Pedagogy, Practice, Performance....

Defining Pedagogy for teachers

For the past year our staff have been working on refining our practice, looking at how we accelerate learning for those who are falling short, and looking at what makes effective teaching practice. 

If the noun is pedagogy, does that make me a pedagog?

The wikipedia states, "Pedagogy (/ˈpɛdəɡɒdʒi/ or /ˈpɛdəɡoʊdʒi/)[1] is the science and art of education, specifically instructional theory. An instructor develops conceptual knowledge and manages the content of learning activities in pedagogical settings. Modern pedagogy has been strongly influenced by the cognitivism of Piaget, 1926, 1936/1975; the social-interactionist theories of Bruner, 1960, 1966, 1971, 1986; and the social and cultural theories of Vygotsky, 1962. These theorists have laid a foundation for pedagogy where sequential development of individual mental processes—such as recognizing, recalling, analyzing, reflecting, applying, creating, understanding, and evaluating—are scaffolded. Students learn as they internalize the procedures, organization, and structures encountered in social contexts as their own schemata. The learner requires assistance to integrate prior knowledge with new knowledge. Children must also develop metacognition, or the ability to learn how to learn."






If I apply this definition, I could claim to be a student of Bloom's digital taxonomy. Andrew Churches Educational Origami wiki explains that the digital taxonomy is an aid to learning, not to provide tools and technologies.






But, what does this look like in a classroom? What happens when politicians tell the educators that teaching reading, writing and mathematics is paramount, and providing learning skills is irrelevant? What happens when teaching becomes about results and being able to say that your child is "at" or "above" a certain standard?