Aider les élèves à apprendre à l’école en période de confinement

Abstract

The spring 2020 lockdown saw the disappearance of the physical co-presence that characterized classroom teaching, leading teachers to change their practices in supporting students’ work. The article, based on an ethnographic study combining observations of virtual synchronous classrooms, retrospective interviews and a framing questionnaire, reveals the rise during this period of indirect support aimed at facilitating the work of students alone at home or with their parents. It shows that, in parallel with the development of these new practices, some teachers tried to restore direct support, in particular to accompany the most fragile students. This support, constrained by the new use of digital tools, has come up against unforeseen limits such as the lack of overview of the students’ activity or the difficulty in using gestures, which have led teachers to make permanent adjustments and to test previously unexplored possibilities of these tools. Paradoxically, containment may have contributed to convince them of the need to work on students’ difficulties.

Keywords

• lockdown
• teaching practices
• students’ difficulties
• educational inequalities
• support for students