gedivt15

Pedagogy Has A Context Outside Of The Classroom

32 Comments

In the classroom, we tend to ignore, or forget, about the main roots of education, which are related to facilitating a progressive change in the world.

Effective pedagogy must be framed within social, economical, and by default, political contexts. Student learning can be more profound if we, pedagogists,  guide students to use their knowledge base, curiosity, and critical thinking to break limitations of our local community, countries, regions, and the world. This could be achieved by empowering students, through active learning, to take action to identify problems and propose solutions using the information shared inside and outside of the classroom.

Teaching must emphasize on the relevance and utility of information discussed in a course. Our ability to relate the utility of class content to solve tangible problems relates to the degree of engagement and critical skills of students.punch-magazine

32 thoughts on “Pedagogy Has A Context Outside Of The Classroom”

  1. I think this is a very important point you brought up – that the classroom has context in the real world. When we can use problem-based learning, students will be more willing to engage. Also, it is “fun” to solve real-world problems in class. This week’s readings for me at least, came full circle with the other readings and activities – from games and class engagement, assessment, etc. I also believe if we empower our students, they will seek out answers – rather than viewing the teacher as the dispenser of knowledge. In class, we have a limited amount of time, so time spent out of the classroom gaining knowledge can be very valuable.

    Thanks for sharing!
    Turner

  2. I really enjoyed reading your post and completely agree with you that we : teachers/ educators must actively work to empower students. And this empowerment may look different for different students for example: the way we develop teaching strategies, ways in which we instill critical thinking may be different for freshmen compared to seniors… I think ultimately the goal of the teacher should be to be intentional in whatever they do and teach. This would include preparing students for the ” real world” outside of the walls of the classroom.

  3. It’s critical to encourage students to think in ways that break limitations of preconceived ideas. This is how the science and human knowledge advance, isn’t it?

  4. Absolutely! I feel like not the classroom but the whole of higher education needs to be more connected to the real world. This is a big challenge but we must be headed in this direction for higher education to be meaningful. It is so easy for a teacher to regurgitate the same facts that are taught year after year, which is why there is often a tendency to shut your eyes on the real world that exists outside the classroom..

  5. I also agree with your perspective, Bernardo! The awareness of the context is essential, so we can consider all the historical, social, economic and political factors that interplay in the students life and learning.

  6. I totally agree with you. One of the main problems that I see in the way teachers teach is that a lot of teachers don’t relate the material that they’re teaching to real life problems. Furthermore, some teachers even forget about the fact that their main purpose is form a better human being who cares about his society and his environment; their end up creating very talented robots who fail at being good human beings.

  7. Exactly, we call this the “so what?” that we have to deliver when we talk about our own research. I definitely remember quite a few classes that did not provide any real reasoning for their purpose. I feel like I am at an advantage for working in an applied field where so much of what we teach and research has a very specific set of reasons.

  8. “Effective pedagogy must be framed within social, economical, and by default, political contexts. Student learning can be more profound if we, pedagogists, guide students to use their knowledge base, curiosity, and critical thinking to break limitations of our local community, countries, regions, and the world.”
    Yes! I so agree with this. I am aware most of my students will not go on to graduate school, so I am thinking about how to educate them to influence the world.

  9. I really agree with your thought. If students are not shown how the concepts taught within the four walls of the classroom are linked to the outside world, students cannot make the connection and they cannot get motivated to learn the subject. Again vice versa for a outside classroom activity if students are not shown or do not understand how they can use the classroom knowledge to solve a problem, then the knowledge they gain might not be useful. So facilitating both inside and outside class activity becomes an important consideration in a pedagogical context.

  10. Does that mean the actual education should be based on case studies relevant to the real world? So that students not only learn in the classroom but can recognize and solve problems outside the classroom

  13. Je pense que c’est un point très important que vous avez soulevé – que les salles de classe ont un contexte dans le monde réel. Lorsque nous pourrons utiliser l’apprentissage par problèmes, les élèves seront plus disposés à s’impliquer. De plus, c’est “amusant” de résoudre des problèmes du monde réel en classe.

  27. I really agree with your thought. If students are not shown how the concepts taught within the four walls of the classroom are linked to the outside world, students cannot make the connection and they cannot get motivated to learn the subject

Leave a Reply