How do we exercise our pedagogy of the unique in educating for social formations?

Margaret Farren with Fionnuala Flanagan and Chris Garvey, Computer Applications, Dublin City University

June 2002

In our presentation we will describe and explain how we have researched our own educational practice using Information and Communications Technology, and developed our ‘living educational theory’ (Whitehead, 2003). Living educational theory is constituted by the descriptions and explanations which individual teachers produce for their own learning in enquiries of the kind: ‘How do I improve my practice?’ It involves using our values as living standards of judgement in testing the validity of our claims to educational knowledge (McNiff, et al., 2003). The classroom environment offers a unique setting for teachers to develop their educational practice by exploring, discovering, interacting, articulating, and communicating how they have improved educational practice. This calls for each one of us to exercise our own pedagogy of the unique (Farren, 2003) in our educational relationships.