ACFAS 2024: Highlights from the Faculty of Education

Our emerging and established scholars organized sessions and shared findings during the many panels, individual paper presentations and scholarly activities that took place during the week-long event in May.  From school counselling and language education to artificial intelligence, evaluation, and more, the themes generated rich interactions and novel directions for future research in French. 

André Samson, professor of educational and vocational guidance, along with co-organizers from universities in Quebec and Switzerland, welcomed researchers and practitioners for a two-day discussion on the importance of school guidance counselling for francophone students. Participants explored the obstacles students face when transitioning to higher education, and the opportunities studying in their first language entails. Research findings showed how school counselling services in French foster students’ identity-building, psychological wellness and professional futures.

“In a French-speaking minority environment, school counselling must answer the following question: Is it realistic for a Grade 12 student to pursue postsecondary education in French? The answer is yes,” Samson said. 

“Pursuing postsecondary studies in French is positively correlated with psychological well-being,” Samson added. “It also helps students adapt to academic demands and solidifies their ethnolinguistic identity. In short, the decision to pursue postsecondary studies in French is a factor in academic success.”

“Going from high school to university or college isn’t always easy because it’s a new environment, it’s a big step, and doing it in French helps you adapt to this new environment,” Samson told Radio Canada in an interview. “Above all, it’s a springboard for the job market.” 

Led by Professor Claude Quevillon Lacasse and scholars from the Université de Québec à Montréal, this colloquium provided a space to discuss both teachers' and learners' views in the language classrooms, particularly towards writing and grammar teaching and learning, through different research and teaching methods—from elementary school to university.

A key point that emerged was the importance of clarifying concepts to understand how students learn grammar basics and the influence of this on writing skill development. Researchers said that providing context facilitates knowledge sharing between disciplines and enables the transfer of understanding between languages and their diverse varieties.

“Papers presented gave rise to rich discussions,” said Quevillon Lacasse. “The researchers offered a variety of reference and methodological frameworks, but most importantly, the research projects complemented each other.”

With more than a dozen presentations featuring the work of 23 authors and co-authors, this session on transformations in the teaching profession looked at what’s happening in Canada and internationally.

Nathalie Bélanger, director of the Observatoire sur l’éducation en contexte linguistique minoritaire, organized the gathering on teaching in majority francophone settings like Quebec and France, as compared to minority language settings such as New Brunswick, Ontario, and Brittany.

In Bélanger’s interview with Radio Canada, she agreed with host Philippe Marcoux that “teaching is a profession that has always had to adapt to changing social and political contexts, but this dynamic is more complex when we’re talking about a minority language situation.”

She added: “We were interested in who was leaving the profession and who was hiring, what were the realities of teaching teacher, training, how we prepare teachers for teaching and aspects related to practicum." 

“School is a central institution in assuring the continuity of our francophone communities. (The conversation) was quite stimulating.” 

How does artificial intelligence affect equity, diversity and inclusion in university settings? Professors Banfsheh Karamifar and Yaya El Hadji Koné hosted a conversation exploring the question from the perspectives of students and professors.

Thematic panels delved into the lack of linguistic variety in the databases of generative AI systems, addressed the role of AI in training the next generation of francophone researchers and raised ethical issues about the storage and use of data generated by AI. The development of regulatory frameworks for the development and use of AI at universities figured prominently in the exchanges. 

“Examining the intersection of inclusion and AI in higher education from a variety of angles, our participants reflected on the evolution of educational technologies over time,” Koné said. “It was a lively conversation about technophobes, technophiles, learning and intellectual fraud.”

The aim of the symposium on thinking about evaluation for a sustainable world, led by David Buetti and Isabelle Bourgeois, was to explore the diversity of evaluation practices and how they inform decision-making and continuous improvement. The day began with a talk by Professor Thomas Archibald, who presented the foundations of the “evaluative posture” and how we can all exercise it in our organizational functions. The papers that followed provided concrete examples of the many contributions made by evaluation in the community, in public bodies, and in the field of international aid.

"The day was full of rich discussions among scholars and evaluation professionals from institutions in Canada, the United States, and Peru, ending with a wrap-up session to generate new ideas for future action and research," Bourgeois said.

Other panels and events spotlighting work by Faculty of Education members included sessions on current issues in French-language education in Canada, collaborative approaches to Indigenous education and the Haut-parleuses activities hosted by women scholars.

Learn more about the 91st ACFAS conference.