Ajagutak school, in Tasiujaq, recently attracted media attention for its educational activities integrating computer programming and robotics into science and math instruction.

As part of one of these activities, three researchers and two pedagogical counsellors came from the South to support the teaching team in exploring the pedagogical potential of such an initiative.

Teaching programming and robotics at the secondary level, really?

We met Said Khirani in April 2023, in Tasiujaq. It seemed to us that he was already engaged in a number of projects and was deploying a whole range of activities to motivate and interest his students.

Said has a particular gift for mixing different subjects together in a way that captivates his audience. From mathematics to learning a new programming language, through history and biology to robotics: all these seemingly unrelated subjects are logically linked here.

“Now they know what a proximity sensor and a range sensor are, for example. They understand, they’ve studied it. It’s a great motivation for the students to show the link between science and robotics, robotics and science.”

This was the first year that Said introduced robotics in the classroom. As with the rest of his teaching activities, he puts a great deal of emphasis on adapting his teaching strategies to his students:

“In so doing, you have to bear in mind, above all, that some students are autonomous. They’ll pick it up in a flash. Others need time, so you have to go slowly.”

Should we then lower our expectations of maths and science? Of course not! The subjects under study are channelled into encompassing and stimulating projects.

Passionate, curious and self-confident: this teacher from Ajagutak seems to have found the formula for ensuring that his secondary school students leave school with a wealth of life skills, knowledge and know-how firmly anchored in modern times.