PEDAGOGY:

INTRODUCTION

In the simplest way, pedagogy can be defined as the art and science of teaching. According to
etymology, pedagogy originated from Greek and means, “the art of teaching children”. To be more
specific, ‘ paidos ’ means ‘ child’ and ‘ agogos ’ stands for a ‘ leader’ in Greek, and ‘pedagogue’ stands
for a teacher.

Most often Pedagogy is confused with the curriculum. The latter means what is to be taught and
former refers to the ways involved in teaching , the theory and practice involved in educating .
In addition, Pedagogy is the relationship between an educator and the learners, with respect to
culture and techniques that are being used for learning .It is formally focused on the educator’s
belief on how learning should take place.

What is needed in Pedagogy is a healthy classroom interaction and mutual respect between
educator and learners.

Pedagogy also focuses on building prior learning and developing skills and attitudes and, for
educators to present curriculum in a most appealing way to students, by merging it in a way to suit
to their needs and culture.

Most of the time in Pedagogy, materials used do not matter but the process and strategy adopted by
the teacher are counted.
In the act of teaching there are two parties (the teacher and the taught) who work together in some
program (the subject matter) designed to modify the learners’ experience and understanding in
some way. It is necessary to begin, therefore, with observations about the learner, the teacher, and
the subject matter and then to consider the significance of group life and the school. It will then be
possible to consider the factors and theories involved in modifying a person’s experience and
understanding. They include theories of learning in education, of school and class organization, and
of instructional media.

A SHORT History of Pedagogy

The roots of a ‘teacher’ can be traced back to Ancient Greece, with Socrates in 5 th century BC as the

cornerstone to what we consider now as modern education.

It is believed that the first schools appeared in England, during 597 AD. The first school was King’s

School in Canterbury, Kent.  These early schools have links to churches where students are granted

spiritual education

The Academic Curriculum of those days can be divided into two.

 Trivium
 Quadrivium

Trivium comprises rhetoric, grammar, and logic, while the other comprises of geometry, astronomy,

arithmetic, and music.

Lessons took the form of lectures, with a teacher leading the students whilst he/she reads and

explains the text to students. As of now, group discussions were conducted. Pupil were given topics

to discuss amongst themselves and the final doubts were clarified from their masters.

Features of Pedagogy

Joint Productivity Activity

Learning occurs most effectively when experts and novices work together for a common product or

goal, and are therefore motivated to assist one another. “Providing assistance” is the general

definition of teaching; thus, joint productive activity (JPA) maximizes teaching and learning. Working

together allows conversation, which teaches language, meaning, and values in the context of

immediate issues. Teaching and learning through “joint productive activity” is cross-cultural, typically
human, and probably “hard-wired.” This kind of “mentoring” and “learning in action” is

characteristic of parents with very young children; of pre-school, graduate school, adult learning and

school-to-work.

Joint activity and discourse allow the highest level of academic achievement: using formal,

“schooled,” or “scientific” ideas to solve practical, real world problems. The constant connection of

schooled concepts and everyday concepts is basic to the process by which mature schooled thinkers

understand the world. These joint activities should be shared by both students and teachers. Only

when the teacher also shares the experiences can the kind of discourse take place that builds basic

schooled competencies. The teacher must keep following in mind:

1) Designing instructional activities requiring student collaboration to accomplish a joint

product in the given time.

2) Well Organised classroom seating and environment for the students or group of individuals

to meet their needs to communicate and work as a team.

3) The teacher must actively and jointly participate in all the activities with the group.

4) A well balanced grouping of students must be allotted in the class room, for example

friendship, academic ability, language, project, or interests, to promote interaction.

5) plans with students how to work in groups and move from one activity to another, such as

from large group introduction to small group activity, for clean-up, dismissal, and the like.
6) manages student and teacher access to materials and technology to facilitate joint
productive activity.
7) monitors and supports student collaboration in positive ways.

Language Development

Developing competence in the language(s) of instruction should be a metagoal of all educational

activity throughout the school day. Whether instruction is bilingual or monolingual, literacy is the
most fundamental competency necessary for school success. School knowledge, and thinking itself,
are inseparable from language. Language development at all levels — informal, problem-solving, and
academic — should be fostered through use and through purposeful, deliberate conversation
between teacher and students, not through drills and decontextualized rules. Reading and writing
must be taught both as specific curricula and integrated into each content area.

