PESU1051-1

Duration

15h Th, 25h AUTR

Number of credits

	Advanced Master in University and Higher Education Pedagogy	4 crédits

Lecturer

Pascal Detroz, Dominique Verpoorten

Coordinator

Dominique Verpoorten

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The PESU 1051 in-depth course aims to use controversy as a stimulant to learning and professional development. It therefore invites the participants to focus on certain tensions that permeate pedagogical literature by looking at teaching methods from the following perspectives :
- have active methods really demonstrated their superiority ? - can the neurosciences contribute a constructive and concrete dimension to ways of imagining teaching activity ? - are educational technologies an obligatory step on the way to delivering quality teaching in the 21st century ? - to what extent is it suitable to adapt the elements of a course to the characteristics of the learners ? - what should we make of the opinion that a recreational element should be integrated into the work produced by students of the current generation (generation Y, "homo zappiens") ? - what dilemmas appear when it is necessary to think of the ordering and progression of simple and complex tasks in view of an integrated final production ? - what place should be given to the transmissive approach of teaching/learning in higher education ? - what learning conditions can be self-adjusting in a teaching programme ? - can life-long learning serve as a compass for the improvement of a teaching programme ? - is it relevant to develop, within the learning flow, the reflection of the student onto this learning ? - are pedagogical methods not too centered on the debate about "how" to teach/learn to the detriment of what to teach/learn ? - etc.
Some of these subjects will be dealt with by means of reading, commentary and comparison of articles representing divergent positions in these debates.
The course also integrates, where the subjects in question allow for it, didactic articles. Yet, disciplinary approaches can themselves feed and enrich certain controversies.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

At the end of course PESU 1051, the participant will be capable of :
-presenting the baseline of the studied controversies linked to pedagogical methods;
-defining, as a teacher, an argued personal viewpoint with regard to these contrasted stances on a topic;
- to manage basic functionalities of a seamless tool for Websites design.
According to the controversy dealt with, the course touches on all the skills of the CREER model (http://www.cidepes.ulg.ac.be/site/competences-visees) and more particularly the "Monitoring" skill, practiced at a basic level.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Ideally, participants in the course will be capable of reading in English. In the opposite case, they will not be excluded from the course but the scope of controversies to be studied will be limited.
Participants will hope to enlarge their interest in pedagogy by tackling fundamental intellectual issues beyond discussions of specific teaching methods.
In compliance with the individualized and integrative approach practiced in Formasup, the connections with the courses PESU 16 (notably with regard to teaching activities), PESU 17, (particularly with regard to the transformation brought to the course), and the portfolio (notably anything that touches on the explanation of a teaching philosophy) will be researched.
Participants will derive benefit from the course in terms of rational justification of their teaching practice and of enrichment of their teaching philosophy.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The course is designed in the form of a research seminar. A first session will review all the suggested controversies and will distribute the reading portfolios associated with the student pairs (the debating dimension will so be in form as well as substance).
The Reading Zone 1 will be limited to articles featuring in the reading portfolio. The pairs will get acquainted with some of these resources.
Drawing on the articles read at stage 1, the pairs will open up the Reading Zone 2. To do this, they will select, from the Reading Zone 1 bibliographies, articles that have grabbed their attention and that enable them to expand their understanding of the issues involved in the controversies. They will read and discuss these articles.
Finally, the pairs will open up the Reading Zone 3 by pointing at Web resources wherein one can find traces of the studied controversies. The reading will focus on material other than scientific articles (blogs, daily online newspapers, forums etc.).
For each reading zone, the pairs will provide a wrap-up of resources they have read in an audio/video presentation of 5 minutes at the longest, produced on the eCampus platform.
The final production is a mini-Website devoted to the controversy being dealt with. This mini-Website will comprise at least 15 pages. All pages will show up a quotation taken from the resources covered as well as an internal hyperlink. The mini-Website will be presented to all the participants in a final session.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Apart from the entry and exit sessions (face-to-face integrating the distance partners), the pairs work autonomously. The feedback on intermediate video production is supplied in video format by the teachers.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

The course leaves a lot of autonomy to the participants. Besided the meeting points and the structured feedbacks, teachers are available on request.

Advanced questions in educational and pedagogical methods in higher education