The following Venn Diagram explains the similarities and differences between two teaching practices, Pedagogy and Andragogy.
Educators are constantly researching and collaborating to provide students with the best instructional practices. The cycle revolves around what others are doing, how it could be implemented within your daily practices, putting the practice into action, and eventually something new comes along to start the cycle all over again. In college, we spend most of our time learning about Pedagogy and how the theory helps all learners involved (Smith, 2002). Now that we are into the meat of our teaching career, the focus can shift to how our peers and colleagues learn so that our individual, department, and school can grow. This process of educating adults is backed by a theory called Andragogy. The thought process of how adults learn versus the masses (2002).
Within my district we dedicate a lot of time to professional development. There are a couple of days at the beginning of each year, throughout the years, and at the end of the school year that are extremely beneficial. At the beginning of this last school year we had a Blogger by the name of Dave Stuart Jr. present to our entire staff. Mr. Stuart presented his most recent book “These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most”. During his presentation he started with one of his things to “focus” on, he elaborated on the topic, provided example of what it may look like within the classroom, and then allowed time for audience questions. What happened next was a complete surprise. He allowed us the opportunity to take 30 minutes to work alone or collaborate with someone in our department. Within our groups we were able to build the framework or even complete documents that could be used to demonstrate what he had just presented. Eventually, we worked through the rest of the topics and repeated the same process allowing time for us to work after each presentation. I felt that this was a great way to allow myself and my colleagues the opportunity to take what we had just learned and apply it to our content. A lot of the time, during these professional development sessions, the information is given to us in copious amounts and by the time the presenter is done there is not time to work or you don’t even know where to begin. The benefit that Mr. Stuart has, is the fact that he is currently still teaching. He knows what it is like to be an educator and was able to apply his teaching practices on a room full of adults ready to get started on the school year.
Mr. Stuarts teaching practice during this presentation encompassed two crucial assumptions. The first being Self-concept. During the work time he allowed his learners to become self-directed. He gave us the information we needed in order to be successful and we took that information and build documents that fit our teaching and content. Second, he built an internal motivation for us to learn. Having the time to work within our groups gave us the opportunity to become excited about our documents and intrinsically we were motivated to continue learning during the professional development.
What I took away from this professional development session was that if I want to be an effective technology coach that I need to build in time for my learners to act on the information. In a lot of my experiences, there is too much information being presented all at once, which is overwhelming and makes it difficult to maintain an audience. Basically, short doses of information and time to reflect or work with colleagues is essential for success. There is nothing more satisfying than completing a project that you believe has a ton of value.
References
Mynbayeva, A., Sadvakassova, Z., & Akshalova. (2017, December 20). Pedagogy of the Twenty-First Century: Innovative Teaching Methods. Retrieved from https://www.intechopen.com/books/new-pedagogical-challenges-in-the-21st-century-contributions-of-research-in-education/pedagogy-of-the-twenty-first-century-innovative-teaching-methods
Smith, M. K. (2002) ‘Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction, and andragogy.’ Retrieved from www.infed.org/thinkers/et-knowl.htm.