How Lasallian Pedagogy enables collaborative learning
Résumé
Lasallian Pedagogy (LP) sprouted from the initiative of John Baptist de La Salle. Dated back to the Eighteen century, he founded a community of teachers consecrated to the education of children of artisans and the poor. With time, this became a worldwide network ran by the Brothers of the Christian schools and ministering from kindergarten to university level. Crucial for LP is the inclusive education whose key goals are: i) to professionalize students according to relevant contextual business activities, and ii) to join commitment and skills both of teachers and students in a unique community for the good running of each school. A teacher is therefore considered a mentor supporting the student's own training process rather than a "knowledge bearer". Thus, LP is natively meant as collaborative learning, with strong interactions between the students, their associations and the whole teaching community (teachers and other employees). In this paper, we analyze how LP might enable collaborative learning within the agricultural knowledge and innovation system. We focus on a farming demo recurrent event organized by a students' association belonging to the oldest high education institute of the lasallian network. The event is named "Unitech Days" and take place yearly at UniLaSalle (campus of Beauvais, northern France). Its goal is to promote exchanges of knowledge between farmers, students, teachers, and professionals in the farming sector through demonstration of innovations. We identify two levels of collaborative learning. First, the lasallian one, via the involvement of the teaching community in the co-organization of the Unitech Days by the student association (Festival de la Terre et de l'Elevage) that promotes it. This level implies multiple interactions that stimulate mutual learning and listening and create a peer-to-peer relation between two stakeholders, students and teaching community. Second, the on-farm demonstration, aimed at enhancing peer-to-peer learning in a real agricultural learning situation. These demonstrations showcase farmers' and students' technological innovations, as well as agronomic innovative projects carried by teachers, in which students are involved during their education. Altogether, students' commitment to the organization of on-farm