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April 23, 2012

Entente Canada-Québec (ECQ): Supporting Anglophone and Francophone College Education

This text was initially published by Profweb under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence, before Eductive was launched.

In our May 2, 2011 Profweb column we profiled some of the ways college faculty and staff are experimenting with new tools and resources to enrich their work and improve students’ learning experiences. This year, the major benefit has been increased involvement and collaboration between Francophone and Anglophone colleges. Although the ECQ’s aim is to promote minority and second language education, projects which often have the greatest impact are those in which both French and English colleges can benefit.

Malcolm Harper Presented at the WebWork Information Day Held in Trois-Rivières

Bridging the gap

Champlain St. Lambert’s Malcolm Harper has been working with the WebWork system to deliver individualized homework problems for calculus and linear algebra courses over the web. Last year, Champlain teachers benefitted from real-time statistics and customized lesson plans to better serve students. This year interest in WebWork is spreading within the Francophone colleges, with more than two dozen French college mathematics teachers attending Malcolm’s workshop at the January 13, 2012 WebWork information day held in Trois-Rivières. Chantal Desrosiers, REPTIC at Cégep de Trois-Rivières, has been instrumental in setting up a community of practice for math teachers within the réseau.

In addition to the collaboration between Cégep du Vieux-Montréal and Édouard-Montpetit to deliver a virtual ESL English in Business course headed by Profweb’s own Norm Spatz, CVM is also partnering with Dawson College to create a Centre d’innovation et de formation à l’entrepreneuriat (CIFE) that will serve as an arts & cultural business incubator in the Montreal area.

Collaborations between the various IT partner organizations and colleges increasingly link the two linguistic communities. Dawson’s February 2012 Educational Technology week lunchtime presentations featured many Francophone college participants through APOP providing online VIA access. The active learning buzz profiled April 16 in Profweb (Making Active Connections) features Champlain St. Lambert and La Vitrine Technologie working together to promote active learning environments. They will be hosting a June 4 ped day in Longueuil that is open to all.

From the “community of interest” in active learning there are more communities of practice. The ECQ is funding the Fédération des cégeps to include Anglophone college participation in the activities of the Regroupement des bibliothèques collégiales. Vanier College will be receiving ECQ funding to perfect the expertise they’ve developed in virtual teaching and to share that knowledge with other teachers across the réseau. DECclic will be leading a community of practice to help Anglophone colleges get better acquainted with the Moodle environment.

Beyond College Communities

Champlain St. Lawrence will receive ECQ funding for two projects benefitting external college communities. Because there are no English cégep-level adult education programs offered east of the Eastern Townships, they will identify the needs of major employers in the Quebec City region and design modular distance training programs. Second, they will be offering a distance learning course in nursing terminology to help hospitals in small Quebec communities which serve small English populations.

Guide to the Entente

The Guide to the Entente explains the program in detail and is available through the MELS website.

Learn More at AQPC

Whether you’re from an Anglophone or Francophone college, to learn more about ECQ funding opportunities, the ECQ Coordination Team will be giving a bilingual workshop (atelier #605) at this June’s AQPC symposium. Here is the link to the MELS Guide du programme.

As we move forward to the next funding phase beginning in 2013, can you identify needs or priority areas within your college?

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