From theory to practice: Understanding pedagogy

By Alistair McNaught whilst working with Becta

Summary

This article, by Alistair McNaught (now at www.TechDis.ac.uk), briefly considers pedagogy,

learning styles and teaching styles and applies this understanding to the practical application
of creating and using learning material.

What do we mean by pedagogy?

Pedagogy is the "science of teaching" and concerns itself with good practice in teaching and
learning. On-line learning offers many new pedagogical possibilities. Our current
understanding is based on the idea that the brain constructs new meanings from existing
understanding. It is when we act on new information that we link it to the old. Feedback on
our new understanding is important to embed a correct version and reduce the errors caused
by spurious links. Effective learning can take place when we lead students to

• make new links with existing knowledge

• test the new understanding
• gain feedback on errors.

Working on-line gives huge flexibility in making links - hyperlinks can allow students to link
in a variety of ways from pre-existing ideas to new examples or applications. It is also very
easy to provide on-line assessments with instant corrective feedback. The nature of the task
set is - as always - fundamental to the effectiveness of the learning taking place.

Levels of learning

Work by Bloom in 1956 identified a hierarchy of teaching and learning tasks. Many
educational tasks are set at quite low levels - knowing and understanding. Skilled question
setting involves creating tasks which
engage students in a range of activities
from knowledge/recall tasks through to
synthesis and evaluation. Higher order
tasks require more from the student but
are more challenging to assess on-line
with meaningful feedback. Lower order
tasks require less intellectual
engagement from students but can be
easily assessed on-line. When designing
on-line tasks, try to include a range of
tasks across Bloom's levels. See figure 1
alongside.
Figure 1
Learning styles

Our education system is very text-based; people with a strongly visual or kinaesthetic
learning style can be disadvantaged. ILT provides ways of easily providing alternative
pathways, visual materials, interactive materials, and text based materials. ILT is more
versatile and potentially more engaging than paper based materials. There are different
classifications of learning styles but the following three are commonly seen:

Resource first developed for FERL © Becta. Reformatted by David Sugden February 2007
From theory to practice: Understanding pedagogy
By Alistair McNaught whilst working with Becta

• Activist .v. reflector .v. theorist .v. pragmatist

• Left brain .v. right brain
• Auditory .v. visual .v. kinaesthetic

In practice psychologists suggest 70% of people can cope whether or not a lesson matched
their preferred learning style but motivation is likely to be reduced by consistent exposure to
materials outside your preferred style. On-line experiences lack the creative spontaneity of
the classroom where a teacher can adapt to a different learning style as required ("OK,
imagine this desk is the sun and the chair is a planet...").

When designing on-line materials, try to build in a variety of learning styles. The list below
gives some sample ideas:

Hitting different learning styles with ILT:

• bullet point summaries

• graphical summaries
• drag and drop exercises

• pop-up information
• image swaps
• alternative routes
• disjointed rollovers (moving mouse on image changes text or imagery nearby)
• scroll bars
• clickable buttons
• links to related ideas

Teaching styles

There is a spectrum of teaching styles from directive teaching to discovery teaching.

Excellence exists at both ends of the spectrum but teachers with different styles might either
use very different resources or (if applicable) use the same resources in very different ways.
Ideally, the resources we design will be capable of being used in a range of teaching scenarios
- teacher presentation to the class; groupwork resulting in student presentations; individual
research by students. When designing on-line resources try to create materials that can be
used in a variety of ways for different teaching (or even learning) styles.

Resource design

The model (below - figure 2) shows the progression from a raw resource through to the
finished product. The higher up the pyramid you design for, the less flexibility you maintain -
for example an animated image of muscle contraction with sport related questions built in is
less useful to biologists. They want the animation with different questions. When designing
on-line resources try to separate the learning objectives from the key content (particularly
animations, simulations etc) in order to give maximum flexibility. Teachers can then - if
required - adapt their own learning objectives according to the group's needs or the teacher's
own teaching style.

Resource first developed for FERL © Becta. Reformatted by David Sugden February 2007
From theory to practice: Understanding pedagogy
By Alistair McNaught whilst working with Becta

Figure 2

Resource use

How the resource is used is arguably more important than the resource itself. The creativity
used in designing the student tasks is as significant as the creativity involved in making the
resource. The model (below) illustrates a simple way of classifying on-line learning
experiences according to two criteria - the interactivity of the resource and the degree to
which the task engages the learner.

The majority of on-line

learning in the FE sector
would plot in a vertical
line near the left hand axis,
with a good deal in the
bottom left corner. Whilst
there is no "ideal" location
in the diagram - making
notes on text and pictures
can be a valid learning
experience - the student's
on-line learning
experiences should cover a
wide range on both axes if
they are to have a balanced
and enjoyable learning
experience.
Also see:
http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/casestudies.php?id=155
http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=86

Resource first developed for FERL © Becta. Reformatted by David Sugden February 2007