After a few months off from writing, my schedule has cleared up a bit.  So now I can get into another topic which I’ve been exploring for the past few years.  That topic is digital pedagogy.  To start, I’d like to offer my own definition of digital pedagogy.

Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching.  It includes the instructional methods teachers choose to use as well as the curricular materials teachers ask students to engage in during the learning process.  Pedagogy includes the very important decisions teachers make daily including deciding on appropriate learning targets and matching instructional techniques to those learning targets and the students in the class.  Pedagogy is very complex and requires many classroom specific decisions relating to the curriculum, students, available resources, and passions of teachers and students.

Digital pedagogy is pedagogy within digital learning environments.  Digital learning environments include classrooms with stationary computers (like a computer lab) or mobile devices.  Digital learning environments also include online classrooms which are learning spaces structured within an online community.  These are typically found in learning management systems (Schoology, Canvas, Google Classroom, etc.).  I’ll have a future post where I’ll discuss elements needed for digital learning environments to support effective digital pedagogies.

It is very important to recognize that the foundation of an effective digital pedagogy is an effective pedagogy.  It does not matter whether the learning community is located in a traditional classroom or online.  What matters is that the focus is on planning for and executing effective learning experiences.  The definition of “effective learning experiences” is very classroom-specific because some learning experiences may be effective with one group of students while not very effective for a different group of students.  Choosing the appropriate learning experiences is the amazing art and science of teaching.

While an effective digital pedagogy shares many of the same elements as an effective non-digital pedagogy, there are some additional elements and opportunities that digital learning environments provide.  In future posts, my hope is to describe the similarities between digital and non-digital pedagogies while also explaining the opportunities that digital learning environments provide.  Collaboration, agency, instructional technique, learning tasks, instructional depth, and classroom management are just a few of the topics I plan to write about.  These topics will include discussion of the pedagogical themes of creativity, critical thinking, critical literacy, communication, and global citizen.

My goal is to help readers understand that teaching within digital learning environments is built upon effective non-digital pedagogical practices along with capitalizing on the opportunities of digital learning environments.