What is Pedagogy

Hi! I’m Nichole Weaver, Curriculum Director at NRSNG. Before we get into the specifics of NRSNG’s pedagogy, we want to make sure you understand what pedagogy is and why it’s important to have one and use one.

A basic definition of pedagogy is any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another. The key word here is that it’s a conscious activity. It’s so important as educators that everything we do is intentional and designed to create and enhance learning.

So, there are two primary purposes of pedagogy. One is to establish goals for the teaching/learning experience. What do we want it to look like? Sound like? Feel like for the students? How do we want teachers to prepare? How should they approach interactions with students? This even includes aspects of the learning environment. The second goal is to provide guidelines on how to achieve desired learning outcomes. What strategies will be used? What theories are guiding our practice? What are our priorities? These are the things that a good pedagogy should address. We also want to make it very clear that a good, solid pedagogy should not ONLY address the role of the teacher, it should also address the needs of the learner. That’s one thing we prioritize – what does the learner NEED?

Practically, the things that should be delineated and included in a pedagogy are the goals for the learner and the role of the teacher. It should also outline the specific teaching strategies that should be employed and the theories behind those strategies and the pedagogy itself. In the coming videos we’re going to outline all of these things for you in the context of our pedagogy known as the Core Content Mastery Method. As you go through the videos, work to pickout these things as they relate to our pedagogy!

This is a good visual summary of pedagogy. The four components – the goals for the learner, the role of the teacher, the teaching strategies, and the theories behind all of it. These take into account and start to build a picture of the learning environment we want to create and what our interactions with students should look like. And those help accomplish the two main purposes – to establish goals for the teaching/learning experience and to provide guidelines on how to achieve those desired outcomes. We’ve pulled this into a cheatsheet for you, so you can refer back to it any time you’re reviewing a new pedagogy, and you can even use that cheatsheet take notes on our pedagogy as you go through these videos!

More than anything, the one thing we want you to realize is that learning should NEVER happen by accident. Always be intentional with everything you create for a learner. Everything should have a purpose – that’s how we help them learn and grow into the amazing healthcare professionals we know they can be!

With all that said, go out and be your best self today! And, as always, happy nursing!