Supporting and training professors: the missions of the PSL Center for Teaching Innovation
The university’s PSL Center for Teaching Innovation, created in 2021, supports all PSL professors and teaching staff in their educational projects. In this interview, Mattias Mano, the center’s new director, outlines the center’s strategic missions and looks back on the lessons learned during the pandemic, which has increased the use of digital tools in education as in other sectors.
PSL: The PSL Center for Teaching Innovation was created less than a year ago. Can you remind us of its principles and outline your strategy to support its implementation?
Mattias Mano: The main mission of the Center for Teaching Innovation is to support PSL professors and education officers in their educational transformation projects. The goal is to enhance and diversify educational practices in order to promote the success of all students.
To achieve this goal, we offer two types of services:
- The first is focused on supporting faculty members. Our center is at their service. Assistance from the Center for Teaching Innovation involves supporting professors in their reflection on how to continuously improve their teaching. The center’s educational engineers, with their diverse experience and scientific oversight, are able to understand and suggest solutions to teaching problems that professors may encounter.
- The second is focused on training faculty members. Through the in-house PSL school, we offer a great number of training programs to raise their understanding of the changes currently taking place in education. This is given particular focus during the welcome week for new professors, a perfect time to promote the Center, or during PédagoDays, two days of peer-to-peer exchanges to reflect on one’s own teaching practices.
The main challenge ahead of us is raising the profile of the center and its services. We need to reach out to all PSL schools. The aim is to understand the specific characteristics of their teaching, to compile their needs in relation to the center’s services, and of course, to meet them. This will be achieved by building a community of practice for PSL faculty members.
PSL:The pandemic has increased the use of digital tools in all sectors, and particularly in education. What have you learned from this period?
Far from replacing the role of the teacher, technology is a supplementary tool that can compensate for potential shortcomings, especially in times of crisis.
Mattias Mano: The health crisis we have gone through has put students, most of all, in a situation of great difficulty. Too many of them have become very isolated. Professors have also shown an unprecedented degree of resilience in ensuring the infamous ‘instructional continuity’. This continuity was made possible largely thanks to digital tools, with videoconferencing in the main. However, for many professors, this forced experimentation with remote learning was very negative. I would like to highlight the strength and courage of the administrative staff (especially in the Information Systems Department and in our Center), who made it possible to maintain teaching during an emergency situation.* As the crisis nears its end, which we all hope will be for good, services like the Center for Teaching Innovation cannot ignore the fact that many professors may harbor a desire to do things ‘as before’ (the pandemic).
Overall, the pandemic has advanced us by several years in terms of our understanding of digital tools. Its impact is a powerful reminder that, far from replacing the role of the teacher, technology is a supplementary tool that can compensate for potential shortcomings, especially in times of crisis.
The Center for Teaching Innovation aims to synthesize this wealth of experience. Our goal is to perpetuate the best practices that have emerged from the crisis and to extend their use.
PSL: What is the role of digital technology in this model?
Mattias Mano: Digital technology is just a tool. We will never push the use of a tool for the sake of it. When a teacher asks us to implement a particular Moodle activity or a particular Wooclap activity, we seek first and foremost to meet an educational need.
For example, using Wooclap facilitates the interaction between students and the professor in an auditorium. This tool makes it possible to pause a lecture and ask the students questions, to ensure that they can follow what they are being taught.
Similarly, almost all classes rely on the use of educational resources. The Moodle learning platform is used to centralize and classify these resources. Professors have the option to upload all of them when they build their course, and to make them available to students as they go along. This reduces the administrative load of a course and facilitates the learning process.
In short, once educational needs have been identified, the center helps the teacher find the best way to meet them. Very often, the digital tools at our disposal make it easier to offer a solution.
PSL: In concrete terms, how can teachers, professors, and education officers benefit from support from the Center for Educational Innovation?
Mattias Mano: The simplest way to find out more about our activities and to get in touch is to visit our website. There you will find interviews with professors, useful information, a calendar of the training courses we offer at the PSL School, and most importantly, how to contact us for a support request.
The PédagoDays - PSL, which will be held on June 16 and 17 (registration via the PSL School) are also a great way to find out more about us. On these days we will be offering workshops and discussions with teachers who have worked with us in the past.
We also have three branches in three different locations on campus: Dauphine – PSL, Mines Paris – PSL and Observatoire de Paris – PSL. These are friendly, social places, so don’t hesitate to come and have a coffee!
Doctor of Management from the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, alumni of the Master’s program in Data Science (formerly Quantitative Methods and Social Science) from ENSAE and the Research Master’s in Economics from the Paris School of Economics, Mattias Mano developed the digitization of the ‘Executive Education’ training offer at the Ecole Polytechnique as Digital Learning Manager from 2018 to 2022. During his dissertation on Collective Intelligence in Online Forums, he also coordinated the teaching team of the MOOC, "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper” offered by the Ecole Polytechnique on the Coursera platform, which now has almost 200,000 registrants. He joined Université PSL in February 2022 as Director of the Center for Educational Innovation.