An anonymous support space to help the weak third party

through Jean Desjardins and Isabelle Senécal, Sainte-Anne College

Teachers from Collège Sainte-Anne share their winning strategies to support their so-called “weak third” students, without lowering their expectations of others. Today, we are discovering a strategy shared by Gabrielle St-Germain, a French teacher.

“We can allow students to learn through questions from their colleagues that they had not thought of,” said Gabrielle St-Germain, a French teacher. Like Marie-Hélène Simard, whose we spoke recently, she takes advantage of the sensitive moment of the evaluations to instill in the pupils a feeling of responsibility among themselves.

To do this, she opts for the creation of a collaborative space bringing together the learners and the teacher in an effective web tool such as Padlet, for example. This turns out to be very favorable, in particular for the pupils of the “weak third”. We know that students are already informally helping each other through social media and texting. However, it is likely that this assistance is not also provided. In addition, as the teacher is excluded from these exchanges, he or she cannot support his students as much.

The principles of the strategy :

• In anticipation of an evaluation, a public space for digital mutual assistance is created.
• All students can read the questions and answers of their colleagues as well as of the teacher.
• The teacher's role is to supervise mutual aid by validating shared knowledge and strategies.
• Quiet students' questions can remain anonymous.

Added value for the weak third:

• The opportunity to train.
• Mutual assistance between students is better provided.
• Development of metacognitive strategies.
• Social presence and teaching presence.
• An efficient collaboration tool.

Tools and Resources :

• The collaborative tables of Padlet.com
• A variant in ChallengeU is also possible.

To know more : http://sainte-anne-technopedagogique.weebly.com/lespacedecours#entraide