Co-writing the professional dissertation by student primary school teachers: new perspectives for a profession undergoing in-depth changes
Maguy SILLAM and Marie-Jo BIRGLIN-DUBANT
I.U.F.M. of Créteil
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Lille, 5-8 September 2001
Summary
This research proposes an original approach to the professional dissertation by student teachers preparing for the primary school. Co-written, it places them in a position of in-depth reflexion on the teaching profession, confronts them with the different ideas of their peers and helps them develop a critical but negotiated approach to the diverse pedagogical practices and situational problems encountered in teaching.
The combined theoretical and problematic approach, together with comparative practices, offer them a wider field of investigation. This first experience in team work makes the use of TICE (Technologies for Information and Communication in Education) a continual necessity ; understanding the network is mutually essential in initial and continuous training. It is therefore necessary, when co-writing a professional dissertation, to help the teacher-to-be discover new positions and possibilities in the changing society of the XXIst century.
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Writing a professional dissertation is a crucial, new, sometimes difficult experience, which is part of the initial training process. It plays an integral part in the evaluation of student teachers by the institution. However, the professional dissertation, written more often than not by a single student teacher, may have several co-authors. Thus, we raised questions on the originality of these dissertations by two or three students. If, at first, these dissertations appeared as an epiphenomenona, we must admit that, year after year, their number is increasing. The enrichment of the exchanges brought about by this co-authorship has led us to examine the question beginning with the 1999-2000 school year.
What is the role in initial training of real writing practices by two or three student teachers when carrying out a job necessitating great versatility on the part of the teacher ? What is the benefit of committing oneself to co-writing a professional dissertation ? Can it contribute to the evolution of theoretical approaches, to the relationship to skills, to the point of view of experience, to the reflective practices of the job, to the construction of a self-image as a teacher ? How can a two or three group-writing experience, with all its difficulties, with its agreements and disagreements, its power struggles over resource-texts, over ways of reading these different texts, or the way of speaking about them, and the didactical approach to writing, finally trigger off a transposition through trial and error and the reactions of pupils ? How do lecturers and students envisage this co-writing ? We shall refer to Goody’s work on the cognitive development of writing, on its role in pooling and sharing skills (Goody, 1994). Furthermore, the professional dissertation not being the only qualifying element for evaluating student teachers, how should one articulate the necessary complementarity between the dissertation, written by two or three authors, and the other aspects of initial training, university teachings and teaching practice ? What methodological concepts do student teachers put into practice in order to accomplish this work ? What type of reflection does this type of writing solicit ? What types of partnership can be formed ? What are the short, middle and long term effects ? In the context of a society and school undergoing profound change, what are the initial answers brought about by the study of the specific characteristics of group work and networking in the co-writing of a professional dissertation ? We shall study the reciprocity of experiences of future teachers engaged in the definition of their own profession via the search for new practices in the continuity of and the breaking away from existing practices.
CO-WRITING : AN INITIATION INTO PARTNERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL INVOLVEMENT
Professional dissertations are means both for learning and evaluation : they are writings in which professional practices are brought to the fore and where the job of teaching is made evident. So what about the dissertations written by two or three co-writers? Being complex writings, they bear traces of the difficulties met with by their authors, especially in the conceptualisation of learning situations adapted to the wants and needs of the learners. They reveal notions and implicit reference models, “ role models” (Gilly, 1993). At the same time, professional dissertations obey precise discursive rules, including characteristics of form and content which determine, at the time of the viva, the impression the jury members have of the author and bring to light what the training institution and the school institution consider as important. How are these effects illustrated in vocational dissertations written as a duo or as a trio? How do they differ from those having only one author ? Since the writing of a professional dissertation by two or three students implies numerous interactions between the authors for the realisation of this document, we shall refer to the works concerning these interactions (Kerbrat- Orecchioni, 1990, 1992) on the partnership between “ school and business” (Landry et al, 1994) and to those of Kaddouri and Zay on the partnership in education and training (1997). Why and how does co-writing a professional dissertation help students establish partnerships among themselves within the framework of their research and their pedagogical practices ? Lastly, does the cooperative work undertaken by these same students favour the adoption of a position of a thoughtful practitioner? Does it help him/her find the correct distance between engaging in and retreating from action ? Is this device pertinent in bringing them to operate a strategic retreat from their action ? Reflexive soul-searching on action (Schoën, 1988, 1994, 1996) plays a foremost role in the training of newcomers thanks to what is brought about by writing as a mediation of knowledge and thought.
