Get your ASS to CLASS :)

Just in case you didn’t read my last blog (which you should go and do…right now…) this is just a quick recap (check those teacher skills bro);

Pedagogy is the method and practice of teaching an academic subject or theoretical concept.

Digital pedagogy is an attempt to use technology to change teaching and learning in a variety of ways.

Teaching at its most literal level is to educate and to convey knowledge. That is the central part of a teacher's job.

And at the centre of it all and the basis of my rant today;

WHAT IS TEACHING WITHOUT LEARNING?

So! The two articles I just read bring forth various opinions about teaching, online teaching and methods that are barely effective for education. Quintessentially what the articles do is debunk misconceptions of what both teaching and digital pedagogies is and definitely are not.

In Decoding Digital Pedagogy Pt. 2, I thought that the quote by Brian Croxall and Adeline Koh to follow carried immense weight and significance in the further understanding of teaching and decoding digital pedagogy; “digital pedagogy is the use of electronic elements to enhance or to change the experience of education.” 

Key word: ENHANCE, not the tendency to rely on entirely.

Additionally, the writer Jesse Stommel highlights that “the best digital tools inspire us, often to use them in ways the designer couldn’t anticipate. The worst digital tools attempt to dictate our pedagogies, determining what we can do with them and for whom.”

However the entire article doesn’t base entirely on what digital pedagogy is and teaching effectively, (no, that was last week’s reading). This one then goes on to focus and include teachers and learners under the notion of Digital Pedagogy. Which I think is actually pretty darn epic.

Howard Rheingold writes; “We must develop a participative pedagogy, assisted by digital media and networked publics that focuses on catalyzing, inspiring, nourishing, facilitating, and guiding literacies essential to individual and collective life in the 21st century.” (massive shoutout to Howard)

Students should move from being the object of the educational process to its subject. Students are not and should not merely be consumers of knowledge but producers as well, that engage in meaningful, generative work along with the teacher.

This is essentially where the two articles linked for me;

“Pedagogy concerns itself with the instantaneous, momentary, vital exchanges that takes place in order for learning to happen. That exchange may be between teacher and student, or between student and student; it can also occur between teacher and teacher, administrator and CEO, journalist and educator.”

This just perpetuates that learning can be and possibly should be co-constructed. I’ve always seen teaching and learning as somewhat of a dialogue or a channel of communication. Sean Morris writes that “the LMS played to the lowest common denominator, creating a “classroom” that allowed learning — or something like learning — to happen behind tabs, in threaded discussions, and through automated quizzes. 

Healthy interaction with classmates is what motivates young learners. Interacting with peers often involves exchanging notes (shoutout to anyone that’s ever shared their notes with me), scheduling group discussions and organizing study circles etc. In an online course, none of this is possible.Thanks to the efforts of new-age academics, websites and apps, online education has emerged as a viable alternative to classroom education.

Learning and understanding should be an OUTCOME of teaching, this is an outcome I believe CAN happen in a classroom. In a classroom filled with peers equally as confused as you are.

I know that every method of learning has its own merits and any type of learning is likely to produce results. However, in our ever increasing virtual world there is a need for real interaction. Classroom sessions provide this.