What is Pedagogy? | 4 Essential Learning Theories | Satchel

Summary

In "What is Pedagogy? | 4 Essential Learning Theories," Team Satchel delves into the complex world of pedagogy and its significance in education. The video begins by exploring the definition of pedagogy and its historical context. It then introduces four essential learning theories: Behaviorism, Liberationism, Social Constructivism, and Connectivism. Each theory is examined in terms of its principles, historical roots, and implications for modern teaching. The video concludes by highlighting the importance of experimenting with different pedagogical approaches to enhance education and adapt to technological advancements.

Highlights

• Explore four core learning theories that shape teaching methods! 📚
• Behaviorism prioritizes teacher control and repetition for learning. 🐱➡️🍪
• Liberationism empowers students as creators of knowledge. 🚀
• Social Constructivism turns social interaction into a learning tool. 👥
• Connectivism embraces technology's role in modern education. 🌐
• Pedagogy continues to evolve, offering diverse approaches to teaching. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Pedagogy is the science and art of teaching, often beginning in frustration! 🤯
• Behaviorism emphasizes control and repetition, but may limit critical thinking. 🎓
• Liberationism focuses on student independence and critical thinking. 🚀
• Social Constructivism values learning through social interaction. 🗣️
• Connectivism integrates technology as a core part of modern education. 💻

Overview

Pedagogy, the art, and science of teaching can often be a source of frustration for educators, much like the humorous attempts to pronounce it correctly. In this enlightening video, Team Satchel unravels the complexities of pedagogy by revisiting its origins, starting from its Greek etymology to its fluctuating popularity over the years. The focus then shifts to understanding its relevance through various educational theories that have shaped learning environments over centuries.

The video expertly walks us through four foundational learning theories. We start with Behaviorism, which sees learning as a process guided by repetition and reinforcement, drawing from Edward Thorndike’s puzzle-box experiments with cats. On the opposite spectrum stands Liberationism, advocated by Paulo Freire, which sees students as active participants in their learning, promoting critical thinking. This approach is contrasted with Social Constructivism, emphasized by Lev Vygotsky, where social interactions are pivotal in learning experiences.

Lastly, Connectivism emerges as a theory for the digital age, highlighting the growing role of technology in learning, championed by theorist George Siemens. This theory not only encapsulates the use of technology in education but also the development of skills necessary to navigate a digitally connected world. The video concludes with an encouragement to educators to explore and integrate these theories into their teaching, adapting to the evolving educational landscape.

