3 Surprising Pedagogical Theories

What should be the role of the teacher? Interestingly, this will depend to some degree on the various pedagogical theories that we attend to. And, although they are all interesting, the variety of their postulates is enormous.

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 single 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 daring of their postulates, we are going to briefly analyze three in particular.

The ethical pedagogy of John Elliot

John Elliot is an internationally recognized educator and thinker. In the 80s of the last century he became a great precursor of the reform of teaching practice in which he focused on the specification that the educator must deepen and reaffirm the ethical dimension of education.

That is, under the postulates of Elliot’s theories, a teacher should not focus his objectives only on the final results of the student. The trainer will focus on the educational intentionality, that is, on the values ​​principles that govern the training process.

For John Elliot, all educational action seeks the production of intrinsic qualities of meaningful learning, which will focus on preventing the student from wasting their time learning content without meaning. In other words, it seeks for the student to acquire 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 it, the mechanism of the learning process and integral training as a person, so that they conceive their reality and their intervention in it.

Meaningful Learning from David Paul Ausubel

Connecting with the previous article, we find the significant learning theory of David Paul Ausubel. This author goes beyond Bruner’s 1970s theories to ensure that, while children can build their knowledge through discovery, learning can also happen through 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 being proposed. If achieved, this significant learning implies that there is a longer retention of the information that is received.

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

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences

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 such as Robert Sternberg, although he also has his detractors. In this sense, both Gardner and Sternberg agree that it is necessary to train an individual’s natural tendencies to improve their intellectual performance.

Much has been written and studied on the theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner considers that the 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 settings.

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 be interested in a direct and formal way in the true why of things.

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