Branch of pedagogy specialized in teaching
Didactics is that branch within Pedagogy that specializes in teaching techniques and methods intended to shape the guidelines of pedagogical theories. Per se is a pedagogical scientific discipline whose focus of interest turns out to be all the elements and processes that intervene in the learning process of a person.
Busy with how to effectively transmit knowledge to students
Didactics is especially concerned with the study of the most effective and satisfactory ways in which teachers can transmit knowledge to students.
Within education, didactics turns out to be an essential tool because it precisely provides tools to educators so that they face the teaching process with greater security and guarantee that it will be successful and that the proposed purposes can be fulfilled.
Internal currents
Now, we must emphasize that as in many other areas of life, in didactics there are also different visions and proposals to guarantee learning.
There are some who propose that the teacher is the source of knowledge and that the student must passively receive knowledge; on the other hand, there are others that seek greater participation by students, encouraging them to actively participate in their education through asking questions, for example.
Although each of them may be more successful in some contexts than in others, we must say that the second proposal is the one that has garnered the most followers today because it precisely aims to listen more to the students and that they feel that they are heard. become more engaged in the educational process.
Now, we cannot ignore an issue related to this last proposal and that has to do with the fact that by placing greater responsibility on the student, the teacher, the burden of the effects of the process is lightened.
It is common for the inks to be loaded on the teachers, especially when the results are not good, but we must say that the students also have their part in this procedure, which is as crucial as the one performed by the teachers and that is why it is important that this also be taken.
On the other hand, didactics is a discipline that is closely associated with other pedagogical disciplines such as school organization and educational orientation and that is in the search for foundation and regulation, both of the learning and teaching processes.
The didactic act is made up of the following elements: teacher (the teacher), student (the student or pupil), learning context and curriculum.
On the other hand, didactics can be understood as pure technique, applied science, theory or basic science of instruction. And regarding the didactic models we can find theorists (descriptive, explanatory and predictive) or technological (prescriptive and normative).
Just as the world evolved in almost all its orders, education was not left out of this evolution and then its didactic models have been updated according to current times.
At the beginning, we found the traditional model that focused on teachers and content only and without paying too much attention to issues such as methodological aspects, contexts and the particular situation of the students, meanwhile, over the years and the progressive evolution reached a system of active models that first of all promotes understanding and creativity through the discovery and personal experimentation of phenomena. That is, more than anything this model aims to develop self-training skills.
For its part, cognitive sciences have given didactics greater openness and flexibility to their models.
We currently find three great reference exponents: the normative model (focuses on content), inciting (focuses on the student) and approximate (focused on the construction of knowledge by the student).
