The Autonomous Acquisition of Transversal Competencies by Primary School Children through the Use of Pedagogical Scenarios

Abstract

This study aims to obtain a better understanding of how the teacher can support the acquisition of transversal competencies, such as collaboration, creativity and reflection when children aged between 11 and 12 take part in an activity designed to promote autonomous or self-regulatory learning. There is a need to equip the teachers to enable them to scaffold autonomous learning, taking into account the tensions coming to the fore between teacher’s interventions and autonomous learning. How can the teacher ensure that the task is completed without interrupting the creative, collaborative and reflective dynamics within the group? How can they support learning becoming progressively more autonomous in each group? How is the flexible classroom organized to promote self-regulatory learning? The pedagogical scenarios presented in this research project have been drafted and trialled to help the teachers do just that. It is a collaborative research project inspired by Desgagné’s (2007) procedure as the researcher, teachers and children all worked together at every stage of the study, i.e., the drafting of pedagogical scenarios by teachers in the UK and the trialling of these by teachers on their pupils in Switzerland. These scenarios were built with the purpose of promoting the development of transversal capacities in children at primary school level when engaging in various subjects: L1/L2/Lx, sciences, and maths. These school subjects were matched with a subphase of Zimmerman and Campillo’s (2003) model, with one or two transversal capacities and with approaches currently applied to the teaching of these disciplines. Each of these scenarios can be used practically in the primary classroom to develop transversal competencies through autonomous learning. Keywords: primary school, transversal competencies, autonomous learning, pedagogical scenarios, scaffolding