CLAIRE LAIGUILLON // TEACHER // UNIVERSITY OF BORDEAUX

»The expressions "Alone we go faster, to-gether we go further" and "Think global, act local" seem to me to be perfectly representative of what the ENLIGHT community tries to do on a daily basis.«

Claire Laiguillon is passionate about reimagining education for the challenges of today and tomorrow. As an educational developer at “la MAPI,” she works closely with teachers and researchers to make learning more active, flexible, and relevant to real-world issues. Her journey has taken her from the mountains of Vietnam to the classrooms of Japan, and today she channels that global perspective into her work with ENLIGHT, helping to design challenge-based courses, support international collaboration, and bring innovative teaching methods to life.

Clarie with colleagues at Teaching and Learning Conference in Bordeaux 2023

Where are you from?

CLAIRE: My name is Claire Laiguillon, I'm a French as a Foreign Language teacher by training and I'm originally from Bègles, a town in the Bordeaux metropolitan area in France. I'm currently an educational developer at “la MAPI”, the pedagogy and innovation support service of the University of Bordeaux.

Our service supports teams of teachers and teacher-researchers through consultancy, workshops and training to develop new teaching practices based on active pedagogy and the use of digital technologies. Our services range from support in setting up projects to their practical implementation. We also support the teams in continuously improving their educational offer, in order to personalise and make the learning pathways of students more flexible, while empowering the students. We also aim to empower the students, link education more closely to research, the socio-economic world and the challenges of transitions.

"I like working with teachers to make their courses relevant to Today's world."

Have you ever lived or studied abroad?

CLAIRE: I spent a year traveling around East and Southeast Asia. It was a formative experience that determined my future choices. When I was offered the opportunity to teach French as part of an international inter-university and inter-provincial collaboration, I jumped at the chance, which took me back to Japan, to Okayama University, and to Vietnam, to the mountains of Sapa. The audiences, educational cultures, contexts, and learning challenges were very different. I learned a lot on both a personal and professional level, especially about the importance of properly analyzing the learning needs and intercultural and socio-economic issues of the target audiences for teaching and support in general.

These experiences and my other travels confirmed my desire to work in structures dedicated to teaching and education for all, and to educational cooperation in Europe and internationally.

What do you like the most about your current occupation?

CLAIRE: What I like the most in my job is working with teachers to meet the challenges of making their courses relevant to today's world. One example is helping teachers to design and implement the different teaching and training practices related to internationalisation, and to make them accessible to as many students as possible. Another example is supporting the development of courses and programmes that focus on the challenges of social and environmental change.

In this sense, ENLIGHT is a perfect synthesis of the topics I work on with the teams on a daily basis.

Tell us about your participation in ENLIGHT.

CLAIRE: I'm involved in ENLIGHT education-related activities.

Specifically, I have been involved in the design and delivery of training courses dedicated to challenge-based education for teachers and doctoral students of the Alliance, as well as its deployment within the University of Bordeaux.

It was on the basis of this methodology that two of my colleagues and I helped two teams of teachers from the University of Bordeaux to design ENLIGHT courses in 2022 using the Blended Intensive Programme format: a short programme (Urban Mining) and a living lab (Sustainable and Experimental Student Housing).

I take an active part in Teaching & Learning Conference activities. After attending the Teaching & Learning conferences in Ghent (2021) and Göttingen (2022), I was part of the organising team for the conference in Bordeaux in October 2023, working on the script for the various highlights of the conference and producing guidelines.

In ENLIGHT 2.0, I'm continuing to work on these subjects and I recently joined the Stepping Stones group (Work Package 2). I'm also helping to work on the wider roll-out of ENLIGHT education-related activities at my university.

What motivated you to participate in ENLIGHT?

CLAIRE: I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining ENLIGHT because the strengthening of inter-university cooperation in research and education and the objectives it pursues are in line with my commitments as a citizen and a professional and with the strategy pursued at the University of Bordeaux.

It was also an opportunity for me to meet with my peers to discuss our practices, to understand the organisation of the different university systems and the challenges they face, and to work together towards common goals for the benefit of the ENLIGHT community.

Did participating in ENLIGHT grow your professional network?

CLAIRE: Taking part in ENLIGHT is definitely helping to expand my professional network by enabling me to work with people with a wide range of profiles and skills, and to open up my perspectives on the subjects I work on every day.

Don't hesitate to get involved! You'll discover a diverse community committed to tomorrow's education and research.

What is your biggest takeaway from your experience with ENLIGHT?

CLAIRE: I would say organising the Teaching & Learning Conference in Bordeaux in 2023. It's always a challenge, right up to the last minute, but what a reward to see that, thanks to the commitment of all our colleagues at the University of Bordeaux and ENLIGHT, we have contributed to creating a forum for exchanging ideas and promoting the teaching and learning activities that take place every day in the universities of the Alliance.

What city did you visit, what was your impression of it?

CLAIRE: Thanks to my involvement with ENLIGHT, I've been able to visit cities such as Ghent, Göttingen and Bilbao. I have very fond memories of these visits, especially because of the warm welcome we received. Every city has its own character and charm. I really like cities built on rivers or near the sea and the activity that goes on there, as I saw in Ghent and Bilbao. I also really enjoyed the atmosphere of the Christmas markets, which were just starting when I visited Göttingen.

I hope that I will now be able to take the time to explore them in more detail, as well as discovering new cities in the Alliance.

How would you describe ENLIGHT in two sentences?

CLAIRE: The expressions "Alone we go faster, together we go further" and "Think global, act local" seem to me to be perfectly representative of what the ENLIGHT community tries to do on a daily basis. Together we think systemically, taking into account complexity, education and research issues, and we work to find concrete ways of taking action at both Alliance and local levels.

Would you choose a holiday by the sea, in the city or in the mountains?

CLAIRE: It's hard to say... because when I travel, it's almost always itinerant. So I'd choose all three: the mountains for the wildlife and hiking, the sea to relax at the end of the day and watch the sunset, and the city at night for an evening stroll.

What is the best book you read in the past year?

 CLAIRE: One of the best books I can think of is Les Identités Meurtrières by Amin Maalouf, a French-Lebanese writer, who explores the notion of identity, or rather identities. Drawing on his own life experience, the author questions the dynamics of assigning and categorising people on the basis of the colour of their skin, the languages they speak and the religion they practise or do not practise, and thus setting them up as representatives of fixed and fantasised identities. Even if this book does not address certain points that it would be interesting to question, it lays the foundations for an essential reflection that we need today more than ever.

 If you were to recommend ENLIGHT to a colleague, what would you say?

CLAIRE: Don't hesitate to get involved! You'll discover a diverse community committed to tomorrow's education and research. You'll work together to imagine and disseminate concrete teaching and research methods and practices to meet the challenges facing us all, and for which we'll need everyone's knowledge and skills.

Challenge-Based Education workshop, T&L Conference, Göttingen 2022