Professional Practice and Learning

Practice: Secondary School Classroom Pedagogy

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Aim: Embedding skills practice into the curriculum

 

In trying to identify areas of improvement for Classroom Pedagogy within St. Vincent’s College, reflective practices were conducted to observe what Gherardi refers to as ‘real’ practices of Classroom Pedagogy (Geiger, 2014).

 

Observations were simplified to focus on the mundane interactions between human and non human actors. A conscious effort was made to write down predisposed social, political and cultural contexts before observations were conducted in order to separate observations from biased assumptions.

 

With Gherardi’s ideas of practice theory in mind, observations were then analysed to understand the tinkering between human and non human actors in creating a connectedness in action (Gherardi, 2012). Delayering the textures which exist within classroom practice I was able to reinforce the importance of the socio-material in the emergence of situated learning (Gherardi 2006).

 

Questions then can be asked about how classroom practice becomes institutionalised? and whether innovations in practice can be made and/or coexist with institutionalised practices? In this case, can we as teachers embed innovation such as skills based learning in an already institutionalised practice?