Sylvie Blain

Study of Verbal Peer Feedback on the Improvement of the Quality of Writing and the Transfer of Knowledge in Francophone Students in Grade 4 Living in a Minority Situation in Canada

The rather disappointing results obtained by francophone students in New Brunswick with regard to writing, demonstrate the problem of learning French in a minority situation in the Canadian context. The recent reforms to the school system aim, among other things, to improve the quality of French written by francophones by directly involving the students in their learning, in order to promote the transfer of learning. The goal of this paper is to present the results of an action research studying this paradigm. In fact, through the group meetings where the writers received oral comments from their peers, the four fourth-grade students learned to manage the writing process by means of these social interactions. More specifically, they succeeded in improving the overall quality of their texts between the first and final drafts. This analysis also reveals signs of transfer with regard to grammatical spelling.

Human competences that facilitate adaptation to climate change: a research in progress

Purpose – For communities threatened by current or impending climate change, adaptation is becoming a necessity. Although little research has been done on human competences so far, this research shows that some appear to facilitate the adaptation process. The purpose of this multiple‐case study is to identify adaptive competences demonstrated by two groups of Canadian citizens: municipal employees in a coastal community and farmers.Design/methodology/approach – As part of workshops based on a problem solving process, the two groups analyzed the impacts of climate change in their field of work and geographical area, chose a problem related to these impacts, suggested and then implemented adaptation measures. The municipal employees worked on sea level rise, whereas the farmers focused on poor soil quality, which makes it vulnerable to bad weather.Findings – By thematically analyzing the verbatim transcripts of the workshops and by building narratives, the authors were able to identify similar adaptive comp...

Competencies Demonstrated by Municipal Employees During Adaptation to Climate Change: A Pilot Study

Since coastal communities are already subjected to the impacts of climate change, adaptation has become a necessity. This article presents competencies demonstrated by Canadian municipal employees during an adaptation process to sea level rise. To adapt, the participants demonstrated the following competencies: problem solving (highlighting components of the problem and identifying constraints), futures thinking, risk prediction, vulnerability analysis, local knowledge, planning, and communication. However, some competencies that could be potentially useful in adaptation were used less frequently by participants: developing solutions, knowledge of adaptation, math skills, hope, and self-efficacy.

L’apprentissage des stratégies de mise en texte et de révision chez des élèves francophones en milieu minoritaire : une étude de cas contrastés

L’objectif de cette etude est d’evaluer l’efficacite d’une sequence didactique adaptee a l’ecriture d’un recit imaginaire et d’un recit realiste sur la capacite d’eleves franco-albertains et neobrunswickois de neuf et dix ans a composer des textes narratifs coherents. Pour ce faire, nous avons recueilli et analyse des donnees quantitatives et qualitatives. Dans le contexte de cet article, nous rapportons uniquement les resultats qualitatifs issus d’une etude de cas multiples s’inserant dans une recherche de plus grande envergure. Cette etude de cas a ete conduite aupres de quatre eleves de niveaux d’habiletes varies en ecriture que nous avons observes et interviewes en ce qui a trait a l’appropriation des strategies de mise en texte et de revision. L’analyse des resultats revele que tous les eleves sont plus conscients des criteres d’un recit coherent et qu’ils se basent sur ces criteres pour evaluer leur texte et y apporter des modifications afin de l’ameliorer. De plus, ils demontrent une capacite accrue a verbaliser leur demarche de mise en texte et de revision et a justifier les changements operes. Par contre, les eleves plus forts se distinguent des eleves plus faibles dans la mesure ou, quand ils redigent et revisent, ils tiennent compte d’un nombre plus eleve de dimensions textuelles et utilisent davantage de metalangage lie au recit et au processus d’ecriture pour evoquer leur demarche. L’analyse revele egalement que les eleves plus faibles pourraient beneficier de plus de soutien au moment de la mise en texte.