To bring about this study, we elaborated a questionnaire that we presented to all the duo and trio authors of dissertations, whom we contacted via the seminars which took place at Bonneuil during the year 2000-2001. We collected a corpus of fifty answers to the questionnaires for professional dissertations carried out in different subjects. We analysed them, using the procedures of speech analysis and interaction analysis in order to define the usage and subjective perceptions of their work.
CO-WRITING A PROFESSIONAL DISSERTATION : WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS ?
Motivation of such an approach
We can first of all ask ourselves about the motivation behind such an approach: is it a free choice or does it come about out of constraint ? Actually, a majority of student teachers chose to co-write their dissertation in twos and threes, while a minority admitted having been encouraged to do so by their seminar lecturer who was confronted with too large a number of students wishing to work on the same themes. Writing in twos and threes means working in twos and threes in the classroom, working in sequences in two classes in the same cycle and being thus able to confront their ideas and /or their different practices. The perspective of teamwork is particularly motivating for students who know each other well or who have already worked together on preparing files during their first year at the IUFM or who have pursued studies together and who, above all, know how each other works.
Professional workshops and partnership
The new training scheme for student teachers in their second year of training at the IUFM in Créteil (2000-2004) plans professional workshops a half a day a week, outside the accompanied and non-accompanied teaching practice periods. During these workshops, three or four students go into a class with an experienced teacher (teacher-tutor or temporary teacher-tutor), on the one hand, to integrate scientific, disciplinary and didactical skills and, on the other hand, to become a specialist in primary school learning, thus acquiring preparation based on the reality of the IUFM in Créteil. During these professional workshops, a teacher-tutor or an education advisor and the class teacher supervise the students. Together they build, conduct, observe and analyse a series of sessions on a coherent learning project directly linked to the general host school project.
These professional workshops give students the opportunity of working together since the teaching sequences are prepared together. Generally speaking, the choice of the objectives, documents, and strategies to be adopted and the rhythm of the progression are decided in common, but the constraints of the teaching situation lead students to intervene alternately in the classroom. One student works with the pupils while the others observe. At the end of the morning, the sequence is analysed and evaluated by them with the tutor-lecturer from the IUFM and the class teacher in order to make assessments and adjustments for the follow-through of the project. If this successive preparation, analysis, evaluation and adjustment constitute a significant initiation for beginners, who can thus try out the pedagogical IUFM-schools partnership, it also offers them the possibility of working together in the classroom during the whole year. This is why students exploit this opportunity in their professional dissertation, writing in twos and threes. This partnership continues when students decide to work on the same project in classes and/or in different schools. Therefore, a partnership between pupils and host-teachers prolongs that which is established between students, IUFM and schools.
During these professional workshops, the notion of communication becomes essential. It involves looking for and putting into practice mutual cooperation to ensure against lack of professional competence, the possibility of exchanging written work between pupils of two or three classes, or other schools or even countries via an inter-cultural approach. Written work, thus given a new status, fits into a more ambitious communication project. The multiple forms of oral and written exchange find an extension in the will to write in twos and threes via all the subtle differences of balance between group work and personal writing.
TASK SHARING : SOLO WRITING AND GROUP WRITING
Our observations and the students’ replies to our questionnaire allow us to qualify the co-writing process of the professional dissertation. More often than not, the theme, the problematic, the dissertation plan are defined collectively and lead to tackling the theoretical part together. That way students share out the reading, but this is followed by discussions based on different approaches, of pooling together their efforts to advance ideas, enrich the writing, note-taking and the final writing of certain parts of the dissertation. The theoretical part, easier to define, the bibliography and the conclusion (sometimes collective, sometimes conversational) give students a framework of reference for their practices.
Thanks to the analysis of the replies to the questionnaires, the theory – practice structure makes it possible to grasp a whole interplay of positioning. Sometimes the practical part illustrates the theory and is presented separately, thus illustrating the most traditional concepts of the lecturers. Sometimes the professional dissertation swings from practice to theory, sometimes mixing theory and practice lead them to shed light on each other, the better to reflect the coherence of the process. In a more thorough way, theory influences and enriches practice which verifies the hypotheses put forward by the theory, upholds or contradicts them, which favours a well-supported control. Students in twos and threes then develop their own theory fed by the incessant confrontation, on the one hand, between theory and practice, and on the other hand, by theories arrived at individually. Identifying their references proves to be quite difficult.
WHAT ABOUT TEACHING PRACTICE ?
A vocational dissertation, both university and professional, obeys the discursive rules of university standard writing, contains problematics, a general plan, theoretical references (knowledge, readings, bibliography), personal gathering of information (Nonnon, 1995). It equally relies on students’ practices in the classroom and on their personal experience. Writing establishes a reciprocal relationship, occasionally a dialogue, between theory and practice.
