Pedagogy

Pedagogy

In my last post, I talked about what motivates someone to learn something. After writing that post I started thinking about the various things that I have learned and why I have learned them. For some reason, my thoughts always wandered towards the formal education that I have undergone.  There were some instances where I was motivated to learn more or find out more about a given topic based on how it was presented to me by the people teaching that topic. This thought, in turn, got me thinking about pedagogy.

So what is pedagogy?

The word pedagogy comes from the Greek language. In ancient Greece, families often had attendants who would accompany the children of the family to their place of formal learning. These attendants were called pedagogues and overtime they were tasked with not only escorting the children of the family to their formal learning places but also teach them about rules of behaviour, social interactions and life in general.

Nowadays pedagogy is defined as the art and science of teaching. But I think that is a very simplistic or a very narrow definition of what pedagogy is or can be. I say this because pedagogy is not just about teaching, it is also about leading a learner to a situation where they can learn themselves, improve their skills, analyse and argue about notions and solve problems.  Effective pedagogy requires that a range of approaches be used when teaching or providing instructions to a learner in accordance with the learner's background, ability and learning preference. Some examples of these approaches are experiential learning, peer learning, case studies, constructivist learning etc.

Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia

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