Does subject specific pedagogy have a place in the wider curriculum?
Through years of research and development into pedagogy used in the STEM spectrum, it has become apparent that there are specific pedagogies applied within each subject that are equally successfully applied to other subjects.
Abstraction is far from a new concept but by name it is better known to Computer Scientists than other subject teachers. It is based around the premise that unnecessary detail within a problem or concept should be abstracted away until you are left with a distilled version containing only the vital elements that is more quickly absorbed and understood. This allows for problems to be solved with fewer, or no, irrelevant distractions. For example, if you drew a map for a house guest to the local train station, what detail would you include, or exclude?
Electrical systems schematic
Harry Beck (1902-1974) was a trained electrical draughtsman employed by the London Underground to draw schematics of their electrical systems. When the early maps of the rail network were published, Harry realised that the principles that applied to schematic wiring diagrams would also apply to the tube map. Like a cabinet of circuitry, it wasn’t important that each wire be accurate in terms of its distance and direction, only its connections were vital; so he designed the map as we know it today.
Geographically correct tube network and today’s abstracted version
The same abstraction of detail can be applied to diagrams in all subjects. Design and Technology, for example. In this pair of diagrams explaining nuclear power, any detail external to the reactor and generator in the first diagram are removed to simplify the diagram and focus the mind. Gradient fill effects have been removed, cooling towers and smoke detail are not necessary and 3D effects flattened to only two dimensions.
Abstraction of detail
Procedural variation is a teaching strategy commonly employed in developing mathematics mastery. Concepts are broken down into their simplest stages and questions are then developed to assess each progressive stage by adjusting graduated questions on the topic, usually by thoughtfully changing only one variable within each step. Each question elicits greater understanding and highlights immediately where misconceptions may lie. Diagnostic questions also test the boundaries of understanding.
Procedural variation
Procedural variation is as much about knowing what not to change as it is knowing what should change. Applying this concept to worksheets in Chemistry, Physics and Computer Science for example, produces great results. Students’ understanding can be carefully developed one step at a time. Particularly given the mathematical content in these subjects.
Contextual application is a skill widely used in teaching Business and Economics. Creating case-study-rich content is essential to providing constant practice at applying knowledge. As a subject without any KS3 foundation, Business assumes no prior knowledge of complex new terminology. Teaching resources within the subject need to adapt to constantly reinforce these terms and definitions within the contextual language. This adaptation is naturally transferred to teaching new content in D&T, IT and Science where new topics appear for the first time with plentiful case studies to apply the knowledge.
Experimental evidence is crucial to learning and understanding Science. In developing resources for science, activities need to be based on real numbers in real situations. Dealing with error, inaccuracies and human involvement all play a part in developing students’ resilience to improve their results and evaluate the results based on the evidence they trust. This could have wider implications in the assessment of real vs fake news in our modern world. The ability to develop students to think logically, with the resources that are used in teaching science, is a vital skill that is employed in all subjects, especially those across the STEM field. The decomposition of a problem down into its constituent parts is a Computer Science term and skill, and, whilst it doesn’t have such a title in science, it is most certainly key to thinking through a problem in the laboratory. After all, 300 years ago, Science was known as Natural philosophy and still is in some traditional establishments.
With an overarching view of STEM subjects and the teaching strategies employed in each subject area, it is clear that an integrated learning approach is ideal. These are not new strategies, just that they may have a name that we have not heard of before. After all, it is all ‘just good teaching’. Critical thinking, analytical skills and problem solving are generic skills bound to improve success in any STEM subject area. By naming subjects, we may have inadvertently fragmented them all, but in every subject, we are all teaching the same skills, albeit applied to different topics. Raising an awareness of these skills within ourselves and their impact in our delivery ensures that we keep things integrated in a way that most benefits the entrepreneurs, the computer scientists, the designers, technologists and engineers, the mathematicians and the scientists of tomorrow.
