No Guts, No Glory

When I read the articles for the first time, I thought to myself, “This buddy has some strong opinions for and against digital pedagogy. Soooo, which side is he really on? I don’t understand what he’s getting at.” I even wrote the words “Narrow minded!” over one of the paragraphs… Although, I have to add, I fell asleep, face planted on the carpet in my room, not 5 min later. Needless to say, I had to give these two pieces another read before really responding to them.

As I was reading through these articles, I realized that one could not simply define pedagogy as “involve[ing] the method and practice of teaching. Especially in an academic subject or theoretical concept” as I did in my previous post. 

In fact, nothing about the concept pedagogy is simple. There is no finite, conclusive definition that truly encapsulates the essence of pedagogy. No WikiHow on How to Pedagogue or Pedagogy for Dummies that would transform you from a teacher to a pedagogue overnight (I checked).

What I do understand from the texts, is the heart of the matter. Pedagogy is essentially doing whatever it takes to get the most out of your learners. Trying weird and wonderful approaches to get the learners intrigued, puzzled, excited and ultimately, involved in the material that you are covering. It’s exploring, improvising, “screwing around”, “unlearning, play and rediscovery”, as mentioned in the articles. I guess you could say that pedagogy aims to put the fun back into learning.

I am reminded of a quote on a poster that was stuck on the wall of one of my high school classes. “You are only a leader if someone is following you, or else you’re just taking a walk.” The same can be said for teaching. You are only a teacher if learning is taking place, or else you’re just wasting your breath. Likewise, you cannot be a pedagogue if no learning is taking place. If that is the case, you’re not doing it right.

By the end of the readings, I realized that I was blessed with a true pedagogue (as per my current understanding of the term) in high school. My Life Science teacher was given the challenge of making our “problem class” fall in love with her subject. And she did! It seems like yesterday that we were discussing internal organs in class, when she whipped out an animal heart and a set of lungs that she had gotten from a slaughter house. Of course, she warned us before taking it out, and allowed the learners who did not want to see it to sit in the back of the class and continue with a handout. But the rest of us were allowed to poke the organs, inspect the different chambers of the heart and stick your finger into the Aorta if you wished to do so. She also gave us drinking straws that we could use to stick into the exposed tubules of the lungs and watch it inflate when you blow into the straw. It was great fun and provided an exciting learning experience to even the most uninvolved pupil in the class.

She would always provide physical examples where she could, tell funny stories and connect them to our work content, draw pictures on the board, show us videos and make up puzzles or songs in addition to explaining the work from 20 different angles, if needed. And with freight load of enthusiasm and patience, too, just to make sure that everyone understood.

To me, she is the perfect example of what the articles meant when describing what a pedagogue should be like. The challenge raised in the Pt.1 article, though, is to take that kind of passion, creativity and commitment to learning and translate it to an online or digital platform. That is what, according to Sean in Pt.1, the world is not ready for when stating: “We are not ready to teach online.”

For those interested in reading the above mentioned articles, here are the links:

DECODING DIGITAL PEDAGOGY, PT. 1: BEYOND THE LMS

DECODING DIGITAL PEDAGOGY, PT. 2: (UN)MAPPING THE TERRAIN

My Computer ate my Homework

So, we got this challenge of responding to an article about Digital Pedagogy Unplugged… CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! B-)

I have to admit, my first response was a lot less confident than that might sound. “Peda… peda… what?” Even though it took me about 5 minutes just to figure out how to pronounce Pedagogy out loud before looking up what it actually means, I now get that it involves the method and practice of teaching. Especially in an academic subject or theoretical concept. This makes sense, considering the contexts in which pedagogy has been used in class for the past two and a half weeks.

Two things caught my eye in the article. Firstly, the emphasis that was placed on digital not necessarily referring to electronics, fascinated me. Secondly, the debate for and against the use of electronic technologies in class really got me thinking.

I really liked the way they described digital as “something to get your hands on, to deal with in dynamic units, to manipulate creatively.” In this sense, books, pieces of paper and pictures, for example, could also be included into digital pedagogy. This also means that you don’t need a computer to go digital, thus not excluding less privileged students. All you need is a creative imagination.

The above mentioned debate highlighted some view points and arguments that I could relate to, but never really thought about before. For example, digital pedagogy can be a very helpful tool in the classroom or it could be the learners’ very definition of boredom. I personally believe that it is very important to encourage the use of digital electronics in any field of education. It has become an integral part of our everyday and professional lives and is thus a vital skill to master. This being said, I also fully agree that it should be used creatively and responsibly. By this I mean that, whatever digital tool is being used, it should be used in way that would stimulate the learners’ interest and thus encourage the learners to participate. This is, after all, how learning takes place most effectively. One should also never rely solely on technology, because technology WILL fail you.

The idea of the “flip-classes”, as mentioned in the article, is a very good one and should work quite well, provided that the learners do their part, and read what they are supposed to, before class.

There is also the idea of teaching naked. I don’t agree with it. Not in the inappropriate or digital pedagogical sense of the term. In a modern day and age, I feel that it is important to “keep up with reality”. This being said, there is no doubt that it is better to have a successful, interactive learning experience without any fancy technology, than completely losing the learners’ curiosity and interest for the subject by boring them with impersonal pedagogies that stimulate absolutely no thinking or involvement.

In conclusion, I think that it is important to be able to balance digital technology in a way that it optimizes the involvement and interest of the learners. In a sense, integrating the “human aspect” into digital pedagogy as much as possible. This would then create the optimal learning environment, which is what we want, right?

Back to school

Testing... testing...1,2... 1,2... is this thing on?

Hi. I'm Nicoline Elizabeth Taljaard. My friends call me Zabby, but I'm pretty sure most of my lecturers just know me as 17121884. Most of campus knows me as the girl with red hair and green scooter, but that's mostly because of my driving. 

I'm new around here. Not to Stellies, I've been here since first year and grew up on ocean's side of the hill. I meant this whole blogging thing. We have to do it as part of one of our modules (I seriously did not see that one coming). I've always wanted to be one of those sophisticated sounding people who, very nonchalantly, mention  that they write a blog in casual conversation. Then again, any old Snap, Crackle and Pop could write a blog these days. All you need is internet access.

(Super subtle topic change). Since this blog is called confessions, I suppose I may declare:

I am UNBELIEVABLY nervous about this year and what it would hold! (Insert facepalm here).

Moving departments feels like moving to a new town! Total opposite side of campus! New lecturers I'm not sure how to address, new faces to try and remember, new buildings to get lost in... not to mention that I only had one theory subject last year and now have to recondition myself to 13. That's right, thirteen! All of them year modules. And to top it all off, they make us write a test on the very first day, telling us to write 70 words for 50 marks. HOW?! Where I come from, you have to write at least a page per 10 possible marks. But, that's postgrad. for you. Playtime is over.  I suppose I will just have keep my chin up, shove my flower crown onto my head and to get used to it. Keep praying, keep smiling and take it one day at a time.

Breathe in... Breathe out...Repeat if required...