This panel initiative, gathering local researchers intends to promote knowledge about didactic research in the hosting countries of ECERs. Five guest researchers will present some samples of research projects developed in Western-Swiss universities and universities of teacher education. The relevance of disciplinary didactics and comparative didactics for supporting teacher education and teacher professional development will be more particularly discussed.
Studying Mathematical Problem Solving – By Maud Chanudet
In many countries, problem solving is considered as a major goal of mathematics education. Nevertheless, the way teachers integrate it in their teaching and how students perceive it deserve to be studied precisely. This paper will focus on a four-years study centered on mathematical problem solving, conducted by the DiMaGe research team (Didactics of Mathematics in Geneva) in multiple contexts (primary and secondary levels, courses focused on problem solving and usual mathematics courses, Genevese or international schools) and with different points of view (kind of problems, teachers’ practices, assessment, teachers’ and students’ representations about problem solving).
Research, Training and Innovation in History Education – By Nadine Fink
Didactics of History is interested in the "what", the "how" and the "why" of history teaching, i.e., the content, the processes and the learning issues. It questions both the object of knowledge (what representations of the past?) and the teaching and learning situations related to this object of knowledge (what historical skills?). This requires an explanation of the issues and the teaching and learning practices, with regard to the aims assigned to this discipline. This paper will present how these three dimensions - the construction of history as knowledge, teaching and learning methods, and the curricular goals - are articulated in the project "Analysis of the use of a digital media in history education” conducted at the HEP Vaud. This project is based on the development and implementation of the multimedia application “Fleeing the Holocaust” in teaching and learning practices. Some major issues for research in history education will be further discussed.
Comparative Didactics: focus on joint action « teacher-student-knowledge » - By Christine Riat
The research field “Comparative didactics” is created in 2019 at the HEP-BEJUNE. Three projects are in progress. They focus on studying the everyday practices in the classroom, and they aim at understanding how the teacher works with the student’s meaning making about the contents taught. The research project "TRACES" studies the various forms of writings developed in different school levels within the French class. The "ECSE" project investigates the teacher and researcher collaborative construction of teaching resources for natural science teaching over a span of 3 school years. And the research "PLAN YOUR TEACHING" implements a lesson planning tool by students-in-training, for an inter-disciplinary and inter-level comparison of primary education.
A Discursive Community of Professional Practice to engage researchers and practitioners in addressing teaching-learning problems in science – By Patrick Roy
The aim of this contribution is to present the issues and the general functioning of a Discursive Community of Professional Practice, a participatory research device involving researchers and practitioners in the treatment of teaching-learning problems in science in compulsory school. The discursive dimension of this community consists in engaging the actors in the mobilisation of a system of two-sided objects favouring the construction of a "shared interpretative space" around didactic concepts and classroom situations. These specific boundary objects contribute to the enrichment of the cooperative environment and play a central role in the production of reasoned didactic resources, as well as in the professional development of the actors.
Didactics as a Research Field and as Content for Teacher Education – By Yann Vuillet
