Sharing Teaching Practices at the University
Selected for CIST 2019-2023 quinquennial contract, this exploratory project is planned to last 3 years.
The Feuilles de géographie project aims to promote the sharing of content and reflections on teaching practices in spatial and territorial sciences at the University. Its activities are based on the animation of a journal with a reading committee and the organisation of workshops-debates; a website also serving as a support to the construction of a French-speaking interdisciplinary community.
Feuilles de géographie is a collective active in the dissemination and sharing of geography teaching materials in higher education, in a more general perspective of circulation of knowledge and pedagogical know-how by practitioners. It is therefore a project of general interest for all educational structures that use the territorial sciences in their training.
It thus seeks to consolidate the links between research, training and teaching, and aims to encourage the sharing of content and ideas in order to provide a collective and cumulative response to the difficulties encountered by higher education teachers, particularly young ones, in preparing and delivering courses, difficulties which are sometimes compounded by situations of insecurity and isolation. By ensuring the development of its network and the diversity of its members and their experiences (status, geographical, individual and institutional contexts -from preparatory classes to INSPEs), it offers a space for reflection on teaching, whether in terms of content, pedagogy or working conditions.
Planned Actions
Within the framework of its integration as a CIST exploratory project, its objective is to perpetuate, strengthen and develop the actions undertaken since the 1990s, which are based to date on the voluntary commitment of a small collective.
The management of the journal is at the heart of the project and undoubtedly its most costly aspect in terms of strength and working time (evaluation, management of authors-evaluators relations, calls for publication drafting, uploading). Its sustainability depends on maintaining the high standards (double peer review) and reflexivity of the publications, the regular renewal of the editorial board, and the development of the review committee, the influx of contributions, and the planning of special issues, with the aim, in the more or less long term, of achieving a conventional journal format (creation of a DOI).
Feuilles de géographie also organises workshop-debates to bring out new avenues of collective reflection (which in turn feed the journal through special issues), taking care to diversify the places and partners involved, including internationally (project under way with Austria, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands).
- Echanges sur les pratiques d’évaluation (Paris, 2017)
- Géographes hors les murs (Saint-Denis, 2018)
- Enseigner l’analyse spatiale aujourd’hui (Paris, 2020)
Special Issues of the Journal
- Expériences de terrain et pratiques d’enseignement « hors les murs » (2019)
- Enseigner la géographie de l’environnement (2020)
- Enseigner l’analyse spatiale aujourd’hui (appel en cours jusqu’au 1er octobre).
Beyond the editorial committee, which manages the day-to-day technical functioning of the journal and relations with the reading committee, Feuilles de géographie relies on a network of lecturers motivated by the development of this original sphere of exchange. We wish to federate existing initiatives in various CIST teams (e.g. the "Midi2Pédago" in Grenoble, monthly pedagogical discussion lunches at the University of Grenoble Alpes), which favour meetings and the development of interpersonal relations. The presence of Feuilles de géographie in the framework of scientific events organised by other collectives is therefore also crucial in order to give its full place to serious reflection on the teaching of geography at university (CNFG Forum des revues de géographies in 2018, stand at the Festival international de géographie de Saint-Dié des Vosges in 2015 and 2016, exchanges with the "Midi2Pédago" in Grenoble and Carnets de géographes).
The collective has also set up thematic working groups leading to participation in scientific events/publications (" Pour une réflexion collective de l’enseignement de la géographie à l’université ", special issue of the journal Carnets de géographes, paper presented at the conference "Approches critiques de la dimension spatiale des rapports sociaux", Caen, 2019).
Thematic groups are developing, for example concerning a dimension of teaching ("the place of tools and digital technology"), a pedagogical practice ("use of active/alternative/critical pedagogies"), a type of training ("training future teachers"), a specific theme ("the transition from high school to the first year of higher education").
To support all these activities, the website, based on a redesigned architecture and ergonomics (indexing of publications, diversification of content, referencing), is currently under construction, reflecting the changes in the editorial project.