Class sequences, prepared by a group, often follow the same pattern as those observed during professional workshops. While one student teaches, the others observe and take notes. Then, their respective interventions are analysed in a group. Assessments are enriched by the complementary approach of objective criticism. Writing up the practical part concerning their interventions in classes of the same level, of different levels or on vertical grouping, is generally individual. However, exchanging written parts encourages re-reading, followed by pooling of ideas and strategies during interactive discussion. Comparison, evaluation, critical analysis of past practice sequences brings about new questions which narrow down the problematics, making them evolve around the initial results and theory presumptions . This opens up the possibility, in a similar context, of implementing different practices or, exceptionally, leads to drafting the professional dissertation by twos or threes.
Through a few high-quality fellowships, we observed a drafting process, a dialectical process between diverging points of view, going as far as a negotiated re-writing back and forth between theory and practice, restructuring the study to such a level, that narrative choice of “I” or “ we” became fundamental. The logic of research, action and thought are complementary, leading to a logic of the project in as much as the students consider the professional dissertation as a trial run for their future pedagogical projects ( Sillam, Birglin-Dubant, Ricard, 1999 ). Having to write it up becomes a means of learning and thinking about their training : the vocational dissertation becomes a sort of initiation rite to pass from training to qualified teaching.
You don’t think just on your own; you don’t write a dissertation exclusively on your own. Even if writing is an individual activity, it encompasses other theoretical writings and/or texts related to teaching such as official instructions, didactical works, “model” sequences, class projects and/or school projects, which legitimise ways of thinking and carrying out the job of teaching. As such, the multiplicity of reference texts chosen by students comes across more or less equally throughout the dissertations. Theorists, researchers and the teaching establishment come across in the reference texts. Then, in discussions and writings, students’ opinions are expressed and, as a counterpoint, the dissertation tutor’s opinion is expressed. Similarly, persons of reference, associations specifically contacted and peers express similar or contrasting opinions. Thus we can alternately observe solo and group work. So, the many voices announced in the introduction, far from limiting themselves to theoretical references, come together as a group in class responsibility. This allows one student to put pedagogical sequences into practice while the others adopt the role of observers, take note of presentation, children’s attitudes and thoughts, using the written observations during evaluation, hence producing material for critical analysis of the sequences, noting achievement or not of goals, theoretical presumptions, hypotheses tendered, specific situational problems encountered during the classroom activity. Common assessment helps to give objective appraisal, make adjustments, and offers experimental approaches which check out whether the initial hypotheses are upheld or dispelled, soliciting new questions which better define the original problematic. Examining and discussing different points of view stimulate thought and stimulate the way in which we study the progression of sequences : construction, deconstruction, reconstruction of practices, leading to new thoughts which correspond to putting the original group project into perspective.
HOW TO ORGANISE THE MULTI-VOICED PROJECT OR DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THOUGHT PROCESSES AND CO-WRITING ?
In a situation of permanent negotiation, students’ theories and teaching practices are jostled, better articulated and lead to new thoughts which they adopt as their own theory.
Time management is at the heart of the student teachers’ assessment. Despite the official instructions favouring team work, students felt a rife sense of waste of time at the beginning. The school timetable is not adapted to transforming individual practices of primary school teachers and nothing is planned in the secondary school timetable to facilitate exchanges between peers, thus accounting for an immediate professionalization.
To the incompatibility of timetables must be added the distances between teaching practice schools and students’ homes, which makes working together and finding a common work plan difficult, mainly because of individual thought processes. Each encounter brings forward new perspectives, an updating on already agreed upon elements, both in verbal discussions and in the co-written parts of the dissertation. From then on, task-sharing gets under way : documentary research, sharing bibliography research, reading and note-taking. But the atmosphere is cordial, there is reciprocal emulation and above all a partnership reflex which helps to progress quickly, as well as a rigorous coordination of dates for research results and the writing up of the study. Respecting one’s peers proves to be more efficient than writing a solo dissertation : the advantage being the time-saving factor in a group project, each member bringing the answers to questions that another student could not find.
The different points of view, being receptive to other people’s opinions, leads to debate. This strong source of argumentation is completed by new readings and research. Groups of two or three bring up questions that a person alone would not have thought about, bringing agreement out of discord. There is nothing like teamwork for living a socio-cognitive conflict from within, compared to observing, from a different angle, the same conflict between children in a classroom. Successive discussions help to solve complex situational problems while regular analysis of sequences encourages increasingly objective criticism. Cross re-reading and re-writing enriches the study during the numerous interactions. Moreover, these multiple discussions prepare for the dissertation viva , bringing to the fore the questions brought up by the co-writing approach.