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

2. 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!

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Key references
Alexander, R Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education, Oxford: Blackwell.
Alexander, R 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 The Culture of Education , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nind, M., Curtin, A. & Hall, K. in press, Research Methods for Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury.