Concept of Pedagogy and Learning

Concept of Pedagogy:

Concept of Teaching: Teaching means nothing more than mere ‘mere giving information and imparting knowledge.’ It was the time when teaching was regarded as a bipolar process- the teacher and the subject being its Two Poles. The child was altogether ignored. No attention was given to his needs and desires. The child was a non-entity and the teacher and the subject- matter were considered more important than him. the subject-matter was read out or told by the teacher and the child simply memorised it. Readymade material was given to him who sapped his energies.

Concept of Learning:

Earlier view of Learning: An earlier view of learning regarded the teacher as a dispenser of information and the children as the passive absorbers. It was believe that the central nervous system could be developed through experience in much the same way as the muscular system. Reading and other communicable language skills were taught principally by isolated drill in both phonics and phonetics. All this rendered learning somewhat distasteful task for the learner.

Later view regarded learning: It is regarded ‘as a special form of activity in which children responded specifically to particular stimuli in certain prescribed situations.’ According to this view, it is commonly referred to as stimulus- response psychology. Learning occurs as a synthetic process of forms of reflex behaviour. Accordingly the subject matter and the skills to be learnt should be organised specifically for instructional purposes. The stimulus response theory developed by E.L. Thorndike made use of certain laws of learning namely – readiness, exercise and effect. Motivation is primarily extrinsic and frequently places emphasis on rewards and punishments instead of activity itself or its purpose.

A recent view of Learning: one of the recently view of learning is based on the biological concept. Accordingly, the living organism develops by the process of individualising from the central (central nervous system) to the peripheral areas (aims, legs, hands, feet etc.). This view of learning is popularly known as organismic, purposive theory. It is also referred to as one of the field theories of learning.