Unit 3 - Pedagogical practices and devices: design, analysis, and assessment

This Unit is concerned with pedagogical tools and devices and their uses in order to improve the practices of both students and teachers in class. The aim is to analyse the design and/or evaluation of such tools. The complexity of this analysis requires multidisciplinary and complementary approaches (cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, computer science, IALSS, didactics, etc.), articulating qualitative and quantitative research methods. Thus, different traditions of evidence-based, evidence-informed, practice-based, and data-based research will be crossed.

This focus on pedagogical tools and devices through practices and uses, from design to evaluation, leads to the systematic use of different tools and various types of data. For example, digital tools are being increasingly integrated in pedagogical devices and are leading teachers’ and students’ practices to evolve. This leads to the specific study of teaching and learning situations that involve digital tools. Moreover, the use of digital tools makes it possible to develop innovative research methods (AI, big data, etc.) to analyse student learning in a given situation on the one hand, and to design new pedagogical tools and devices on the other.