Dominique Leclet

How to Instrument a Community of Practice Dedicated to Project Based Pedagogy Tutors: A Solution Based on Case Based Reasoning

Case Based Reasoning (CBR) methods have been used in various domain specific applications mainly dedicated to decision making. The aim of this paper is to present how CBR is integrated in an educative project, in order to contribute to life-long teacher training. In fact, the acquisition of professional know-how, for example in the management of project based activities, can constitute a major difficulty for novice teachers. Thus, the TUTOMA-BC module (TUTor support for MAetic – Based on Cases) aims to develop a web community platform dedicated to knowledge capitalization and know-how transfer between experienced teachers and beginners in using the MAETIC project based pedagogy method.

Learning Software Testing Using a Collaborative Activities Oriented Platform

This publication describes a teaching initiative of software testing that makes use of a collaborative environment. Learning software testing is in fact a domain which needs practice in order to develop the necessary know-how. We led a project-based experiment with a collaborative environment of a new kind. We wanted to verify its ability to serve our particular learning context. In this article, after a quick definition of software testing, we discuss the problem of teaching software testing. We then present a project-based organization to teach skills dedicated to software testing. We describe the generic collaborative working platform we have used in our pedagogical context. We conclude with some results of an experiment.

An Online Laboratory in a Context of Project-Based Pedagogy

The object of this article is to propose a contribution to the development of remote laboratories for carrying on online practical activities in computer science by using virtualization technologies. After an introduction to the general concept of online laboratories, a description of virtualization technologies is done to show how their use is possible in the implementation of an online laboratory. This online laboratory is viewed as a pedagogical resource, which is used by the learners to realize pedagogical activities according to a project-based pedagogy named MAETIC. Our approach aims to provide an answer to the problematic of supervision and monitoring of students engaged in online practical activities and the evaluation of the skills acquisition.

Training for strategic decision making in professional contexts

The main new result reported in this paper is a computer-based approach for training strategic competences in practical jobs such as salesmen or waiters. The environment represents job situations in which the students may act from basic principles. The interaction is similar to that in simulations or microworlds, but there is no underlying model of the activity. In order to provide feedback to the learner, a model has been built which is based on the analysis of a large set of cases provided by experts. This model uses formal knowledge and contextual knowledge in order to build an explanation mechanism providing textual comments and multimedia illustrations.

Designing pedagogical devices

The research work presented in this article concerns professional training and collective learning scenarios according to a project-based pedagogy. They are supported by pedagogical devices. We consider a pedagogical device as a set of means (methods, tools, procedures, and actors) intended to support a learning process. These devices include a pedagogical method (MAETIC, French acronym which stands for educational method instrumented by the Information and Communication Technologies), which supports, for learners, the acquisition of professional knowledge and know-how. This article presents the development of an Assistance Tool, which helps a teacher to design a pedagogical device dedicated to the training of professional know-how according to a project-based group active pedagogy. The device thus designed is instrumented using Web 2.0 tools. This work seems interesting to us because many teachers do not have the needed competences to set up a technological environment and few of them have the assistance of engineers to help them in this task. The interest of this assistance tool is then, to help teachers to formulate their needs (assistance in the design) and to relieve them from the sometimes tiresome and repetitive tasks related to the deployment of a teaching device (development assistance).

A Fruitful Meeting of a Pedagogical Method and a Collaborative Platform

This publication describes the work done to allow the instrumentation of a pedagogical method named MAETIC on a collaborative tailorable platform named CooLDA. MAETIC facilitates the apprenticeship of professional skills in universities thanks to a collaborative project approach. This method has been described and modeled according to the CooLDA meta model. The resulting platform has been experimented during year 2007-2008. This article presents the scientific context of this work, the CooLDA platform and its underlying activity model, the MAETIC pedagogical method and the various associated to it students activities.

Web Information Retrieval for Designing Distance Hypermedia Courses

This paper presents research work in progress that aims to desgin a Web educative information retrieval system in a Distance Education (DE) context. In order to adapt it to trainers features, experimental information searches were performed with trainers involved in a DE course. These experiments allow us to express several assumptions about trainers needs. Thus, we propose a data model and a treatment model which take into account trainers features in the Web information retrieval process.