Pedagogy Content and its Form

Abstract:

Educators, researchers, and policy makers have advocated student involvement for some time as

an essential aspect of meaningful learning. In the past twenty years engineering educators have

implemented several means of better engaging their classroom students, including active and

cooperative learning, learning communities, service learning, cooperative education, inquiry and

problem-based learning, and team projects.

In recent years interest has grown in pedagogy within English-language discussions of education.

The impetus has come from different directions. A common way of approaching pedagogy is as

the art and science (and maybe even craft) of teaching. As we will see, viewing pedagogy in this

way both fails to honor the historical experience, and to connect crucial areas of theory and

practice. Here we suggest that a good way of exploring pedagogy is as the process of

accompanying learners; caring for and about them; and bringing learning into life. This paper is concerned mainly with the practical operationalization of learner autonomy and its implementation in the

classroom.

Introduction

What is Pedagogy?

Pedagogy 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. These theorists have laid a foundation for pedagogy where sequential development of

individual mental processes, such as recognize, recall, analyze, reflect, apply, create, understand,

and evaluate, are scaffold. Students learn as they internalize the procedures, organization, and

structures encountered in social contexts as their own schema. The learner requires assistance to

integrate prior knowledge with new knowledge. Children must also develop metacognition, or the

ability to learn how to learn.

The key difference between learner-centered and traditional curriculum development is that, in the former, the curriculum is a collaborative effort between teachers and learners, since learners are closely involved in the decision-making process regarding the content of the curriculum and how it is taught.

Characteristics of Successful Pedagogy:

Structured lessons Clear presentations Appropriate pacing Modelling skills Conceptual mapping Interactive questioning

Individual/group practice Assessment and diagnosis Matching learning tasks to student attributes

Content of Pedagogy:

Education includes the nurture of the child and, as it grows, its culture. The latter is firstly

negative, consisting of discipline; that is, merely the correcting of faults. Secondly, culture is

positive, consisting of instruction and guidance (and thus forming part of education). Guidance

means directing the pupil in putting into practice what he has been taught. Hence the difference

between a private teacher who merely instructs, and a tutor or governor who guides and directs

his pupil. The one trains for school only, the other for life.

Following are content of successful pedagogy

Content of Pedagogy INVOLVES APPROAC

H Learner training

Specific courses or short courses where the focus is on developing skills for independent learning and raising students awareness of the importance of learning outside the classroom. Such courses usually include strategy instruction and often also include general study skills, rather than language learning skills on

Strategy instruction

Often offered as part of regular classroom teaching, and sometimes offered as specific classes or short courses on language learning strategies.

Self-access

Often considered the most common way of implementing autonomy: the provision of a self-access center or on-line self-access materials usually involves making available resources for independent learning and staff support. Sometimes self-access learning is integrated into the classroom, with the teacher working with students in the center, and sometimes self-access is used outside classroom time, for remedial or practice purposes, either with a teacher or independently.

Language advising

or language counselling

A type of language support whereby a teacher and a learner meet to discuss the learners needs and progress, and where the adviser offers feedback, recommends materials, and helps the learner to plan their learning.

Specific tools

Many institutions have developed or link to(on-line or print) tools for the management of the language learning process that often aim explicitly to foster learner autonomy. Examples include (electronic) portfolios, such as those developed by the European Union, tandem learning programs and personal learning environments that aim to facilitate and create links between formal and informal learning. Some have developed on-line learning environments that offer materials for self-study, tips for independent learning, and opportunities for staff and student communication.

Identifying needs for applying Pedagogy in the classroom

In many classrooms, learners are simply given scores that indicate their general levels, but not always individualized profiles of their strengths and weaknesses, including their learning needs. More importantly, learners individual needs often do not directly inform classroom practice and learners may be forgiven for wondering what the relation is between their learning and the teachers teaching. It is surprising how often learners have no clear idea of their language needs, and the discrepancies that exist between what learners think they need and where their actual weaknesses lie. Equally worryingly, many learners have little idea of their learning needs In other words: they have little knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses as language learners. They may know, For example, that they need to improve their writing skills, but may not know that they are poor at learning with and from others, which is a learning skill, and one that will affect their success in writing.

Development of learner autonomy:

Autonomy is the ability to take charge of one's own learning. Learning Autonomy is essentially a matter

of the learner's psychological relation to the process and content of learning. Autonomy is a situation in

which the learner is totally responsible for all the decisions concerned with his [or her] learning and the

implementation of those decisions. Autonomy is a recognition of the rights of learners within educational

systems'.

Reflection Motivation Interaction

Monitoring Progress

Practice

Planning learning

Selecting resource

Selecting strategies

Setting goals

Assessment and Revision

Identifying learning needs

Stages in the development of learner autonomy

L

Learning Stages Teacher Directed Learn Directed

Identifying needs Placement tests, Teacher Feedback

Learner experiences difficulties in using the language.

