IN-PERSON: Applying Education
Abstract
The “Virtual Environmental Challenge” or VEC (Evain, Moore, Hawkridge, 2023) is a new pedagogical project launched within the framework of a European project (ERASMUS KA2 TRIP, Training and realization of innovations in ‘Internationalization at Home’ Pedagogies) allowing the hundred or so participating students to experience “Challenge-Based Learning” or CBL (Gallagher et al, 2022 ; Eldebo et al, 2022) and “Internationalization at Home” or I@H (Beelan et al, 2015). The dashboard set up for this project serves not only as an organizational guide for the participants, but also as a monitoring tool for the teachers. The VEC, is implemented in an action research approach (Narcy-Combes, 2001). The VEC gives students the opportunity to build not only learning communities, but also for students in the Master’s program in language didactics (future teachers of French and English as a foreign language), a community of practice (Demers, Tremblay, 2021 ; Escalié, Chaliès, 2011). These students discover the importance of cooperation and classroom dynamics by offering their learners (our international partners) collaborative online learning spaces and dynamics in the form of weekly virtual sessions in an I@H and CBL approach. Together, students become co-creators of content that we promote on our protected online workspaces, and, for final achievements, on our website. This paper will present the “dashboard” for the conduct of the VEC project and reflect on pedagogy and the “variables” of the proposed dashboard. The objective of this research is to optimize the methodology and the necessary tools, not only for the VEC, but for such like projects in CBL and/or I@H.
Spencer Hawkridge is an English teacher at the Centrale Nantes School of Engineering and is currently doing a PhD in language acquisition. Formerly a History teacher in the United Kingdom, he has an interest in cultural, historical, and literary activities. Spencer has collaborated with Audencia Business School and University Rennes 2 on workshop projects through an association he co-founded called “BookHoof,” where he organized and lead workshops to create children’s books; and he has also co-authored several articles on the subjects of language learning and digital humanities.
Michael Moore is a research engineer and associate member of the research unit Linguistique Ingénierie et Didactique des Langues (LIDILE) at University Rennes 2. In the year 2010, Michael qualified in Clinical Hypnoanalysis, Psychoanalysis, and Cognitive Behavior Therapy before embarking on a specialized BA in Creative Writing, English, and Classics; and an MA in Writing with the National University of Ireland. Michael currently works within the domain of pedagogy, project-based learning, language acquisition, computer science, and computational linguistics.
Christine Evain is a Professor of didactics and language acquisition at the University RENNES 2 in France. Christine’s research involves the design and evaluation of learning systems. With a background in literature (PhD in Canadian literature) and commercial studies, her publications include more than fifty articles on a wide range of subjects, several volumes of Margaret Atwood’s poetry translated into French, several books on Canadian authors, and the publishing industry. In her current research, Christine Evain focuses mainly on pedagogy, ICTE, and language acquisition.
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Thursday 27th April, 2023