Speaker sessions - topic-specific

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Tuesday November 3, 2020

Digital technology in educational practices – C

10:35–11:05AM – Presentation 1

The “classroom to distance education” transition at a university: didactic and political issues

We will discuss the problematization of the “classroom to distance education” transition in university. The central concept in play is “transition,” linked to the problem of temporalities in the humanities and social sciences. This transition from classroom teaching to distance education in a university setting has raised many legitimate concerns that have evolved into issues. Didactic issues include the concept of knowing how to teach, which is based on the complex articulation of various forms of teacher’s knowledge, which in turn presents diverse teaching solutions. Within the sphere of political issues, the concept of governance equates to a flexible form of political power consisting of interaction by multiple players, from a decision-making standpoint. The conclusion asserts the importance of debating the utility and restrictions of digital technology, in order to take up the challenges facing university faculty.

11:05–11:35AM – Presentation 2

A digital shift… or a digital mirage? Beyond the skill set, a system-wide dynamic for co-construction of practices

Digital technology has, for decades, been hailed as a vector for transformation of educational practices – just as audio-visual was in its own time. While permeability and continuity between the academic and non-academic spheres have been identified as vectors for change in practices supported by digital services and infrastructure, they do not adequately explain the dynamics of practice transformation, which sometimes remain substitutive rather than innovative.

This presentation, which reviews various writings on this topic over the years – now updated for the pandemic – also offers a systemic read of these transformations and the associated skills. Detached from approaches that present innovation in education as simple minimization of resistance and action based on levers, our analysis recalls the importance of managerial verticality with a vision, combined with the horizontality of confidence that recognizes the stakeholders’ ability to initiate this practice reconfiguration process.

11:35AM–12:05PM – Presentation 3

A critical look at teaching applications for digital technology: making innovative teaching practices viable

Diverse methods of developing innovative digital tools have led to varying forms of digital pedagogical uses, but instructors still need to develop their digital skills, whatever the situation. From one year to the next, however, many instructors still find the training on pedagogical uses of digital technology challenging. Additionally, research into the development of digital skills shows mixed results in the evolution of expertise in individual components. A critical, reflexive look at the scientific writings is therefore needed to grasp the pedagogical uses of digital technology in order to implement teaching scenarios that optimize learning. We will do this by presenting an overview of scientific writings, by teaching personnel, on this topic. It will also provide an opportunity to reveal the students’ point of view on their own educational experiences, especially in an online learning context. The goal: to question instructors’ educational practices.

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