The development of language and literacy as a metagoal also applies to the specialized language
genres required for the study of science, mathematics, history, art, and literature. Effective
mathematics learning is based on the ability to “speak mathematics,” just as the overall ability to
 achieve across the curriculum is dependent on mastery of the language of instruction. Reading,
writing, speaking, listening, and lexicons can be taught and learned in every subject matter, and
indeed all the subject matters can be taught as though they were a second language. Here the
teacher must follow the following for effective Language development:-

1) The teacher must listen and respond to the student about familiar topics such as Home and
Community.
2) The instructor must assist the student in written and oral language development through
modelling, eliciting, probing, restating, clarifying, questioning, praising, etc., in purposeful
conversation and writing.
3) The teacher must interact in such away with its students keeping in mind their language with
wait time, eye contact, taking turn and talking or giving the required spotlight.
4) Encouraging the students to use better vocabulary to express their understanding.
5) Also, to encourage student to use first and second languages in instructional activities.

Challenging Activates

Teaching Complex Thinking

Students at risk of educational failure, particularly those of limited standard English

proficiency, are often forgiven any academic challenges on the assumption that they are of
limited ability, or they are forgiven any genuine assessment of progress because the
assessment tools are inadequate. Thus, both standards and feedback are weakened, with
the predictable result that achievement is impeded. While such policies may often be the
result of benign motives, the effect is to deny many diverse students the basic requirements
of progress — high academic standards and meaningful assessment that allows feedback
and responsive assistance.

Working with a cognitively challenging curriculum requires careful levelling of tasks, so that
students are motivated to stretch. It does not mean drill-and-kill exercises, nor it does not
mean overwhelming challenges that discourage effort. Getting the correct balance and
providing appropriate assistance is, for the teacher, a truly cognitively challenging task.

The Teacher here must assure the following:

1. Assuring that students — for each instructional topic — see the whole picture as a
basis for understanding the parts.
2. presents challenging standards for student performance.
3. designs instructional tasks that advance student understanding to more complex
levels.
4. assists students to accomplish more complex understanding by building from
their previous success.
5. gives clear, direct feedback about how student performance compares with the
challenging standards.
Instructional Conversation
Teaching Through Conversation

Thinking, and the abilities to form, express, and exchange ideas are best taught
through dialogue, through questioning and sharing ideas and knowledge. In the
Instructional Conversation (IC), the teacher listens carefully, makes guesses about
intended meaning, and adjusts responses to assist students’ efforts--just as in
between mothers and toddlers. Here the teacher relates formal, school
knowledge to the student’s individual, family, and community knowledge. The IC
provides opportunities for the development of the languages of instruction and
subject matter. IC is a supportive and collaborative event that builds
intersubjectivity and a sense of community. IC achieves individualization of
instruction; is best practiced during joint productive activity; is an ideal setting for
language development; and allows sensitive contextualization, and precise,
stimulating cognitive challenge.

This concept may appear to be a paradox; instruction implies authority and

planning, while conversation implies equality and responsiveness. But the
instructional conversation is based on assumptions that are fundamentally
different from those of traditional lessons. Teachers who use it, like parents in
natural teaching, assume that the student has something to say beyond the
known answers in the head of the adult. The adult listens carefully, makes
guesses about the intended meaning, and adjusts responses to assist the
student’s efforts — in other words, engages in conversation. Such conversation
reveals the knowledge, skills, and values - the culture — of the learner, enabling
the teacher to contextualize teaching to fit the learner’s experience base. To put
this in practice the teacher must follow the following:

1. arranges the classroom to accommodate conversation between the teacher

and a small group of students on a regular and frequent basis.
2. has a clear academic goal that guides conversation with students.
3. ensures that student talk occurs at higher rates than teacher talk.
4. guides conversation to include students’ views, judgments, and rationales
using text evidence and other substantive support.
5. ensures that all students are included in the conversation according to their
preferences.
6. listens carefully to assess levels of students’ understanding.
7. assists students’ learning throughout the conversation by questioning,
restating, praising, encouraging, etc.
8. guides the students to prepare a product that indicates the Instructional
Conversation’s goal was achieved.

