{"id":223,"date":"2021-01-29T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/?p=223"},"modified":"2023-08-29T10:21:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T14:21:34","slug":"pulling-back-the-curtain-sharing-pedagogical-concepts-with-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/2021\/01\/29\/pulling-back-the-curtain-sharing-pedagogical-concepts-with-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulling Back the Curtain: Sharing Pedagogical Concepts with Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Geoff Keston<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pulling<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Imagine you\u2019ve given students an exercise, say, think-pair-share, when someone asks, \u201cWhy are we doing this? Can\u2019t you just teach things instead?\u201d Could you, off the top of your head, explain the pedagogical theory? If so, how would you do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedagogical concepts enrich our teaching, but let\u2019s consider whether they\u2019d work even better if we explained the reasoning behind them to students. A good starting place for exploring this question is remembering what we want from students\u2014that they engage with material, summon their creativity, work hard to solve problems on their own, and transfer learning to other domains. Toward each of these goals, knowing at least something about your pedagogical motivation helps students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as the coronavirus has pushed us and our students into new territory, openness about our teaching choices might be more important than ever. We\u2019re trying novel techniques and need students\u2019 input about what works. And after years of learning in-person, students need our help to develop new habits and find fresh sources of motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how can we share our pedagogical reasoning? One simple way is to discuss it casually, avoiding theory in favor of stories. For example, when explaining why I have students give presentations in a Technical Communication course at Temple University, I described the commonplace experience of thinking you understand something until you try to explain it out loud. I also said\u2014not-too-scientifically\u2014that talking out loud to a group “uses different parts of our brains” than does writing. After their presentations, I had students work on the next revision of their papers for a few minutes, with the goal of adding content that they may not have thought of before. This non-technical explanation and the short exercise helped the class see for themselves how presenting sharpened their thinking about their research topics and encouraged them to apply new perspectives to their papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way to share pedagogical reasoning is to make it a part of a course\u2019s content. This was the approach taken by LaVaque-Manty and Evans (2013), who, in college writing-based courses in two different disciplines, taught explicitly about metacognition, \u201cthinking about thinking.\u201d They used technical language, included the concept in the syllabus, and gave assignments to have students put the idea into practice. This approach elevates a pedagogical idea from a technique used for learning another skill into a valuable skill in itself: students learn how historians, writers, engineers, and scientists think about questions in their fields and how they use reflection in the real work they do as professionals. (For a similar case study of a college class, see Hall et al. (2013).)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two thoughts about \u201cpulling back the curtain\u201d on your teaching techniques are useful. First, while you\u2019ve talked out loud about your core discipline many times, you probably lack practice in putting pedagogical concepts into words. When I first talked to students about metacognition, it felt like my first day ever teaching. I knew my topic, but didn’t have a feel for explaining it. In past semesters I had assigned metacognitive self-analysis exercises but hadn’t used the technical term, hadn’t explained my own thought process behind giving the assignments. With this hazard in mind, it is good to rehearse even when you are taking the casual approach. Your presentation may be loose and informal, but the behind-the-scenes work takes time and practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, understanding the science of teaching and learning will be new to students. They might resist the topic, thinking it is merely extra work. And even if they embrace the idea in principle, the concepts and terminology are likely to be unfamiliar because previous instructors didn\u2019t explain their own pedagogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In online learning in particular, both you and your students are figuring out new ways to teach and to learn. Making pedagogy a subject of class conversation will help to make this a shared journey. Some of the pedagogical reasoning behind online teaching that you might share with students includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n