Designing the Néopass@ction Platform Based on Modeling of Beginning Teachers' Activity

Abstract

In the context of French teacher training — which does not sufficiently consider the professional problems faced by students when they enter the working world — we developed the Néopass@ction platform in view of proposing a reference base describing the real work of teachers. The platform is designed to serve at the national level as a resource either for web-based training, which the learner does alone, or for instructor-led training conducted in a classroom setting. The first section of this article begins with a description of the main difficulties identified in teacher education in France. It then gives a brief history of videotraining at the international level, followed by a presentation of how video-based training has evolved through the incorporation of the results of activity analysis. The second section describes the design of the Néopass@ction platform following several phases of coordination between research and training, based on theoretical assumptions about possible aids for achieving greater professionalism, and three different levels of activity modeling: real activity on the job, transformations of professional activity, and training trajectories for navigating on the platform. The processes that transform professional activity are precious aids for the "design-inuse" of the platform, which in turn is transformed in the light of professional progress made and the effects of its use on the activity of teachers in training.