Learning Social Science Research Methods: Let’s Talk Pedagogy Melanie Nind

What we have in store Data and questions from the NCRM study of methods pedagogy and beyond Input from methods teachers, learners, researchers, methodologists and you – in all our multiple identities! Provocative questions and discussion Probably not many answers! Provocative questions - Is there pedagogy or pedagogies? Is the digital era having any impact on pedagogy? How are methods taught? How are they learned? Do the two relate to each other!

What is pedagogy? It is not: just teaching but it ‘incorporates theories, beliefs, policies and controversies that inform and shape it’ (Alexander 2000, 540) It is not: just the traditionally more explicit dimensions such as the specified curriculum, the learning outcomes sought, the assessment approaches – it is also the tacit, the often hidden from view, the silences, the absences and the usually invisible (Nind, Curtin & Hall in press) Good to establish what it’s not! This is from our book ‘Research Methods for Pedagogy’ where we take a sociocultural perspective

Defining it ‘the act of teaching together with its attendant discourse’ (Alexander 2009, 11) ‘A choice of pedagogy inevitably communicates a conception of the learning process and the learner. Pedagogy is never innocent. It is a medium that carries its own message.’ (Bruner 1996: 63) PCK e.g. how to powerfully represent ideas, which analogies and examples are effective, what makes grasp of specific topics easier etc. ‘craft knowledge’ - practical wisdom that interacts with (rather than opposes) theoretical knowledge PCK is tacit, practical & situated So, for researchers it is ‘hard to know’ (Nind et al. in press) But we need to ‘attempt to surpass the idiosyncratic level of individual narratives’ (van Driel et al.1998: 674) to build pedagogic culture & share PCK

Thinking about pedagogy pedagogy as specified pedagogy as enacted pedagogy as experienced pedagogy as hard to know multiple pedagogies From the book but important here Not very well specified in ASRM arena – no written curriculum, no established pedagogic/theoretical leaders as in EY education Enacted but often with little pedagogic talk or reflection – familiar routines, instrumental decision-making, context of ‘training’ Experienced quite differently perhaps by teachers/trainers/learners/people inside or outside the academy It can take learning communities, building of pedagogic culture, and pedagogic research (what pedagogy does as well as what pedagogy is) for us to being to know what is everyday Critical pedagogy, radical pedagogy, engaged pedagogy, social pedagogy and inclusive pedagogy, online pedagogy, informal pedagogy; quants pedagogy, qual pedagogy, mixed methods pedagogy, etc etc

Key references Alexander, R. 2000. Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education, Oxford: Blackwell. Alexander, R. 2009. Pedagogy, Culture and the Power of Comparison, in H. Daniels, H. Lauder and J. Porter (eds), Educational Theories, Cultures and Learning: A Critical Perspective , 10 – 26, Abingdon: Routledge. Bruner, J. 1996. The Culture of Education , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nind, M., Curtin, A. & Hall, K. in press, Research Methods for Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury.