THE ACTIVE TEACHING OF PHYSICS AT THE INSTITUTO-ESCUELA IN THE SPANISH SECOND REPUBLIC: FROM THE UTOPIA OF THE DISCOVERY-BASED LEARNING TO THE PEDAGOGICAL ECLECTICISM

The study raises the contrast between the skepticism that in teaching circles of the 1920s and 1930s provoked the pedagogical positions regarding the discovery-based learning - close to heuristics - and the enthusiasm that in Spain, in the institutional contexts of pedagogical renewal, existed towards those positions. One of the centers in which these active methods were applied was the Instituto-Escuela of Madrid (Retiro Section), the results of which are exposed in the works composed by Leon Maroto and Catalan, halfway between a textbook and a report of the experiences that took place in the classrooms, and published in the years 1931, 1934 and 1935. Through the examination of the practical exercises proposed, and taking into account the replicability studies of historical experiments and transmission of technical knowledge, we will verify what specific effects had the proposed revisions of the active methods in the mentioned center, considered one of the referents of pedagogical reforms.