Reinventing learning: portrait of an innovative teacher

On April 11, Mr. Jean-Philippe Payer, teacher of geography and history at the Odyssée School of the Commission scolaire de la Capitale, received the Ken Spencer Prize for innovation in teaching in Canada. A prestigious award that highlights the work and involvement of this teacher who dared to adopt a different perspective to promote learning among his students.

Innovate. A big word that can scare some teachers since it necessarily involves getting out of your comfort zone, launching yourself into a vacuum and daring. Armed with a flawless growth mindset, even the greatest innovator will have to overcome challenges, fall, rise again, imagine solutions, choose the best, put it in place, live it and learn during the process. It's not necessarily easy, but I don't think there is a word to describe what it feels like to notice how fire is burning in the hearts of young people.

Jean-Philippe Payer is a great enthusiast. As soon as he begins to talk about his Class-Museum, his gaze lights up and his enthusiasm for what he has built with his students and what they have lived together becomes contagious. We want to know more and visit its premises to live the experience!

A mobilizing project

"It's flipped", Jean-Philippe said to me, wondering if I had heard of his Class-Museum. In 2017-2018, he produced a historical timeline with his history and geography students. The classroom was transformed into a museum with different murals representing the great periods of history, including the 10 wonders of the world. Thanks to augmented and virtual reality, it was possible to learn about a historical element by looking at the descriptive texts written by the students or by visiting the places to which these texts refer.

"La Classe-Musée is an educational project where the verb to learn takes on a whole new meaning" - Jean-Philippe Payer

Beyond the classroom

On a larger scale, it is possible to create your own Class-Museum or to participate in enriching that of Jean-Philippe. An educational kit is available absolutely free on the project website where the technological concepts necessary for its realization are also explained.

Read the article the Museum Classroom in augmented and virtual 3D reality, technology at the service of learning! to discover more information about the educational process experienced by Mr. Payer.

In June and July 2018, it was in collaboration with the Musée de la civilization de Québec that the Classe-Musée was created in the form of an exhibition. Reproduced life-size, it was possible for the general public to visit the Classe-Musée at the Félix-Leclerc library in Val-Bélair and at the museum itself. People were able to live a unique experience there in the company of student designers who were on hand to answer questions. An adventure they will remember for a long time!

You can visit the project website.

 Learn more about the virtual reality!