A new way of training school teachers
Since September 2018, the Faculty of Education (FDE) has been offering a Pluridisciplinarité et métiers de l'enseignement, de l'éducation et de la formation (Multidisciplinarity and professions in teaching, education and training) bachelor's degree accessible from post-baccalaureate level at three of its five sites, in Nîmes, Carcassonne and Montpellier. A mini revolution in the training of future school teachers.
Innovative, longer and, above all, more comprehensive. That, in a nutshell, is what the training for primary school teachers (nursery and elementary schools) offered at the UM's FDE has been like since the start of the new school year. "The initial training of future schoolteachers takes place in a master's degree program, after an often monodisciplinary bachelor's degree, and is spread over two years, the first year of which is swallowed up by cramming for the recruitment exam. The first year is swallowed up by cramming for the competitive entrance examination. This training, which is ultimately reduced to a single year of real professionalization, is clearly ill-suited to the reality of an increasingly complex profession at the start of the 21st century. Faced with this situation, the University of Montpellier has decided to take it to the next level", explained Michel Ramos, FDE's deputy director in charge of the 1st level, who, along with Agnès Perrin-Doucey and Muriel Guedj, is in charge of coordinating the gradual roll-out of the multi-disciplinarity and professions in teaching, education and training bachelor's degree, initially at the Nîmes, Carcassonne and Montpellier sites, before Mende and Perpignan at the start of the new academic year.
Innovative training
"Developing critical thinking skills, communicating appropriately, solving problems and exercising creativity... Undergraduates are now assessed on the basis of a skills repository over three fast-paced, professionally-oriented years. This is the first stage of the 1,500 hours of training that now precede preparation for the competitive examination for the recruitment of schoolteachers (CRPE), which is maintained in the Master's program", explains Jean-Paul Udave, who has been at the head of the Faculty of Education for over 5 years now.
No lectures, small classes (40 to 50 people on average), an active role for students in the learning process, state-of-the-art audiovisual and digital equipment (Learning Lab), predominance of group work... The new degree is being built as a veritable laboratory for innovative practices, whose "out of the ordinary" format is unanimously winning over the students in the 2018-2019 class. "More than just passively acquiring knowledge, here we learn to think about our future profession. In the history of education classes, for example, we not only learn about the changing status of schools over the ages, but also about the different ways in which the education system has been thought through," explains Mathilde Grillon, a first-year Bachelor's student enrolled at the Montpellier site.
Local roots
From September 2019, the Pluridisciplinarité et métiers de l'enseignement, de l'éducation et de la formation bachelor's degree will be offered at the Mende and Perpignan sites. This is an opportunity to confirm, if confirmation were needed, the university's commitment to local roots, and its desire to make its own contribution to the economic, social and cultural development of "balanced" medium-sized towns. Increasing the number of vocational training courses on offer in the area means that young people from modest backgrounds can also learn a trade, avoiding the often too costly expatriation to large university towns. That's why, in a few weeks' time, it will be possible to access the full range of teacher training courses at the FDE's five sites. This will be done in human-scale structures that provide personalized support for each student.
FDE as seen by a student
Luana Guyon-Venet, 18, 1st year undergraduate student
The opening of the Pluridisciplinarité et métiers de l'enseignement, de l'éducation et de la formation bachelor's degree to the Montpellier FDE allows me to start training for my future profession right away, without waiting for my Master's degree and avoiding the obligatory monodisciplinary Bachelor's degree. I'm delighted to be in this 1st class, where I rub shoulders with passionate students and teachers who, over and above the essential knowledge, teach us how to think about the profession of school teacher, for which my vocation was born, it seems to me, in 1ère class. My desire to become a teacher can be explained quite simply by my love of children and my desire to pass on knowledge.
FDE in figures
- 5 sites: Nîmes, Montpellier, Carcassonne, Mende and Perpignan;
- 10 disciplinary departments ;
- 2,577 students ;
- 150 undergraduate students at the start of the 2018 academic year.
TAKE-OFF projects: MUSE supports pedagogical transformation
MUSE is currently funding three TAKE-OFF projects to support the FDE 's pedagogical transformation: the first to set up Learning Labs at its five sites, the second Pour une licence d'excellence (PULE) to develop innovative pedagogical practices, and the third Concevoir une formation à la pédagogie universitaire (CONFOR PU) to encourage the extension of these practices to the entire university community.