Take a pedagogical stance and align with a theoretical position presented in one of the two readings – Ertmer & Newby (2013) and Merrill (2002). Describe how these perspectives can apply to day-to-day work.

To take a stance on pedagogy based on these two readings, most would argue a good grasp of the concept of pedagogy itself is useful. In seeking a definition, there was one that resonated with me. Smith (2012, pp. 3) offers that pedagogy is:

“the process of accompanying learners; caring for and about them; and bringing learning into life.”

This is in contrast with Wikipedia’s definition – that it is a “discipline that deals with the theory and practice of teaching” (Pedagogy, pp. 1). Smith (2012) argues that teaching is only a part of pedagogy, in fact as he puts it – it’s a process. Keeping that in mind, I can dive into identifying and aligning with a theoretical perspective that informs this chosen definition of pedagogy.

The positions taken by the authors in the readings both follow an evaluation of theories, related to learning and instruction. Ertmer & Newby (2013)’s article evaluates learning theories while Merrill (2002) reviews instructional design theories. The three major learning theories are described in Ertmer & Newby (2013) – behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism.

Points made by Ertmer & Newby (2013):

  • Generally, it is agreed that behaviorism does not “adequately explain the acquisition of higher level skills or those that require a greater depth of processing” (p. 49).
  • Cognitivism believes learning occurs because of a learner’s mental processes whereas behaviorism believes that it is more due to the learner’s environment. As a result, cognitivism can better explain more complex forms of learning.
  • Constructivism combines each of these theories’ emphasized elements – the learner and environment – to argue that it is the “interaction between these two variables that creates knowledge” (p. 55)

These points led into a discussion that presented a theoretical positioning that I aligned with. In designing learning experiences, Ertmer & Newby (2013) prescribe that there is no ultimate winning learning theory that applies to all situations, but rather that each situation has specific context that needs to be evaluated to determine which theory is the best fit.

I agree with this perspective of choosing the learning theory based on the situation – tailoring the learning experience is integral to successful learning. If pedagogy is defined as the process that brings learning to life, my pedagogical process is to frame the learning on a case-by-case basis but have a tight repetitive process on how I evaluate the learning experience prior to designing it. This evaluation would be important to determine which theory to apply. Some evaluated elements would be content type, subject matter area, time, prior knowledge, audience size and type.

In terms of a work application of this pedagogical stance, the following examples will demonstrate how this stance could be applied. In the context of educating on market knowledge to management in a corporate setting, different learning theories are applied in different situations.

A behaviorist application may be utilized to ensure that an operational leader learned to recall the names for different prices in each region. An approach could be to have consistent online content that refers to price names in the same way in visuals and writing. Then those price names could be repeated out loud in weekly meetings facilitating the content.

A cognitivist approach would be applied when designing learning on a concept that may be more complex in nature than recalling the name of a price. For instance, it could be teaching them to understand the reason that prices differentiate between different regions. This information would be strategically pieced out and placed in a strand of ideas that builds on the one before to lead the learner to understanding the concept.

Applying a constructivist mindset may be more appropriate to deepen understanding in this situation. For example, developing a game that was contextualized to the team that involved external factors that were read aloud that alter the prices and the ability to trade in the different regions, using fake money. The learning objectives would be for them to comprehend why prices changed in regions.

Using this pedagogical stance, different learning theories could be applied for differing learning experiences within the same workplace.

References

Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.

Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(3), 43-59.

Smith, M. K. (2012). ‘What is pedagogy?’, the encyclopedia of informal education. [http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-pedagogy/. Retrieved: Sept 20th 2017].

Pedagogy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2017 from the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy

Image Source

Photo by J Scott Rakozy on Unsplash