Our communication questions the “school form” developed in the classroom in the digital age. From september 1977, in secondary education in France, a “school form” will be adopted defining a specific space and time for social interaction between a teacher and his or her pupils, away from the adult world. This form of schooling gives priority to the written language, codifies and plans learning, and lays the foundations of school knowledge that is not directly theoretical knowledge. The french term “school form” encompasses not only the physical environment but also the teaching methods, temporalities, social relations and the postures of teachers and pupils (Cerisier, 2015; Bechetti-Bizot, 2017). Thus, the “school form” of the classroom need to be re-interrogated in regards to new pedagogies that aim to considerate the differences between pupils as it requires greater modularity, frequent changes of activity, group work and circulation of pupils as well as the possibility of connecting and recharging equipment. 

Our work stems from the national program E-FRAN IDEA, which focuses on the transformation of teaching practices. This research is based on systemic approach in regards to reducing inequalities in educational pathways. It allows a better understanding of the levers offered by digital education. A detailed understanding of student uses is associated with the appropriation of pedagogical and technological innovations by teachers. Cooperation between teachers and students is questioned as well.

This communication is not centered on the use of digital technology in a traditional classroom, which has been studied to some extent (Rinaudo and Ohana, 2007; Daguet, 2012; Amadieu and Tricot, 2015; Cottier and Burban, 2016; Plantard, 2016). It aims to question the implementation of a specific program called "the digital laboratory classroom" in two secondary schools in Britanny, to understand its contributions, challenges and limitations. 

The first question concerns the definition of each project within the schools. How were the laboratory classes thought, organized and arranged by the teams? For what purposes? Indeed, the redesign of each room meets the expectations and the techno-imaginary (Plantard, 2014) of the members of each project team made up of 2 teachers, the school manager, the local authorities and the administration. These expectations and these techno-imaginary requirements, faced with technical, spatial and administrative constraints, made it possible to build two rooms with invariants and specificities that we will present.

At the end of our observations, we will come to question in what way the physical environment of the digital laboratory class can influence teaching practices? Indeed, in each observed situation, the transformation of the layout will require a large redesign of the sequences and sessions implemented by the teachers. We will question how axiological positions on pedagogical methods or didactic approach (Plantard, 2016) builds different postures (Lameul, 2008, p.89) and orchestrations in class (Trouche & Drijvers, 2013; Besnier, 2016) when the potentialities offered by the rooms are very similar.

Finally, we will look at how the space in the digital laboratory classroom can affect students' daily learning.  A particular focus will be put on the tools used in the classroom during group work. We will describe in particular the influence of a "classic", non digital tool, the whiteboard, which contains for the pupils' learning many potentialities compared to the difficulties encountered with digital instruments (tablets or laptops) to build collaborative situations in groups. It thus appears that it is not so much the digital environment as the layout, the tables and the pedagogical organization that influence learning. Rather, digital technology complements learning, as we could observe the case of one teacher who was unable to benefit from the digital equipment at the beginning of the year.

The methodology used was built up in several stages: A semi-structured interview with the teachers to collect information on his or her professional background and thus build a portrait of his or her practices. Particular attention is paid to progresses and breakdowns, which are markers of changes in personal career paths (Giraud, Raynaud and Saunier, 2014, mentioned by Trainoir, 2017). They are also markers in the appropriation of technologies. A number of questions will also be asked about the room layout project: what choices have been made, in relation to what initial objectives. Particular attention will be paid to the links described between the choice of technologies and furniture in relation to the pedagogical methods developed and the timeframes chosen. Observations filmed in class with two fixed cameras and one moving camera. The sessions are transcribed and analyzed by a double entry grid, including on the one hand the identification of the different orchestrations (Trouche & Drijvers, 2013; Besnier, 2016) implemented by the teacher and on the other hand the different levels of involvement of the students in the proposed or chosen activities. The levels of involvement are "passive", "active", "constructive" and "interactive" as described by Chi and Willie (2014). Activities that are not engaged in the task, e.g., chit-chat, heckling, digressions, are marked separately. A comparison can thus be presented between the different sessions observed. In several cases, where possible, semi-directive interviews with pairs of students from the observed classes are conducted. The choice of pairs rather than individual interviews makes it easier for pupils to speak and makes them feel more secure. The data collected as a whole makes it possible to identify the invariants and, above all, the elements of rupture between each of the situations. This then enables us to construct an analysis of the potentialities and transformations generated by these "laboratory" classes.

We find that the use of the digital laboratory classroom has a real impact on teaching practices as well as on student learning and well-being. These classes have been thought from the beginning by each team to allow different and varied working modalities in the same session. Thanks to the layout of the room and the furniture, group practice and exchange between peers are truly encouraged. The "classical" school form is changing : The organization of the dialogued lesson, in row by row, where the didactic time (teacher) and the learning time (pupils) is constrained to a compulsory synchronicity, generates tensions between pupils and teacher. The transformation of teaching methods added to spatial and temporal reorganization within laboratory classes facilitates the desynchronization of teaching time (the moment when the teacher comes to explain a concept, a notion, a method) and learning time (the moment when the pupil is ready to learn) and, in fact, greatly eases tensions. The most facilitating instruments seem to be the numerous whiteboards available (1 per group at least) and not the numerical technologies. Each of the boards offers students the opportunity to share and interact while changing their learning posture. These boards allow the teacher to disseminate differentiated information to each group when the group is receptive. Tablets or laptops fit into the device as a complement to the rest. They are mainly used for documentary research, modelling and document production, but little for collaboration. For this collaboration function, it is indeed the multiplicity of tables that is important and a vector of transformations. The classroom climate thus modified seems to make it possible to construct more differentiated learning where inclusion of all pupils could be attained.

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