Dans sa plus récente rubrique, David Gooblar, professeur à l’Université de l’Iowa et rédacteur de Pedagogy Unbound propose le parallèle suivant: alors qu’il ne viendrait à l’idée d’aucun universitaire de soumettre un article scientifique sans l’avoir d’abord révisé (plusieurs fois plutôt qu’une), pourquoi devrait-il en être autrement pour un plan de cours?
Il propose de rapprocher les deux processus (“It makes sense: Both involve translating ideas so they can be understood by other people.“), soit d’envisager la conception de cours comme une série de versions et d’y appliquer des stratégies d’écriture. Par exemples…
- Prendre une heure pour rédiger un “premier jet” jetable: “…Don’t stop yourself from writing something down because it’s unrealistic or might not work. Now is the time to try out new and possibly risky ideas. Plan the course the way you’d teach it right this minute, without restrictions, and see what you come up with. You have time to come back to this draft later and pragmatically revise it.” (Gooblar, 2016)
- S’obliger à couper en s’imposant une limite de temps artificielle, mais en conservant ses coupures au cas où. Souvent, on s’apercevra que le cours est plus efficace parce que mieux concentré:
“…How would you teach your course if — instead of 15 or 16 weeks of multiple meetings — you had to teach the whole thing in a single three-hour class period? Sit down and plan out the session. What would you do? You can’t possibly fit everything in, which is precisely the point: The exercise forces you to zero in on your priorities for the semester. What are the most crucial elements of your course? What would you leave out if you had to? What do students absolutely need to know? Later, when you revisit the course plan, you’ll have plenty of time to add back in much of what you decided to jettison. But I bet you’ll find that some of that material will remain on the cutting-room floor.” (Gooblar, 2016) - Utiliser un logiciel d’écriture comme Scrivener (présenté par l’historienne de l’art Bryna Campbell dans un autre blogue): “…The features that make Scrivener such a useful tool for writing long projects — in particular the corkboard view, which allows authors to organize chapters or subsections as a collection of notecards — also make it a great tool for course planning. […] Just as Scrivener helps authors organize a great mass of content into a readable whole, it can also help teachers rein in the chaos of a semester’s worth of teaching materials into a successful course.” (Gooblar, 2016)
- Se laisser du temps: “…I totally understand teachers who are ready for a break after the fall semester. We all deserve it. But if you leave course planning for the last minute, you’ll make things more difficult for yourself throughout the term. Take time to draft and revise now, and reap the benefits of a well-written course all semester.” (Gooblar, 2016)
Sources:
Campbell, Bryna R., “Course Planning with Scrivener“, Smart Women Write, 19 septembre 2016
Gooblar, David, “Revision Is Essential in Teaching, Too“, Pedagogy Unbound – Vitae, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 décembre 2016