DEVELOPMENTAL PEDAGOGY

In ‘Developmental pedagogy’ various strategies are applied to make possibilities of growth in

learning for children. Children shouldn’t be underestimated about their views towards learning
because they are not unhappy about education, but are most probably unhappy with the boring and
ancient methods of teachings. Children feel very excited to learn new things. They are question
banks and ever curious to know about things they have not seen or heard before. For children,
playing is nothing but learning experience, but in adult’s perspective education system is quite
different.

Pre-school learning for children is all about playing, but for their teachers and parents pre-school is a
place more to learn and not play. Early childhood curricula are planned in such a way that children
can grasp easily and reach their goals. Child development is based on the way how a child observes,
imitates, try new things, experiment, talk, do things like how an adult does, copying the habits of
elders, trying new things and failing, trying and succeeding and many more observations are made
by children and grasped in their memory, and later implemented by them in their …

Pedagogy is a term that refers to the method of how teachers teach, in theory and in practice.
Pedagogy is formed by an educator’s teaching beliefs and concerns the interplay between culture
and different ways to learn. In order to help students to build on prior learning, meaningful
classroom relationships must exist.

Pedagogy refers to the study of teaching approaches and how they affect learners. A carefully
considered pedagogy is essential in enabling students to learn more effectively and can help them
develop high-order thinking skills. There are four common forms of pedagogy: social (education as
supporting social development), critical (deconstructing normative perspectives), culturally
responsive (encouraging the sharing of diverse backgrounds and experiences) and Socratic
(developing intellectual and social skills to live in a democratic society).

Developmental Pedagogy is cantered around the following basic points that can make learning
successful: -

1. The interactive relationship within the environment are basic to the children’s progress.
2. The classroom atmosphere is one in which children at ease with making equal contributions.
3. The varied cultures of children and their families are taken seriously and preserved as a
classroom resources
4. The Starting point of every classroom is keeping in the mind children’s current awareness
and interests.
 5. Not only Indoor but outdoor learning is also given equal importance. Subject matter
presented in theoretical way but also taught in the form of practical experiences.
6. Settings that are rich in observational and social experiences are used to support the
development of problem-solving and creative abilities.
7. Teaching is repeatedly attuned according to children’s learning and as a result of on-going
evaluation.
8. Chances are delivered for children to involve in metacognitive-like activities such as
preparing and replicating. In doing so, children are supported to set their own goals and
evaluate their own accomplishments
9. Evaluation is carried out in the setting of adult-child interactions and involves some element
of continued, collective thinking

CONCLUSION

Pedagogy is a synonym for teaching. But it is more! It is a synonym for the different things
teachers do to help their students learn. This includes various aspects of the teaching
process, including planning, teaching, and assessment. Yet, pedagogy also involves other
important activities, such as relationship building, managing students’ behaviour and
collaborating with others.

In many researches, it is also said that the best way help and excel students a teacher must
adopt evidence -based education, this makes learning and understanding easy.

While achieving high graduation rates is a worthy goal in and of itself, it is certainly not the
only positive outcome that arises from enrolling children in preschool. The National
Education Association (NEA) lists several studies that show the vast benefits of early
childhood education, lower rates of teenage pregnancy, reduced juvenile delinquency,
better scores on standardized tests, a greater ability to move through the grades without
having to repeat any and, of course, greater levels of employment and higher wages in
adulthood. The evidence makes in clear: early childhood education is a worthwhile
investment. Parents able to enrol their children in preschool should definitely do so, as it
provides their kids a significant step up in life. And society needs to place a greater
emphasis on funding programs such as Head Start, for these could potentially bring millions
of low-income kids up into the middle class.

In Pedagogy, the relationship between the teacher and student matters, this has a direct
affect the students’ academic success, students self – efficacy, engagement and behaviour.
An educator also must have a clarity and alignment in terms of what the teacher has to
teach and what the student must learn. In addition, the teacher must not be rigid on
teaching styles or methods, in some cases it is possible that two different approaches, style
etc. work well for a certain group of class .The teachers following pedagogy in their teaching
style proactively intervene in the work schedule of struggling students. Also one the other
side of the spectrum it becomes a responsibility of the educator to help high-achieving
students to progress even further. To further conclude a formative assessment for the
students is imperative so that the teacher can make improvise in the required fields.