The present essay is dedicated to the discussion of the incorporation of pedagogical principles of combining the basics of learning into an educational course. For years the conclusions of prominent educators and pedagogues have been indicating the need for building up the unique design of every separate course to fit the special needs of students as well as the goals stipulated by the educator to be achieved by the course. Thus, every pedagogue who works on the structure of the course, whatever specificity it may have, should think carefully both about the ways to ensure students’ comprehensive and multifaceted knowledge acquisition and the ways of its interpretation and expression.
Each educator faces the problem of shaping the correct vision of the subject in the students’ minds – namely, explaining to them that they may not acquire the unilateral, plain body of knowledge on the subject as it does not exist. Every studied subject is a heterogeneous notion that cannot be studied only in one direction or based on one source as knowledge is a complex phenomenon that should be considered very carefully. Thus, the basic principle of education is to combine a set of different studying techniques and means to ensure multi-level knowledge acquisition and understanding thereof.
In the context of educational opportunities that may be applied to enrich the course, every pedagogue should consider the potential of community services. They are a powerful source of experience that will wonderfully complement the theory studies within the course. It is a commonplace practice that is used to connect theory and practice and to ensure adequate understanding of all peculiarities of the future job the students are likely to handle and to provide students with the chance to conduct a, so to say, ‘rehearsal’ of their future activity or participate in the theoretical subject they study in person:
“There are many obvious benefits, to students and to the agencies and individuals they serve, from service-learning. Many students become eager volunteers after the ice is broken by class projects and they see where they can go, how they can help”(Herzberg, p. 308).
Herzberg relies heavily on community services and states that this type of work is highly efficient in students’ complex understanding of the subject; however, he warns educators about the necessity to keep an eye open for students’ perceiving the problems they come across during community services as personal: this may limit their vision of the problem in a broader, comprehensive way (Herzberg, p. 309).
Community services may be organized by an educator wishing to include them in the course he or she is planning in several ways. But it is important to organize the cooperation process efficiently because individual handling thereof may appear highly problematic, exhausting, and troublesome for the pedagogue (Herzberg, p. 318). Besides, additional efficiency of the work may be achieved by the preliminary formation of values in the students’ minds utilizing theoretical work, and additional effort applied to their realization of responsibility and live participation (Herzberg, p. 318).
Another means of intensifying the acquisition and interpretation of knowledge by the students is to integrate technology learning into the educational process. Hughes argues that technology learning may benefit students and educators in several ways. Taking into consideration the specificity of the contemporary learning process and its digitalization, it is necessary to note that technology learning has gradually become essential for both educators and students. In the opinion of Hughes, the main principles that should be realized by the educator are the following ones:
“(a) connecting technology learning to professional knowledge; (b) privileging subject matter and pedagogical content connections; (c) using technology learning to challenge professional knowledge, and (d) teaching many technologies” (p. 345).
After considering the ways to facilitate students’ acquisition of knowledge and its interpretation every educator has to state the goal of enabling them to reflect on them properly by grasping the means of expressing their opinion, i.e. efficient and skillful writing. In this aspect, there are some theoretical findings of specialists in the pedagogical sphere that may help an educator enhance the students’ understanding of tools they may use to produce good writing work. The first thing they have to understand is the purpose they pursue by their piece of writing: Fulkerson Richard distinguishes four philosophies of writing that have been formed as a result of large-scale, long theoretical research of outstanding scientists in the sphere.
From the point of view of considering writing as a product, the educator has to take these philosophies into account and build up cooperation with students on the chosen basis. If the educator is a formalist, he or she makes the main emphasis on formal correctness of sentences, grammar, and structure. They rely heavily on the form of writing and not on the contents, thus making form, spelling the dominant factors to be considered by students (Richard , p.344).
Another situation may be seen in case the educator is an expressionist – he or she turns the majority of attention at the students’ self-education, self-discovery, and self-expression. Such educators allow students to make minor mistakes and neglect the form of expression, paying tribute to the contents of what they want to express. The major tools for expression are recognized in journal-keeping, writing on personal subjects that are surely a more beneficial sphere in terms of increasing the expressiveness of writing methods (Richard, p. 345).
The third philosophy of writing that may generally be pursued by educators is mimetic – it means the focus on the correspondence with reality (Richard, p.343). Educators supporting this strategy are focused on the “clear connection between good writing and good thinking” (Richard, p. 345). This means that they are mostly concerned about the process of thinking the writing over before actually writing. Thus, the philosophy concerns building up the structuring process and the way of mental structuring of the work.
The last philosophy stipulated by Richard is rhetoric – the opinion of the author is that the rhetoric piece of writing should achieve the desired effect the author has planned concerning the readers (Richard 346). This is why it is important to structure the piece of writing in such a way so that it would produce the necessary effect and the educator should pay particular attention to the issues of forming these qualities in students.
After considering all these characteristics of the educational process and taking into account all educational strategies an educator is going to pursue it will be possible to design an individually tailored educational course that will be constructive in achieving the stipulated goals. Students will grasp the body of knowledge on all possible levels, starting from the theory and finishing with practical applications. The main thing to make sure is the way to align the purposes of the course with the individual approach to studying as it was made by Richard Jensen (216) and implemented in the studies of Hiroshima arranged by him. He made the main emphasis on comprehensive reading, living with the subject, and learning it through a set of personal experiences as well as objective considerations.
Works Cited
- Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 343-348.
- Herzberg, Bruce. “Community Service and Critical Teaching”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 307-319.
- Hughes, Joan. “Technology learning principles for preservice and in-service teacher education”. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 4(3), 345-362.
- Jensen, Richard. “Understanding Hiroshima: An Assignment Sequence for Freshman English”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 215-219.