Interviewee: François Thibault, Étudiant au doctorat, Université du Québec à Montréal​
Date: May 18th, 2016

Q: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE CHANTIER SEVEN PROJECT?

A: I'm a research assistant. I mostly do translation stuff. That's my fault for being French. [laughs] It's actually been a long road. I noticed the next question is, how long have I been working there? The project has been a bit over a year, maybe nearly two years now. So yeah.

Q: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM BEING INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?

A: This is really a hard question thought, because there's so many things. For the project, what I really like is working on the different questionnaires. I usually work on my own research interests. I work on conceptual change, and dealing with misconceptions. And I had the occasion during this Chantier Sept project to work on specific misconceptions and how they are related to specific school activities. It was interesting to try to build a bridge between the theory and the conceptual change models, and what the teachers do in class, and trying to find the activities that go from one to the other. I guess that this is where most of my interest went in this project, where I learned the most.

Q: YOU SAID YOU LEARNED ABOUT STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS. COULD YOU GIVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING YOU LEARNED REGARDING STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS, THAT CAME FROM THIS PROJECT?

A: Yeah, well normally I work on physics, mostly mechanics. But then, while translating the different items, I had so many conceptions that students held regarding biology, ecology or these fields of science...not that are neglected over the years, but where my own research interest didn't lie. But still they were parallel. So in chemistry, in biology, stuff really, really interesting. None of them come to mind right now somehow. I don't know, stuff parallel to my regular work, and it all fit together. And actually it fit so well with my own theories and models, that I'm thinking of using these questionnaires in other future research projects, because they honestly fit so well. It feels like I've learned many things, but at the same time it was a confirmation of what I knew from somewhere else, was valid in other areas. So it was enlightening.

Q: WHAT YOU FOUND IS THAT WHAT YOU HAD THEORETICALLY THOUGHT OF IN TERMS OF STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS, YOU FOUND THAT MY ENGAGING THIS PROJECT YOUR THEORETICAL MODELS ENDED UP BEING USEFUL IN A PRACTICAL SETTING?

A: Yeah exactly. When you're trying to change students' misconceptions, to have them go from their misconceptions to a scientifically accurate solution to a specific problem, you have to overcome some form of resistance which are the misconceptions themselves. When you're trying to figure out how this process works there are many different theoretical models, but they are theoretical. So having an outlet for them, to put them into practice and try to see how you can maybe teach using those models. This is something that the research side of the question hasn't really explored yet. So having the chance to work on that, on this project, was actually very, very cool for this part of my research interest.

Q: I JUST WANT TO STEP BACK FOR A MOMENT, IN TERMS OF YOUR ROLE IN THE PROJECT. YOU WERE PRIMARILY WORKING ON TRANSLATING MATERIALS FROM ENGLISH TO FRENCH?

A: Yes. Well, when the project was early, I also worked on some of their research, finding misconceptions, finding studies that had validated teaching methods to overcome these misconceptions or to teach certain subjects, which was still pretty good. But as the project evolved, we started having a lot of English material, questionnaires and items that we could use to monitor the students' misconceptions. Since we wanted to have these questionnaires be universal, at least in the province of Quebec, we needed a French translation of the items. I used to be a high school science teacher, so I was kind of well placed to translate these items into scientifically accurate French versions also.

Q: IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP FOR UNIVERSITY PARTNERS TO SUPPORT TEACHERS IN THEIR PRACTICE?

A: That's the hard part, right? One of the main points of this project was to build this diagnosis device, where a teacher could use these questions to diagnose the students' misconceptions, and afterwards be linked towards activities or practices that were validated by experience. But I figure that one of the next steps would be to probably find... I don't know, it's a theory or an idea that I've had, but we have a lot of contacts all over the place in different school boards. We know many teachers with various research interests. A lot of research has been done out of exemplary practices, finding the really good teachers and what do they do. Maybe we could combine these research interests, and try to find, "well hey, teachers are telling us that areas like X, Y and Z are where students have the most issues and they really don't understand." And what we could do is try to link these teachers with practices that are known to perform well in these areas. So maybe try to build a network or a place where they can exchange. Obviously, even though there are research and scientists everywhere who are trying to figure out new methods of teaching, we still need an outlet to practice in. Having these experienced teachers that are known for their successes in these areas trying to share their methods would be a cool start, I guess. Maybe they wouldn't be validated by experiment, but if they all agree on the same practices, maybe we could set up an experiment and validate them afterwards.

Q: SO ESSENTIALLY BUILDING A NETWORK AMONG EDUCATORS?

A: That would be quite interesting honestly. Like over lunch we were having this discussion about elementary school teachers that still have to teach science, but they, more often than not, do not feel qualified to teach science. Contrary to, let's say, a high school science teacher who has gone to college in a science program, and in university had lots of science classes, like two or three physics, chemistry, biology each. So they still have this university level understanding of a lot of science concepts.

Having this network of teachers that can talk to each other and maybe learn from each other, it would be a pretty good tool for those that don't feel comfortable teaching science.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT TEACHERS ARE FACING WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE?

A: Well it depends really on the level. For elementary school teachers, the lack of formation or knowledge probably is the main issue. In fact, in the earlier grades of elementary school they have to teach science, but it's not even evaluated for the students at the end of the year. So if they can skip it, some will actually completely forgo science teaching. So for the elementary school teacher, obviously the training part is the biggest issue. For the high school teachers, it's the place where you're starting to want the students to act a bit more like a scientist, and you're trying to go into a deeper understanding of science. When you're trying to go there, to a deeper understanding, you face more deeply entrenched misconceptions. So your obstacles become more tangible, and they relate to the actual conceptions you're trying to teach. They're not related to your own training necessarily, but if you're not properly prepared to... Because no teacher really wants to tell a kid, "well you're wrong, and this is how it works." No, you have to guide them. If they discover it by themselves and eventually begin to understand it, they'll realize that what they believed before was a misconception. But if you just tell them that what they're believing is wrong, they'll reject your explanation. This is pretty much the biggest challenge yet.

Q: HAVING GONE THROUGH ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS NOW, IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO ADD THAT WE DIDN'T NECESSARILY COVER?

A: Not really I guess. Like relating to the project?

Q: YEAH, RELATING TO YOUR EXPERIENCE OF THE PROJECT. DO YOU THINK THERE'S ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE TOLD ME THAT MAYBE MY QUESTIONS DIDN'T ADDRESS?

A: No, not really. I mean, everybody on staff was really, really great. There were a lot of great minds working together, trying to work out solutions for people that may be too busy teaching to actually figure out the solutions. So if we can find these solutions for them, well good for us I guess. I've only had the best experiences so far, from a great team. I'm thrilled to see where it's going to end up.

Q: THANK YOU FRANCOIS.