Setting goals Determined by the course, relatively fixed

Contextually determined, relatively flexible

Planning learning Determined by the teacher. Somewhat flexible.

Contextually determined. Very flexible.

Selecting resources Provided by teacher Self-selection by learners

Selecting learning strategies

Teacher models and instructions.

Self-selection by learners

Practice Exercises and activities provided by teacher

Implementation (language use) and experimentation

Monitoring progress Regular classroom feedback and comments on assignments and tasks

Self-monitoring, peer feedback

Assessment and revision Tests, curriculum changes Self-assessment, reflection

EARNING STAGES TEACHER-DIRECTED LEARNER-DIRECTED

Scenario of current Teacher Education with same curriculum:

When India attained freedom, the then existing educational system was accepted as such because it was thought that an abrupt departure from the same would be disturbing and destabilizing. Thus a predisposition to retain the system acquired preponderance and all that was envisaged by way of changes was its rearrangement. Consequently, education including teacher education largely remained isolated from the needs and aspirations of the people. During the last five decades certain efforts have been made to indigenize the system. The gaps, however, are still wide and visible. The need for improved levels of educational participation for overall progress is well recognized. The key role of educational institutions in realising it is reflected in a variety of initiatives taken to transform the nature and function of education -- both formal as well as non-formal. Universal accessibility to quality education is considered essential for development. This has necessitated improvement in the system of teacher education so as to prepare quality teachers.

Good School with Superior working :

Teacher education is an integral component of the educational system. It is intimately connected with society and is conditioned by the ethos, culture and character of a nation. The constitutional goals, the directive principles of the state policy, the socio-economic problems and the growth of knowledge, the emerging expectations and the changes operating in education, etc. call for an appropriate response from a futuristic education

system and provide the perspective within which teacher education programmes need to be viewed

Perhaps the strongest conclusion that can be made is the least surprising. Simply put, the greater the students involvement or engagement in academic work or in the academic experience of college, the greater his or her level of knowledge acquisition

and general cognitive development If the level of involvement were totally determined by individual student motivation, interest, and ability, the above

conclusion would be uninteresting as well as unsurprising. However, a substantial

amount of evidence indicates that there are instructional and programmatic

interventions that not only increase a students active engagement in learning and academic work but also enhance knowledge acquisition and some dimensions of

both cognitive and psychosocial change

How to apply pedagogical framework in Classroom

Various Commissions and Committees appointed by the Central and the State Governments in

recent decades have invariably emphasised the need for quality teacher education suited to the

needs of the educational system. The Secondary Education Commission (1953) observed that a

major factor responsible for the educational reconstruction at the secondary stage is teachers'

professional training. The Education Commission (1964-66) stressed that 'in a world based on

science and technology it is education that determines the level of prosperity, welfare and

security of the people' and that 'a sound programme of professional education of teachers is

essential for the qualitative improvement of education.'

Following are ways to which we can apply in the classroom:

Excellent organizational skills teachers make sure all children understand the learning objectives and associated concepts and have extremely well

organized resources and smooth classroom routines.

Positive classroom climate adults and children in the class like and respect one another. Classrooms are happy places, children are less

disruptive and behavior management is sensitive (no-one is humiliated).

Personalized teaching - teachers are sensitive to the individual needs of children and provide resources to match those needs. The teachers are more

likely to link learning in the classroom with the world outside the classroom

door and to provide homework that links directly to lesson content. Dialogic

teaching and learning this harnesses the power of talk to extend and stimulate student thinking to advance their learning and understanding. It

provides opportunities for higher order thinking.

Plenaries teachers in the best schools are twice as likely as teachers in poor schools to use a plenary and they use it to recap on the lesson, provide

feedback, challenge thinking and provide opportunities for further

discussion.

CONCLUSION:

In highly-resourced school settings, where teachers have continual access to

high quality equipment at school and at home, and are able to make frequent

use of it in their teaching, the potential of these features is being incorporated

into their pedagogical reasoning. Studies of typical teachers in such settings

have provided evidence that most characteristics of effective teaching, clear

presentations, appropriate pacing, modelling of skills, interactive questioning,

smooth flow of activity, efficient resource management, assessment/

diagnosis/feedback and matching learning tasks to student attributes.

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_education

http://www.ce.umn.edu/~smith/docs/Smith-Pedagogies_of_Engagement.pdf

http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=ajte

http://education.qld.gov.au/curriculum/pdfs/pedagogical-framework-faqs.pdf

http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-pedagogy/#pedagogues

http://www.ncte-india.org/pub/curr/curr.htm#21

http://www.oecd.org/education/school/31672150.pdf