which the individual's thoughts emerge. This is followed by moments of collective discussion in which everybody can sharing ideas in order to re-elaborate, work out definitions, collaborate in activities carried out in groups. The succession of these moments thus interweaves, in a functional and respectful manner, the relationship of individuals with the group, the gradual construction of disciplinary knowledge with the development of linguistic skills, critical thinking, civil coexistence, and emotional aspects. A ‘disciplinary transversality’ emerges, not as the identification of common themes to be dealt with from different perspectives, but as the common ground of the disciplines themselves, which are the principles, languages, cognitive, logical, heuristic and metacognitive processes, which constitute an important fundamental basis for the construction of skills.

This paper presents part of the results of the 4-year research conducted through observation in schools, focus groups with students and interviews with the teachers involved.

Keywords: Primary school secondary school, Education, Laboratory Approach, Curriculum.