Didactic

Research with the formation

The first work related to the analysis of the difficulties of the pupils and the students in the conceptual trainings. This work is always in hand in many fields. It can be carried out primary education to the university, with methods obviously extremely different according to the levels from teaching and their objectives. The results lead to work known as d'" engineering didactique" when it is a question of questioning the teaching sequences and to use the results to set up news of them. Thus, in the various projects financed by the European commission, this one required " recommandations" in conclusion of the projects. Another part of didactic relates to the study and the contribution to the evolution even of the disciplinary contents. This part of didactic centered on the choice of contents, their organization in a curriculum vitae (prescribed or reality) thus concerns didactic a curriculaire. Lastly, for a few years, in France, a whole whole of work has concerned the questions of training of the Masters, the expression indicating as well initial training as continuous, the training of the teachers of the primary school education and those of the Secondary education.

In France, there exists now in several universities of the groups of research into didactic which produce articles published in best the re-examined international ones (Science Education, International Newspaper off Science Education, etc) or in French reviews (Didaskalia, published by the INRP, is the principal one for sciences). The persons in charge of these groups are entitled to direct research, from where many theses in the twenty last years. They often joined IUFM (academic institutes of training of the Masters). A consequence is that the didactic one entered the trainings of the teachers. The contests make a place with this type of questions (tests on file, tests occupational, memories professionals). In many IUFM, the formation of second year contains a module comprising of the didactic one. One of the difficulties for a teacher beginning is, on the one hand to forget its personal representation of teaching exit of many years in particular in the superior (epistemology of the Master), and to pass from a pedagogy centered on the contents to a pedagogy centered on learning.

Some key words of the didactic one

The didactic one has many bonds with epistemology, cognitive psychology, and other social sciences. Sometimes by doing this, it could benefit from concepts of these fields, at the price possibly of an adaptation. It also created its own concepts, directed in that by the directions taken by research. The concepts constitutive of didactic of sciences detailed below form the substrate of research into didactic sciences and, sometimes even, mathematics in France. Indeed interpenetration of the searchs for didactic of mathematics and the applied sciences.

Constructivism

Initially it is important to take account of what the spirit of the pupil is not virgin and is not a passive receiver of a To know which would be given by the teacher. It is necessary to take into account its designs (representations) personal which constitute as many obstacles to the development of new knowledge. This development must pass by handing-over in question and constructions of these designs. These phases of setting in question and rebuilding constitute as many possible ruptures in the construction of the connaissances.
principal Article: Constructivisme

It should be noted that, following Jean Piaget, the didactic one of sciences explored the constructivism as a base of teaching since the primary education, up to high school levels (college and even beginning of university). From the years 1990 however, the paradigm of the constructivism was supplemented by other paradigms taking of account the complexity of the act to teach. (see the articles didactic transposition, situation-problems, etc)

Designs

The acquisition of knowledge is not the simple memorizing of furnished informations by outside (the Master, the book, media, etc). This information is filtered, interpreted, comparison (or competition) with preliminary knowledge. The teaching of certain disciplines encounters designs " then; spontanées" (the meaning adjective not built by teaching) which can make obstacle with the training. The case of physics is particularly exemplary since many scientific designs were built against the obviousness (G. Bachelard); thus the laws " élémentaires" of Galileo and Newton remain difficult to include/understand because they are opposed to the " good sens" commun run.

Many research into didactic aimed at the identification of the representation-types - or designs - in the pupils and the students by analyzing the " erreurs" , their reasoning at the time, for example, of solutions to problem or in situtuation of practical works. (The two laboratories of didactic of Paris 7 were pioneers on the matter L. Viennot, Goery Delacote and their collaborators E. Saltiel, M.G. Séré, A. Tiberghien, etc).

From the teaching point of view, the question relates then on the way of doing emerge these designs and, when they are not compatible with the taught knowledge, to the possibilities of making them evolve/move. One can for example be based on the set of situation-problems, causing a cognitive conflict, having to lead to the awaited conceptual change. The didactic choice of situations (or have-didactic) is important, whether it is in mathematics or applied sciences. In these last fields, the experiment intervenes as well as the reading that makes the pupil of it. It is often extremely different from that which would like to do to make the teacher. The study of the process of interaction of the thought of the pupil and the information which it filters of the experiment is an important topic of didactic applied sciences. In these processes the designs intervene also what is called.

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Situation-problem

They are didactic situations built around a " problème" , the term indicating a questioning, a enigma, resulting from an object, an observation, etc (in general with a concrete support), of which the resolution requires the investment of the pupils.

The pupils do not have at the beginning, all the means of answering the question. They must first of all adapt the questioning (devolution) and implement their knowledge and their ingeniousness to find “a” solution (while passing by an experiment concretes if need be).

The didactic situation can be selected by the teacher so that the problem reveals a conflict (cognitive) and that the resolution thus corresponds to the crossing of an obstacle. Lastly, the activity is not necessarily individual but can rest on a work of group which can reveal conflicts (socio-cognitive). According to R.Douady, the knowledge which one wishes to see acquiring by the pupil must be the tool more adapted for the resolution of the problem with the level of the élève.
principal article: Training by problems

The didactic triangle

The basic diagram of a situation of teaching is what is called the didactic triangle. It aims at highlighting the necessary interactions (sides of the triangle) between 3 poles (three tops of the triangle): the To know, the main , the raises.

