The school-university association refered to above, and the intensive use
it makes for the training of the teaching undergraduates, of the technological
media already linked to a vast network, creates a radically different teaching
environment from the one that is prevailing to-day. As a result, if such
an association is to be successful, it is imperative to put in place the
conditions which will permit the undergraduates to reach the learning objectives
aimed at.
At this stage of the project, the conditions for making a success of this
endeavour should be considered only as working hypothesis. The testing of
these hypothesis over the next two years will put us in a position to access
their pertinence, their relative importance, and their limitations .
We contend that five conditions would be sufficient for making a success
of the project if they are properly oriented towards the building of a relation
channel between the persons concerned, particularly the undergraduates,
and the following elements: the technological area, the nature of the learning
processus, the human context surrounding the learning process, the evaluation
of the tele-learning performance and a few other specific elements of the
learning process.
The use of the technological media made by students, teachers, undergraduates,
their teachers and other persons concerned, will be of an intensive, diversified
and inventive nature. Each category of persons concerned will call upon
various media to get at some information source, to do some other works
and to communicate to others the fruits of the accumulated knowledge and
identified zones of inquiry. Texts will be exchanged as well as schemes,
graphics and other visual messages. The entire communication process (between
students, between schools, between undergraduates already linked to different
schools, between undergraduates and teachers or university coordinators,
etc.) will constitute a system dominated by complementary and common sharing,
creating therefore an environment imbued with continuous transformation.
That first rather new experiment with the use of techological media will
prove to be successful, only if proper planning involves all persons concerned
and calls for the setting aside time for a systematic initiation and for
progressive development objectives. (see projects 7.3 and 7.4)
The knowledge building which constitutes the aim of the tele-learning program,
represents quite a challenge. In general, the actual learnings will take
shape or form through itineraries or projects which have a certain scope
and which will call upon some expertise in the area of varieties of knowledge,
particularly of a fundamental nature and of skills of all kinds.
Forcibly, most of the existing study programs for students and teacher training,
would have to be reviewed and conceived in such a way as: to put in evidence
their justification and ability to achieve their goals; to create a climate
favorable to the exchange of ideas between disciplines and their subject
matters; and to establish a clear and stimulating junction, seen as necessary,
between the abstract terms of reference and the hard facts and exigencies
of reality. In the same line of thought, graduates will be encouraged to
develop a healthy critical attitude towards the program, based on their
experience as students in a university or as graduate in a school.
The learning environment will be such that each person concerned will assume
the responsability for his/her own learning development but will also receive
an important support from other participants and be part of an elaboration
process leading to greater knowledge. The cooperation between the participants
will be the centre of attention. The scope and complexity of the learnings
to be mastered should encourage this cooperation but it will equally be
necessary, without a doubt, to come up with imagination and working techniques
to reinforce this cooperation.
Teaching is to-day more and more a collective activity; in the context of
a tele-learning system, the situation is even more striking. Graduates must
therefore be in a position to face that situation. The classroom is but
one of the sites whence they can operate; "to be a teacher" will
mean also to be in a position to intervene with competence at the school
level where his/her class is located, and within the school and other social
institutions located in the sphere of his/her profession.
The evaluation of learning performances, bean it of a dragristic, formative
or summative nature, will be consistent with what was desired as learning
environment and a final stage of learning. Priority will be given to the
mastering of various knowledges and skills (rather than simple memorization
and ability to operate as a jack of all trade); the availability of the
technical media will be thoroughly exploited; the search for an itinerary
roadway and the implementation of projects of a certain complexity and scope
will be noted; and a personal appropriation and participation in a community
project will also be assessed.
This very development in concert with the associate schools and telelearning
systems has a double impact in the change introduced in the training of
future teachers. As a consequence, the identification of the changes which
will effectively take place becomes another condition to make a success
of the desired learning. From now on, some of the introduced changes can
be identified and their impact can now be assessed.
The most obvious transformations -and very likely the most important ones-
deal with the time factor and the determination of the space (training site)
factor. So, the time spent by the teacher-in-training, listening to the
delivery of the teacher's lecture, or spent by the latter in the preparation
of his/her lecture, is likely to be partially replaced by a working team
composed of other graduates or experienced teachers; the supervising of
the students working with a computer or on the production of didactic material,
could equally be a proper use of the released time. Furthermore, the emphasis
put on project implementation and the cooperation between students will
likely be translated into a more flexible teaching schedule. As far as the
training site is concerned, it gets to be less rigid. Many technical media
will make it possible to the student, even from his/her home, to have access
to an extremely voluminous documentation and to take an active participation
in group discussions. Finally, the necessity for the future teachers to
learn how to solve problems in a team work effort environment, and to discover
on-the-spot, the multiple dimensions of the teaching profession, makes it
a quasi-indispensable requirement that a special working place within the
associated school be made available for that purpose.
- Special popess on technology in education, April 1994 and October 1995
in the Educational Leadership Review.
- One of the most recent volumes of the National Society for the Study of
Education (Chicago): Jeannie Oakes .... and Karen Hunter Quartz. Creating
New Educational Communities. 1995.
- Perhaps also: David K.Cohen, Milbrey W. McLaughlin and Joan E.Talbert
(eds). Teaching for Understanding. Challenges for Policy and Practice.
San Fransisco. Jossey-Bass. 1993.
Productions Tact 
June 1997