2024-2025 / AESS1221-1

Special didactics in geography : placements (1st part)

Observation placements

Teaching placements

Reflexive practical work

Duration

Observation placements : 10h Internship
Teaching placements : 20h Internship
Reflexive practical work : 5h Pr

Number of credits

 Master in geography : general, teaching focus3 crédits 
 Certified upper secondary education teacher3 crédits 

Lecturer

Observation placements : Roland Billen, Hélène Rouchet
Teaching placements : Roland Billen, Hélène Rouchet
Reflexive practical work : Roland Billen, Hélène Rouchet

Coordinator

Roland Billen

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

All year long

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Observation placements

Observation practice is visiting teachers' classes and observing them in different situations; this is to improve one's own teaching during practice teaching and to build a systemic regard on teaching practices

Teaching placements

Teaching placements are crucial moments of progressive appropriation of the teacher's skills to be acquired. Students must be deeply involved in the preparation of courses and in the services entrusted to them. The trainee must give a written commitment to respect the institution, the supervisor and the students in front of him/her, both morally and pedagogically. Failure to respect these rules will result in the termination of the course. Internships will be an opportunity for the student to be confronted with different types of teaching, different ways of teaching and different audiences.

Reflexive practical work

Students will be able to gain perspective with regard to their own teaching practice during teaching exercises and practice teaching; there will be many occasions for students to analyze their own practices in order to improve. The reflective posture can take place into the teaching practice during all the cursus and in collaboration with DG course.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

Observation placements

Students will be able to analyze teaching situations in which they may find themselves placed (classrooms, public, typical teaching tasks) prior to having full charge of class meetings, or to modify their actions in classroom.

Teaching placements

The main objective of the teaching internships is to put the future teacher in the position to act as close as possible to his/her future professional practice. These teaching situations lead future teachers to mobilise skills from their teaching profession worked on in initial teacher education.
At the end of the internships, the student will be able to plan and prepare a sequence of lessons, build a relationship with the students and the class group that is conducive to learning, and design geography learning systems appropriate to the students and based on an active pedagogy that makes the students actors in their learning, to implement learning (organisational and management skills), to design an assessment that is consistent with the objectives pursued and the learning activities proposed to the students, to show reflexivity about one's practice and to come back to it with a view to improving it.

Reflexive practical work

Students will be able to: analyse their practices in order to improve them, alone and in groups; analyse the practices of others in order to enrich their vision of teaching in geography; take into account their own representations of the profession in order to make them evolve; define ways of improving their teaching practice and points to deepen their own learning.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Observation placements

The student is enrolled at the University and attends the disciplinary didactic courses (attendance required).

Teaching placements

To obtain access to the internships, the student must have signed the internship charter and have participated in the course sessions and exercises. If, during the activities, gaps are noted, the disciplinary didactics service reserves the right, as individualised assistance, to impose additional conditions for access to the teaching internships and possibly to postpone them. The student will have to comply with the internship rules provided during the disciplinary didactics course.

Reflexive practical work

To have completed the planned internschip.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Observation placements

The information gathered during the observation courses feeds into the internship practices, but also into the reflections carried out during the sessions and workshops.

Teaching placements

Courses and workshops are linked to practice and directly target the skills of designing learning sequences in geography. 

Reflexive practical work

The acquisition of a reflexive posture in his internship practice will be worked on throughout the training. Feedback sessions are organised after the training periods: everyone can share their experiences and analyse those of others.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Observation placements

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

Observation in classrooms.

Teaching placements

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

Teaching in classrooms.

Reflexive practical work

Presential and during the internships.
Time spent in reflection on practice is not separated from time in class or time spent doing exercises: post-internship discussions, analysis of shared practices, and discussion of practices are opportunities to work on this.

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Observation placements

The observation placements are documented in a completed and signed roadmap and a report included in the student's portfolio.

Teaching placements

Other : Below.