This diagram makes it possible to analyze various teaching modes. One of the recent proposals is that of the Master mediator: this one is not then any more that which gives the knowledge to the pupil (one speaks then about knowing réifié), but that which helps the pupil to adapt a knowledge. This interaction can then be represented like the median resulting from the top " maître". These interrelationships require the installation of a didactic medium favourable with the acquisition of knowledge by the pupils.

See article on the teaching Triangle.

Situation, didactic medium

In class the teacher works out a situation according to an objective of training, but by dissimulating this objective sufficiently so that the pupil can reach it only by one personal adaptation to the situation. (G. Brousseau)

The resolution of the task and the training which results from it depend on the richness on the didactic medium in which the pupils are then placed. The didactic medium is the part of the situation of teaching with which the pupil is put in interaction. It is defined by material aspects (instruments, documents, space organization, etc) and associated semiotic dimension (that to make with, why make with, how to make with…).

The didactic contract

A didactic contract (taken again notion of pedagogy by Y. Chevallard) implicit signed between the Master and the pupils guarantees, if the clauses of the contract are respected by each one, that the exchanges of the class will occur without major difficulty. This contract legitimates the statutes, the roles, waitings of role, each one with respect to the other, provided that there are not “fraud on the goods” or “mistake in interpretation”.

The didactic transposition and practices of reference

It is the sociology (in particular Mr. Verret) which showed that the development of the disciplinary contents is a complex process, related to security questions. The play of the erudite references, a certain image of the discipline and associated values, purposes allotted to such or such formation leads to choices in the contents. What is important to note is that, even for disciplines " dures" such as mathematics or sciences, the taught knowledge is a knowledge rebuilt specifically for teaching.

The erudite knowledge taken in reference is on the one hand a decontextualized knowledge and often cut of its history. This erudite knowledge is the subject then of a transposition (recontextualization, reproblematisation, even redefinitions) to be taught on a given level. This first transposition thus making pass from a knowledge erudite to a knowledge to teach , in fact, is followed by one second transposition, that one even which, by its acting out by the teachers (but also the inspection, the editors, etc) led to a knowledge taught having its specificities. Several researchers worked on this concept of transposition. Y. Chevallard in particular knew to make it available to the community didacticians by borrowing foreign concepts from sciences " dures". For example it names " noosphère" the whole of the authorities of the company which govern the transposition. This concept was created by a Russian chemist, Vernodsky, was generalized by the Teilhard father of Chardin.

One often speaks about didactic transposition of the " savoir" , it is the word which is used. It is necessary to have for the spirit that this knowledge is not only that of the book learning, but also that of associated know-how. The choice of know-how to make acquire with the pupils depends obviously on the finality of teaching and thus of the practices taken in reference. One of these references is particularly delicate to identify: to teach " la" experimental step is a lure, no physicist nor no biologist will support that there exists a standard or single step. There exist however, formulated by didacticians, simplifications which are interesting to teach on an elementary level.

The practices which are used as references can be those of an identified community activity but can be social practices, the expression being taken in a broad direction (J.L. Martinand). One finds similarities between these professional practices and certain daily capacities as that which consists in requiring its way, namely to read directions for use or a technical document in German, in English…

Curriculum vitae prescribed, reality, hidden

Historically, the concept of curriculum vitae is not a concept of the didactic one: in the countries Anglo-Saxons, one speaks about curriculum vitae to indicate the educational course proposed with learning, whereas in France one speaks about course. A curriculum vitae, with the common direction, it is thus a course (cf curriculum vitae vita E) and thus, in the educational field, it is a course of formation.

PH. Perrenoud proposes to distinguish three levels:

that of the " programmation" of an educational course, in particular in the spirit of the teacher; it is the level of the curriculum vitae prescribed (or formal): it is a whole of texts and representations;
that of the experiments that saw learning it and which transform it; it is the level of the real curriculum vitae (or carried out) because even when the curriculum vitae prescribed is entirely respected, the awaited trainings are done completely only for one fraction of the pupils.

But in this real curriculum vitae two parts are to be distinguished:

a manifest part, which would be the more or less faithful translation of an intention to inform, the implementation of a curriculum vitae prescribed;
a hidden part, which would regularly generate formative experiments without the knowledge of the interested parties or at least without such trainings being voluntarily favoured: the curriculum vitae hidden .

Epistemological obstacle, didactic obstacle, objective-obstacle

History of the scientific concepts (epistemology) watch that those were built not only against the empirical obviousness, but also by stages of correction - even of profound changes - former knowledge. Obstacles thus had to be crossed to progress in knowledge. It is the epistemological concept of obstacle introduced by Bachelard.

Within the framework of teaching, the training of a new knowledge can also require to cross an obstacle, that it is that of " the évidence" exit of the everyday life and the systems " explicatifs" thus present in the spirit of learning, or that it is that of a conceptual difficulty related to the field itself (design of the conservation of the matter, concept of energy, temperature, field, etc). To the epistemological aspect presented above, thus a psychological aspect inaugurated by Jean Piaget corresponds.

From the didactic point of view, these obstacles, qualified sometimes of didactic obstacles , can then be regarded stage-keys to cross, and thus as objectives of teaching. It is the concept of objective-obstacle introduces by Jean-Louis Martinand.

External bonds

Association for Research into Didactic of Mathematics: http://www.ardm.asso.fr
WikiDiST (didactic of sciences and technology French-speaking): http://plates-formes.iufm.fr/versailles/wikidist
Gate and search engine into didactic: teaching http://www.didactique.info
National research institute: http://www.inrp.fr

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