3 amazing pedagogical theories

3 amazing pedagogical theories

We develop three pedagogical theories of great interest and daring in their postulates. Specifically, those of John Elliot, David P. Ausubel, and Howard Gardner.

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What should be the teacher's role? Interestingly, this will depend to some extent on the various pedagogical theories we serve. And, although all are interesting, the variety of its postulates is huge.

In the last two centuries, countless psychologists, psychopedagogues, philosophers, thinkers, and experts have promulgated pedagogical theories that analyze the failures of current education and try to propose new postulates. However, synthesizing a unique theory is very complicated, since each one has its own conceptions, key concepts, and specific contributions.

Three pedagogical theories of different character

To understand the diversity of theories that have been formulated today, many of them surprising because of the boldness of their postulates, we will briefly analyze three in particular.

The ethical pedagogy of John Elliot

John Elliot is a pedagogue and thinker of great international recognition. In the 80s of the last century, it became a great precursor to the reform of the teaching practice in which it focused on the specification that the educator should deepen and reaffirm the ethical dimension of education.

That is, under the postulates of Elliot's theories, a teacher should not focus his goals solely on the student's final results. The trainer will focus on educational intentionality, that is, on the values ​​that govern the formative process.

For John Elliot, every educational action seeks the production of intrinsic qualities of meaningful learning, which will focus on preventing the student from wasting his time in learning meaningless content. In other words, it seeks that the student acquires new knowledge, but not in the form of a "parrot."

Elliot seeks with his theory that students learn the nature of knowledge, the need for them, the mechanism of the learning process and the integral formation as a person, so that he conceives his reality and his intervention in it.

Meaningful learning by David Paul Ausubel

Connecting with the previous article, we find the theory of meaningful learning by David Paul Ausubel. This author goes beyond Bruner's 70's theories to ensure that, although children can build their knowledge through discovery, learning can also be given by reception.

According to Ausubel, meaningful learning implies that knowledge is incorporated in a substantive way in the cognitive structure of each child. This fact is formed when a student is able to relate what he learns with what he already knew.

In addition, Ausubel insists that, for it to work, the student must be interested in what is proposed. If this is achieved, this meaningful learning implies that there is more lasting retention of the information received.

Thanks to Ausubel's theories, the acquisition of new knowledge is facilitated in a meaningful relationship to what was already known, since the cognitive structure facilitates retention. In addition, it is stored in long-term memory, long-term, more personal and more active learning is obtained thanks to the student's use of cognitive resources.

Gardner's multiple intelligences theory

But, without a doubt, among the most surprising pedagogical theories, one of the most revolutionary has been that of multiple intelligences. The reference figure is Howard Gardner and has defenders and scholars like Robert Sternberg, although he also has his detractors. In this sense, both Gardner and Sternberg agree that it is necessary to train the natural tendencies of an individual to improve his intellectual performance.

Much has been written and studied the theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner considers that intellectual human competencies are very varied and are related to the specific structures of the mind. In addition, they are determined to a greater or lesser extent by cultural environments.

According to Gardner, a child develops gradually from indifference to culture and to specialization in some field of this. That is, the boy begins to take a direct and formal interest in the real reason for things.

In this article, we have collected three pedagogical theories, not without controversy, that attracted much attention when they were formulated. The three demand a revolution, each with its peculiarities, which in any case seems necessary in education.