{"id":485,"date":"2019-10-08T09:49:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T16:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/?p=485"},"modified":"2019-10-08T09:53:48","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T16:53:48","slug":"my-theoretical-and-pedagogical-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/my-theoretical-and-pedagogical-stance\/","title":{"rendered":"My theoretical and pedagogical stance"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Photo by\u00a0Octavian Rosca<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a>]\n

In this blog, I would like to outline my theoretical and pedagogical stance through reflecting on which educational theory is best linked with my pedagogical practice, and how this stance is being implemented in my daily work as an instructional librarian. Aligning with a particular theoretical framework can bright forth “verified instructional strategies, tactics, and <\/span>techniques” (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 44), thus guiding my practice and providing a better understanding of the instructional principles of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel that my pedagogical practice is strongly dictated by the constructivism theory. This theory has a strong emphasis on a learner and his\/her construction of meaning through learning and hands-on experiences (Ertmer & Newby, 2013).\u00a0 The basic assumption of constructivism is that “humans <\/span>create<\/span> meaning as opposed to <\/span>acquiring <\/span>it” (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 55). In my pedagogical practice as an instructional librarian and based on my current experience of teaching a semester-long course on critical analysis of information sources, I have observed countless times that students understand and acquire knowledge when they are able to make it meaningful for them.\u00a0<\/span>Thus, when explaining an independent concept (such as for example, Boolean operators), I can observe that students will not retain it unless they can understand the meaning of this concept and its relevance towards their own information searching.<\/p>\n

As a result in my pedagogical practice, I tend to ask questions that will make students reflect on the issue critically, rather than providing them with the ready solutions since I believe they will be able to learn better if they can apply their existing knowledge to the question, and expand on it. Thus for example, when teaching students how to critically assess the resources for searching, I asked them to compare the searching process in Google and library database to allow them to come to their conclusion about searching in practice, rather than presenting this information in class. Similarly, when discussing Wikipedia as a source, rather than giving them ready answers about how to critically use it, I have asked them to provide pros and cons of Wikipedia to enhance their understanding of their subject through their own construction of meaning.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I strongly believe that knowledge construction is an iterative process. The students build on their previous knowledge structures and they are able to produce their own meaning based on those structures.\u00a0 According to Ertmer and Newby (2013),\u00a0 “a<\/span>ppropriate and eff<\/span>ective use comes <\/span>from engaging the learner in the actual use of the tools in real-world situa<\/span>tions” (p. 57). Therefore, rather than showing them library tools during the demonstration, I encourage students to practice with their own keywords, since doing so will help them to make the learning process more applicable to their interests and thus more contextual for their given situation and information need, and therefore “problem-centered” (Merrill, 2002, p. 45). <\/span><\/p>\n

My ultimate goal as an instructor is to help students to integrate new knowledge “into the learner’s world” (Merrill, 2002, p. 45). In order to do it effectively, Merrill’s phases will definitely help me to construct my content and assignments better to accommodate students’ learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

References:<\/p>\n

Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013).\u00a0Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective<\/a>.\u00a0Performance Improvement Quarterly<\/i>,\u00a026<\/i>(2), 43-71.<\/p>\n

Merrill, M. D. (2002).\u00a0First principles of instruction<\/a>.\u00a0Educational Technology Research and Development<\/i>,\u00a050<\/i>(3), 43-59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo by\u00a0Octavian Rosca\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash] In this blog, I would like to outline my theoretical and pedagogical stance through reflecting on which educational theory is best linked with my pedagogical practice, and how this stance is being implemented in my daily work as an instructional librarian. Aligning with a particular theoretical framework can bright forth “verified instructional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}