This text is part of the special Higher Education notebook
For several years, the HORizon courses at the University of Montreal (UdeM) have offered a unique educational formula to undergraduate students from all disciplines, far from lectures. The formula, funded by philanthropy, highlights inquiry-based learning in courses created by doctoral candidates.
“Inquiry-based pedagogy, its general idea, is to transfer responsibility for learning to students and therefore to restore the role of the teacher in the role of support,” explains Daniel Blémur, doctoral candidate in communications at the University of Montreal. The latter also gives, for the duration of a session, the HORizon course Risks and challenges of the 21st centurye century. Like all lecturers in the HORizon program, he receives a grant and supervision to create and deliver the course.
Since 2019, HORizon courses have addressed complex questions linked to the major challenges of our century, ranging from global warming to access to housing via transport or the omnipresence of digital technology. The initiative is funded by donations from philanthropist and CEO of Intact Financial Corporation’s Canadian operations, Louis Gagnon.
The theme this year: climatic migrations and the upheaval of living environments. Around twenty students started the course at the start of the school year. They come from different disciplines, such as political science, psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics or psychoeducation. Throughout the session, they will have to carry out research work in a small team, whose members come from various fields of study, in order to answer a current question linked to the theme.
They will also be required to be creative in presenting their results and conclusions to the general public. Last year, on the theme of access to housing, students designed podcasts, a website, documentaries, a board game, an interactive map and even an Instagram carousel.
“As soon as I start putting them into subgroups, the students are more animated: I see them debating, using terms, struggling with a theme, trying to make their way through it,” observes Daniel Blémur.
“As a teacher, it’s also very unusual, because we find ourselves relatively ignorant in several of the disciplines of the students who make up the class,” he continues. [Mon rôle est] to formulate collective questions that arouse their curiosity, and then to support them [pour qu’ils trouvent] how to direct this research. I maintain more masterful moments, but you have to see them as complements to provide them with a tool kit. This is a research project with a somewhat forced pace of one session. »
Getting out of the lecture
“It’s an educational project on two levels,” says Sophie Parent, vice-dean for graduate studies and community engagement at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She explains that the HORizon formula encourages undergraduate students to think, exchange and innovate in multidisciplinary research, while guiding doctoral candidates — potential university professors — towards new teaching methods.
The course format is inspired by an approach developed at the University of Calgary. However, it is only at the University of Montreal that courses are given by doctoral students.
“We are in the process of preparing a scientific article to document this approach,” confides Sophie Parent. We are sowing something. THE [anciens chargés de cours] tell us that it has transformed their vision of teaching. They often change the way they teach in other courses. »
Daniel Blémur agrees with this. “The core of this program is to try to shake off the inertia of the traditional model of lecture-based teaching, which is punctuated by exams,” believes the lecturer. He observes that, despite the reform of the teaching in primary and secondary schools, and the autonomy enjoyed by second cycle university students, there is always “a hole in the middle, in first cycle education where we are still in classical education “.
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