Cooperative learning involves peers consultation, teachers and professionals acting together in the benefit of the student. According to Johnson et al1(1991), this type of learning involves “small groups of students working together and cohesively to maximize their own and each other’s learning”. In this type of education system, students are working in groups, doing activity and thinking of what they do that provides academic credits for the future job and professional experiences. But in this era of social computing, the traditional educational method seems to be not sufficient to address the required self-knowledge, motivation and carrier choices for the students. The main objective of this study, during the Post-Doctoral study, was to find out how the students interact and learn in the classroom through Professional and Personal Project (PPP) handbook and how this knowledge is used for their integration and adaptation in the European working context. The participants of this study were teachers, students and professionals from different corporate bodies. Based on content analyses, interactive group meetings, focus group discussions, interviews and a survey results, this article explores the existing model of cooperative learning at the Institute of Technology of University Lumiere Lyon 2, France.

These past years learning has become a priority for the educational systems. The changes of the socio-economical systems and the development of the new technology of information and communication have determined the mains actors of education to adapt and improve their educational programs. Recently, new types of digital learning - cooperative learning, active or experiential learning and others have became the priority of educational programs at Europe.

The 3P class–learning without boundaries

The terms `Student Professional Project’ and `Personal and Professional Project’ refer to a multitude of teaching methods/ devices, the first one proposed to the first and second year bachelor students at IUT in France. They were originally initiated in the eighties and based on paper works. From the start, the founders of these projects which was intended to make of the orientation more towards positive and was proposed to all the students (not only to those in failure) at the begining of the university formation.

Created on an experimental basis, the formation of the sessions was approached by different universities in the ninties under the impulsion of those in favor of the orientation and of the patronal branch, and in the context of the legislative transformations (reforme Savary, 1984) but nowadays,after the reforme of the programmes in 2005, it concerns half of the universities and all the IUTs. The main postulates are that the individual who can control the course of his live, that he can be educated (and that he can even be offered a method of how to do it). In addition to that, this method is an introspection, in which he mobilizes the personel and professional dimensions in such a way that he himself manages to find answers to the questions regarding his orientation. The experience is fundamentally important. The objective is to do clear things. The hours, the content and the teaching exercises are devlopped on four semesters of formation depending on the different majors of the IUT.

Learning Identifications

We identified four broad aspects in the interactivity and collaboration in this existing 3P class. Our key findings concern the usage of the 3P handbook, student’s collaboration and interactivity and the role of the teacher and enterprises in the students’ development of the personal and professional project.

The required level of interactions simplifies the process of communication between teachers, students and enterprise professionals and provides student with the formation of a shared common area of professional path for their future. Communication is the key of education, teaching and learning and it affects the life of an individual throughout his/her whole life. The potential constraints are as outlined:

Self-centered : In the existing model of practice, students are iterating through a manual booklet which is developed but not further evolved in last couple of years. During the course of interactions, students are writing about their choice and understanding and these expressions are entirely confined within the booklet and remains with the student during the entire period of stay with the institution. Besides, the booklet is taken by the student while they join the enterprise and start their professional life. This represents the non-transparent characteristics of the present model.

Non-Reflexive: The existing model of practice is based on the handbook both for the first year and the second year. The students are plotting their ideas for the future career and vision in this handbook and due to the nature of this physical process, the reflections of the class room teacher and the enterprise on the impression of the students work are hardly illuminated. This results into the non-reflexive characteristics of the model since the reflection of learning activity is not clearly visible.

Non-Interactive: The existing model is working based on the printed handbook and the students are jotting down their ideas, thoughts and vision for the choice of career in the form of writing. In this process of interactivity, the feedback of the expressions by the students are not gathered timely either from the teacher or the enterprise. This is primarily due to the nature of deliberations and this results into non-interactive characteristics of the existing model.

Non-Retraceable: The present model of education is using handbook as a means of building-up skills and knowledge required for the choice of education. As a result of this, the source of skills and knowledge is only confined within the handbook and this does not enable further analysis and thereafter the research on the trends of the market skills and knowledge acquisition process.

We will now discuss the implications of the 3P class for the students, teachers and enterprises.

Student’s collaboration and interactivity in a 3P class

The pedagogical process involves the active presence of the students. The whole philosophy of the 3P class is conceived on the participation of the students. In their interaction with students, teachers or professional, students have to use different types of knowledge: scholar knowledge and techniques but also entrepreneurial knowledge. Scholar knowledge is necessary for some student’s activities: students are asked to do a research on a job demands in their field, write down this information in a report and do oral presentations for their colleagues. Entrepreneurial knowledge concerns techniques to write Curriculum Vitae, a Motivational Letter and how to present themselves during a job interview. This entrepreneurial knowledge are developed in interaction and socialization with others students and the teachers. These activities are preparing them for the work environment and even thus are not opposite to the scholar context it requires different types of interaction between the actors.