What is Pedagogy? | 4 Essential Learning Theories | Satchel Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 What is pedagogy? And why should teachers care? Psychologist Lee Shulman said that "If philosophy begins in wonder, pedagogy typically begins in frustration." Firstly, it's a frustrating but fun word to pronounce. Ped-ah-goggy? Pedog-ah-jee? Pedo-cachee? But what makes it most frustrating is how teachers are rarely given the time and training to learn more about it. In this video, we're going to explore what pedagogy is
• 00:30 - 01:00 through four of its core ideas or learning theories. But first, let's take a closer look at what pedagogy actually means. Pedagogy is the theory, method and philosophy of teaching. But, strictly speaking, it only refers to the teaching of children. In fact, the word 'pedagogy' comes from the ancient Greek word 'paidagōgós', *learning Greek* Okay, cool. The word pedagogy comes from the ancient Greek 'paidagōgós', which literally means 'leader of children'.
• 01:00 - 01:30 The use of the word surged during the 1900s as more emphasis was placed on the science behind learning. But, as you can see, since then, the use of 'pedagogy' has been in decline. Whilst we don't know exactly why that is, one explanation could be the rise in teacher workload. As the Teacher Workload Survey discovers every year workload is continuously on the rise. This could explain why teachers have less time to learn about the academic field studying their methods. So, is pedagogy still relevant in the modern classroom or is it a thing of the past?
• 01:30 - 02:00 To find this out, let's go back to 1898, to the beginning of what is arguably the first approach to pedagogy: Behaviourism. Behaviorism centres around the idea that the teacher should be in control of the classroom and that repetition is the best way to learn. It all started with a man named Edward Thorndike and a cat in a box. As strange as it might sound Thorndike's learning theory began as an experiment where he placed a cat in a puzzle box. That cat was rewarded with a treat for working out the levers and buttons to press in order to free itself. Thorndike found that the cat associated escaping
• 02:00 - 02:30 from the box with getting a treat and escaped faster each time. This is called: operant conditioning and it forms the basis of behaviourism. But how can we apply this theory to classroom learning? Psychologists like BF Skinner began to apply these methods to education, arguing that teachers need need complete control of the lesson for students to learn best. Skinner even championed a teaching machine, which allowed students to answer questions and immediately find out if they were correct. He called this 'reinforcement', where, like Thorndike's cat, the student learns the
• 02:30 - 03:00 right behavior over time through immediate feedback. Today, behaviorism reminds us that giving praise doesn't just encourage students, but guides them and give some structure to their learning. But what this fails to take into account is individual thinking and giving learners independence. When a teacher, or a machine, is given complete control, the student isn't as likely to develop critical thinking and self-expression. By only taking into account of observable behaviour, not what's going on in students' minds,
• 03:00 - 03:30 learning can't realistically be tailored to students' needs. However, for the purpose of exams and student behaviour, behaviourism still mostly works. Repetition and reward is still the basis for revision and having a reward system and teacher-led learning is a pillar for today's classroom. This is why pedagogy exists. To compare and re-evaluate our ways of teaching, to think how it can be done differently and how we can improve. So let's have a look at the next approach:
• 03:30 - 04:00 Liberationsim. On the flip side of behaviourism, the liberationist approach is cented around the student rather than the teacher. The father of lliberationism, Paulo Freire, was exiled from Brazil in 1964. This is partially due to his opposition to traditional pedagogy and what he called 'emancipation through education'. Freire saw traditional teaching methods as oppressive. He believed that students were not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Instead, they should be treated as creators of knowledge. He wrote in his book,
• 04:00 - 04:30 The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that education can emancipate those in poverty and that the main thing preventing this was the school system. By letting his students decide how they learn best and which topics they needed to learn more about, Freire encouraged them to think critically as independent learners beyond the classroom. The key difference here is the view that standard teaching fills students' minds with information in the same way that you would pour water into a cup. Freire's theory was that if you can give the cop arms it can fill itself. -When did you throw that one in there?
• 04:30 - 05:00 Liberationism is a pedagogy that expels the idea that education is simply about learning things and makes it more about the way we learn. Full-blown liberationism puts the student front and centre of learning. As Hall of Fame teacher Joe Ruhl says "Teachers should be a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage." By breaking away from the traditional structure of the classroom and having cluster groups of students, a classroom can encapsulate more learning styles. With liberationism, students decide which task they think is best suited to
• 05:00 - 05:30 their knowledge gaps. They can then join specific task groups with teachers acting as the guide on the side. If you think liberationism is a bit too unstructured, but you like the idea of students learning from each other, our next approach might just tick all those boxes. Social constructivism. Social constructivism is an approach to pedagogy that explores whether students chatting in the class might actually be learning more. Granted, they might just be talking about Love Island, but the idea is that the social interaction could be a key component in the learning experience. Social constructivism was
• 05:30 - 06:00 championed by Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist that believed that children learnt best when talking between themselves to solve the problems. It was built on an existing theory by another psychologist Jean Piaget, who believed that students' capacity for learning increased as their academic ability grew. This was called 'cognitive constructivism'. But whilst Piaget believed that learning was a deeply personal internal process that took place only in students' minds, social constructivists like Vygotsky disagreed.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Vygotsky believed that learning takes place externally when problems are solved together in groups and through the resulting conversations. So can this environment be created in class? Constructivism works best when time is set aside for students to discuss the topic with each other and with the teacher. In class the teacher sets a problem that is to be solved in mixed ability groups, this teaches students the importance of communication and learning from others' experience. Students that are further ahead benefit from solidifying the information for their peers and the students who are slightly behind will have a chance to catch up.
• 06:30 - 07:00 Connectivism Connectivism is one of the newest approaches to pedagogy. Coined in 2005 by education and technology theorist George Siemens, it considers the impact of technology in education and how teachers can adapt to it. This approach can be broadly defined as the process of learning via technology and developing the skills to navigate vast networks of information, such as the Internet. It applies the function of modern technology to all these ideas to create a learning theory for the future. In 2008, Siemens ran an online webinar that
• 07:00 - 07:30 explored and explained connectivism. He created a diverse learning environment, completely contained within the internet, but connectivism is more than online learning. It's teaching students to be learners in a digital age. It may have been a pipe dream in the classroom of old, but with an ever increasing EdTech presence in school and at home, connectivism is here to stay. Students can learn wherever they log in and, once given the skills to navigate this world of information, use it to further their learning and develop autonomously. This could be done in a more traditional setting like a teacher led classroom
• 07:30 - 08:00 with computers or in a classroom where the teacher sets the work that can be completed with the help of the internet. Instead of simply teaching knowledge the teacher's there to facilitate students' search for knowledge by showing them how to extract it. Some teachers have taken to using Twitter with students answering questions through tweets. This boosts engagement by applying the digital world they're familiar with to the work they might not otherwise want to do. It's clear that technology in the classroom isn't going anywhere, so preparing for its effects on education is definitely a good move. Well, if this
• 08:00 - 08:30 video has taught you anything, it's probably that pedagogy is indeed frustrating. It can't really be defined as one particular way of thinking and it overlaps and intertwines with itself endlessly, making categorising quite difficult. But one thing is for sure, its insights continue to change education for the better, developing stronger learning techniques and giving teachers better tools to teach. Our advice is to experiment with all these approaches. Some will work, some won't, but you won't know until you try. Try and find time each week to discover a new learning theory. It could change
• 08:30 - 09:00 the way you teach forever. If you like this video please be sure to click the like button, subscribe and leave a comment!