Annamaria Ventura is a PhD Candidate in Human Relations Science at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro" in Italy.
She has a master's degree in Primary and Early Years Teacher Education with a thesis regarding the Didactic of Botany for kids (2020), a new educational proposal to link the digital natives to nature. Aside from still being curious about education, she has also had experiences which enhanced her formative paths such as the participation in the Erasmus+ program (2018) at the University of Barcelona and the writing of her thesis in London (2019) following the Global Thesis program and collaborating with few botanic and outdoor education sites, exploring the Outdoor Education in the UK.
She had been a PhD guest visitor at the Aalborg University, Department of Culture & Learning, to increase her qualitative methodological skills in pedagogical research through Ethnography; and at UCN professionshøjskolen University College in Aalborg for the data collection of her Doctoral dissertation and following an international course of outdoor education for student teachers.
She is investigating how Italy has faced Covid-19 and how this virus has affected education, which positives and negatives were linked to and the re-start on set at school with the focus on outdoor education, which is highly recommended after the lockdown negative consequences. Instead of all the negatives, the pandemic could be seen as an occasion to re-write new shapes of significant learnings so then future generations could build skills to cope with life problems like the Covid-19 one. The aim of her PhD project is to define “the school after the pandemic" and to inspire Italian teachers with new ideas of teaching and learning, such as the Udeskole (outdoor education) philosophy in Denmark.
In the past, she worked as a teacher in Early Years and Primary school in Italy. At her Department in Bari, she is formally involved as a Teaching Assistant in General and Social Pedagogy. She is a member of an Italian important academic society of education (SIPED), and she had been educated in Reggio Children Approach and the Montessori method. She is also a research member of a European project of Horizon Seeds in technologies for inclusion.