The 3P class a challenge for the teacher’s activity

For all the activities in the 3P class, teachers encourage students to develop and practice collaborative skills. Different types of activities are proposed to student in order to develop leadership, communication, etc. The main role of the teacher is to prepare students to choose their future career, to help them decide which career to chose, to guide them discover their main competencies and how to put it in practice in an internship. By helping students to discovers themselves and to develop their personal and professional project (finding their internships contracts) teachers became mediators between the students and enterprises. They assure an adaptative and functioning learning environment for students and they are responsible for the development of creative and innovative learning practices.

Enterprises need more personalized 3P activities

The PPP contributes to a better understanding of the work environment and gives the students different types of knowledge that they can use in enterprise: technological knowledge (by doing a research on the main jobs in their field), being knowledge (good behavior, professional behavior, etc.). The 3P class is a crossborder object between the university and professional environment.

In this context, enterprises are present in the educational process from the entrance of the students at the Technological Institute. During the selection procedures, the jury is composed for 2 professionals and 2 teachers. The role of the professional is to identify the student’s interest to the work environment and also the knowledge that the students have about this environment. The two periods of internship (at the end of the first year and during the second year of study) necessary to obtain their universitary degree assure the link between the educational program and the professionals demands. Our study shows that students need a personalization of the learning experience in order to a better adaptation in enterprises. Generally enterprises are interested in recruiting the best profile students corresponding to their interests. For this, they are present in a manifestation called ‘Your job is described here’ or in a forum for recruiting our best students.

Proposed Model of Interaction using Information Systems

The proposed model of interaction for the PPP year one is shown in the Figure 1.

The proposed model is based on the interactivity through the digital information systems taking the advantage of web 2.0 collaboration model which is the www model of computation. In the proposed model, we have covered only the first year of cooperative education model PPP and the following scenarios are identified for interactivity based on the stakeholders Student, Teacher and Enterprise.

In the proposed model, the session begins with the process “Create Student Profile” by the Teacher. This process provides the basic meta information e.g. name, date of birth, family name, etc to represent student and also the unique login ID which is the student ID and initial password for the student to be able to collaborate in this collaboration platform.

Immediate after the teacher creates the student profile, the student actor can use the student ID and the password provided to his/her email to login into the platform and update other profile information and proceed with the update of the department information.

On the other hand, the enterprise posts the requirements for different jobs by registering them on the platform and creating an enterprise profile. This list of jobs is visited by the students when they search or look for available job specifications using this platform. While the teachers in the class room session present different job specifications and discuss with the students from the same platform.

Upon selecting a specific job specification from the available list, the enterprise gets to see the students profile applying for a specific job in the enterprise. This process helps the enterprise understand the skill sets and profile of the students beforehand.

In the next process, students are taken through the class room sessions on preparing questions for the enterprise and get ready with the interview process.

The teacher can instantly see the questions composed by the students and give necessary feedback to the students online. The student goes for interviewing process and prepare for the presentation which is overseen by the teacher and enterprise through this interactive platform.

This proposed model addresses both the aspects: handbook partially as well as more online activities. The model in the next phase will be prototyped and different usability experiments will be performed on this to extend and enhance for the complete coverage of year two with the idea of knowledge management.

Discussion

It seems that the learning environment facilitates student’s involvement. The institution has to assure an infrastructure in which cooperative learning is accessible to all students, teachers and professional partners. The Technological Institute is an institution where learning by doing is promoted - first year students have a 7 weeks internship to attend and second year students are also working during their studies - they are alternating 2 weeks of work with 2 weeks of study. In this type of environment cooperative learning between students-teachers-professional is the main preoccupation. To assure this type of education, the teachers have a role of guiding and mentoring the students by facilitating the self-regulated learning processes. In order to facilitate these learning processes and to be able to guide the students, the teachers need a set of methodologies, tools and training programs. These methods should empower teachers, professionals and students to innovate and be creative in the use of the Personal and Professional project handbooks.

Conclusion and future research

This study is a preliminary study. The 3 P class was proposed to the students in the 1990s and since then no content modification was proposed. During this research work, different activities and discussions that we had with a large number of students, we identified their need to be more active and involved in their educational training. Our interest is (i) to implement and evaluate this proposed model; (ii) to adapt our educational practices to this new type of student : group-centered. The results of this study helps to identify the needs of students in terms of education, active participation, interactivity and cooperative learning.

Dr. Professor Syed Akhter Hossain, Computer Science and Engineering Dept., Daffodil International University, Dhaka, aktarhossain@yahoo.com
Raluca Oprea Ciobanu, Institute of Technology, University Lumiere Lyon 2, France


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