Further information:

During all the courses (parts I and II), the student will have three visits by the members of the teaching staff. The aim of these visits is to identify the working context, the difficulties and strengths, as well as the progression in the teaching profession (construction of professional identity). Depending on each student's availability and after the observed lesson, the student will have the opportunity to discuss his/her skills, difficulties or questions, in the presence of the supervisor if possible. An internship folder will be required. This will be in accordance with the instructions given, will be made available during the course visits and will be returned on time.

Two reports will be issued for supervision internships: an internship report issued by the company tutor and a visit report drawn up by a member of the teaching staff who carries out a visit.
Instructions and evaluation criteria are communicated to the students (visit + internship folder).
During the placement, the student will receive regular feedback from the company tutor and from the teaching staff member after the visit.
The subject didactics teacher can call on the team responsible for general didactics to request an additional visit in order to cross eyes.
In the event of a serious problem, the course instructor may request that the course be stopped. In this case, the teacher of disciplinary didactics will advise according to the situation.

Formative evaluation :

- The student presents a draft sequence during a workshop and receives feedback from fellow students and the subject didactics teacher;

- the first internship, which takes place in November, is evaluated by the internship supervisor and by the didactics member, who makes a visit, on the basis of a limited number of criteria provided to the student and examines the lesson preparations in the internship folder.

Certification evaluation:

The evaluation of the interships (January-February and March-April) is based on two points of view:

- the tutor's point of view (each lesson is rated; a final mark takes into account the trainee's progress; a detailed report allows the student to take stock of his or her strengths and weaknesses);

- that of the didactic member (internship visit + examination of the lesson preparations in the internship folder during the visit).

The evaluation criteria and indicators are detailed in a training contract given to the students and the company tutor. Placement evaluation takes account of the trainee's progress. The evaluation grid highlights when the criteria and indicators are subject to formative or certification evaluation.

 

No second session will be organised for internships and a mark of less than 10/20 will result in the student being postponed.
If preparation for the day's course(s) is not present during the visit, the visit will be sanctioned by a mark of Insufficiency.
An incorrectly filled in timetable (false or incomplete address; incorrect timetable) leading to the impossibility of a visit to a work placement may lead to the deletion of the 5 periods of work placement account.

Reflexive practical work

The evaluation of reflexive practices will be continuous, throughout the exercises and the reports of internships and micro-teaching.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Teaching placements

The internship is carried out in an institution and with an internship supervisor from a list provided by the teacher responsible for the subject didactics.
The student may express his/her wishes, but cannot carry out the internship in the school he/she attended, in order to ensure sufficient critical distance between the two.
The teacher of didactics makes contact with the internship supervisors or with the management of the prospective school. If agreement is reached, the student registers on the "internship" portal set up by the CEFEN.
The trainee will receive a number of administrative documents that he or she must send to the school at the first meeting with the management and the internship supervisor:
- an authorisation to carry out an internship in the school, accompanied by documents relating to safety (these documents must be signed before the start of the internship);
- a document specifying how many hours of supervision the supervisor will have carried out, which will enable him/her to receive the fees for this mission. This document must be duly signed and given to the teacher of disciplinary didactics during the first session following the internship.

Contacts

Observation placements

Teacher: Hélène ROUCHET
helene.rouchet@uliege.be
+32 (0) 4 366 57 49
Département de géographie
Service de didactique (LMG)
Clos Mercator, 3 - Bât. B11
B - 4000 Liège (Belgique)

Teaching placements

Teacher: Hélène ROUCHET
helene.rouchet@uliege.be
+32 (0) 4 366 57 49
Département de géographie
Service de didactique (LMG)
Clos Mercator, 3 - Bât. B11
B - 4000 Liège (Belgique)

Reflexive practical work

Teacher: Hélène ROUCHET
helene.rouchet@uliege.be
+32 (0) 4 366 57 49
Département de géographie
Service de didactique (LMG)
Clos Mercator, 3 - Bât. B11 
B - 4000 Liège (Belgique)

Association of one or more MOOCs