Overview

Although pedagogy is defined in lots of ways, it is often described as the art and science of teaching and learning. While this involves exploring questions around instructional techniques, teaching styles and forms of assessment, pedagogy is also concerned with theories which seek to explain learning.

Traditionally, learning has been regarded as either a matter of acquiring knowledge, with predictable and measurable outcomes, or what goes on in our heads as we make sense of our experiences. For many educators, learning is a social process which makes use of language and culture to construct knowledge. In the academic community, there is a readiness to adopt pedagogy in wide-ranging contexts and perspectives, such as 'critical pedagogy' which challenges structural inequalities and 'inclusive pedagogy' which aims to raise the achievement of all learners.

The Centre is interested in conventional pedagogy, such as direct instruction, digital pedagogies and particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic, new forms such as 'pedagogies of the home', which explores the home as a place for cultural learning.