Pedagogy isn’t a word I had heard until I started teaching just over 2 years ago, and while I understand what it means in layman’s terms ‘a method/approach to teaching’; I’ve never had the headspace to fully contextualise my own teaching practice.
These first formative years of my teaching career have been a real mixing pot of challenges. Starting a full time position in the midst of a pandemic. Being catapulted into the unchartered territory of online teaching; a particular struggle for sessions normally based in a studio, which generated the urgent need for digital resources to aid with teaching and student learning. Delivering sessions to a cohort of black screens with ghostly, faceless grey avatars. Unsure what the students I teach look or sound like; unable to build a strong rapport which I now know is key to my students engagement.
While I’ve made it sound all doom and gloom, there have been some real silver linings to these struggles – in particular asynchronous learning, and understanding how this blend of online and in person teaching can be stronger that choosing just one or the other.
My hope with this PgCert is to be able to delve deeper into my practice, both reflecting on the past, and planning for the future. Understanding what pedagogic practices I’ve unknowingly used, and how I can implement them with more effect; as well a new pedagogies I’m yet to discover, that could change my teaching for the better.
Great first post James – your comments about teaching in the pandemic would certainly ‘ring true’ for may tutors!
similarly to you – I’d never heard of the word pedagogy until 2 years ago, glad that the PgCert is creating space to explore your own practice and hopefully inspires more curiosity 🙂