Innovative Pedagogy and my learning Experience

         I have keen interest in the curriculum and education system of Nepal as I have been working in this field for more than 25 years. With my enrollment in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) in August, it has given me the opportunity to learn and explore some pedagogical theories of education and practices. Reflecting back to my learning experience, I have developed many insights and confidence in my academic and professional life. It has given me new lenses to see the classrooms, school and pedagogy exposing new vision how they should go with the concept of curriculum and educational theories and practices.   

Innovative pedagogies as the terminology suggests, it has provided me the ample opportunities to broaden my knowledge. 5-E lesson plans, Design Thinking and other pedagogical knowledge along with the concept of Curriculum and various theories and principles of educations have shaped my mind. I think I am transformed now. The way I view the education has been changed. Now, I am confident how creatively and innovatively the curriculum should be delivered. I am highly impressed and wish to see these concepts being implemented in my institution and country too. I believe this would bring fundamental changes in our pedagogy enhancing learners’ skills and making the learners competent for coming decades.

Now, I can assess how is our present pedagogy and how should it be. I came to know current curriculum is highly teacher-centered and content loaded. As a result, the learners become passive and classroom turns to be a one way traffic system and knowledge becomes like a bank deposit. Nowadays,  I agree with Dewey as he says, knowing is not a passive registration of the world outside but an active construction (Vanderstraeten,2002). Though my context is still same as Luitel (2021) asserts ‘even after the COVID 19, same system exists. Students get stuffs from the curriculum listened and academic session is going to finish’. However, the recent changes in the curriculum from Class 1 to 3 and 6 attempt to address the educational gaps created before. Now, I have learned educational concepts and feel I am growing academically every day.

I have learnt that Constructivist approach can be the excellent pedagogical model for us as it believes in learner’s active participation and learners will have to construct knowledge being based on experience in the social context. It is the learner-centered pedagogy where learners become active and they contribute for the knowledge. It believes in group interaction aiming the students to prepare to for the society. Collaborative learning, Critical and creative thinking, Team work, research based project work, Leadership, reasoning, reflection, active participation are the essence of this innovative pedagogy. These skills are the demand of our era. Our conventional pedagogy cannot implant these skills in the students. I have realized that this is the appropriate time to implement John Dewey’s ideas of Democratic education where the learners become true agent of knowledge and construct the knowledge from their experience (Dewey, 1923). Self-efficacy of the students is the demand of time which the learners can develop through their experience based learning. For me classroom is ‘a community of learners’ (Matusov, 2021) now. 5 E lesson plan and Design Thinking could be my tools. I am convinced now Constructivist theory can be an ideal pedagogy to instill the 21st century skills among the learners.

I am proud; I have become the part of STEAM pedagogy which has opened the new avenue for the transformative education.

References

Dewey, J. (1923). Democracy and education: An Introduction to the philosophy of education. The Democratic Conception in Education (pp. 87-107). Macmillion

Luitel B. C. (2021, October 10) We teachers don't get the students to learn but make them memorize.Online Khabar. https://www.onlinekhabar.com/2021/10/1027184

Matusov, E. (2021).Progressive Education is the Opium of the Educators. Integr. psych. behav. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09610-2

Vanderstraeten, R. (2002). Dewey’s Transactional Constructivism. Journal of Philosophy of Education  Vol. 36 (2)