Abstract
This paper is a critique against “purist” pedagogies found in the literature of student-centred learning. The article reproves extremism in education and questions the absolutism and teleological truths expounded in exclusive problem-based learning. The paper articulates the framework of a unifying pedagogical practice through Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s conceptual use of beside and leverages upon translation theory to counter argue against a pedagogy of extremism. The teaching and learning narratives of the authors are invoked in critiquing student-centred learning approaches that attempt to minimize the authority of the teacher/educators and advocate unguided learning.
Highlights
We argue that the teacher’s voice must break through and be heard amidst the silence in the literature of student-centred pedagogy such as problem-based learning (PBL)
We argue that what is needed is a more balanced and inclusive conceptualization of pedagogy or unifying pedagogy as we choose to call it – an approach where both student and teacher voices are heard and are given legitimate spaces to interact with one another to shape classroom educational discourses
There has been a flurry of new names and titles for student-centred, constructivist learning such as inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, challenge-based learning (Baloian et al, 2006), blended problem-based learning (Woltering, Herrler, Spitzer, Spreckelsen 2009), reform-based teaching (Barak and Shakhman, 2007), SCLEs or student-centred learning environments (Hannafin and Land, 2000)
Summary
This paper explicates the experiences of two PBL teachers in a tertiary institution but the problematics we encountered are not isolated to our world Educators such as Alan Neville (1999), in his personal practice as a facilitator in McMaster University, reflects upon and questions the exclusion of the tutor’s embodied expression in favour of the student’s voice; Doris Santoro Gomez (2008) explores and explicates the illusionary binary that splits the teacher-student into a margin-centre schema; and Francis Maher (2001), in her feminist critique of student-centred learning, questions the blind-sightedness of facilitation when confronted by unequal gender power relations in the classroom. It is our desire to encourage dynamic scholarship that provides more inclusive research that blends the private, unarticulated self with rigorous, scholarly interventions
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