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Six Types of Pedagogy

Pedagogy refers to how education is being delivered to the students. As you can imagine, there are many ways to learn and teach. The best pedagogy, in my opinion, is the one that best fits your own learning style. Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to teach in various online programmes. I was fortunate to gain exposure to the different kinds of pedagogy used by these online programmes. Is there a perfect one that I can recommend? No. This is simply because each pedagogy has its own advantages and disadvantages. My suggestion is that you ask your prospective universities a lot of questions so that you will understand the pedagogy they are using. If they do not want to tell you the details, there is usually something not good that they want to hide and this will be a red flag in your university selection.

To give you an analogy, there are all kinds of restaurants in a city. Some restaurants serve fast food while others are upscale ones good for fine dining. Is there a perfect type of restaurant? No, as it really depends on your situation and context. Let’s say you are in an airport and trying to grab some food prior to boarding the plane; then fine dining is definitely not a good idea because it may take too long. It would be much wiser to get a quick bite at McDonald’s or Tim Hortons. On the other hand, if you have lots of time and money is not an issue, then why not enjoy a decent meal in a fine restaurant and spend the night there? What is best for others may not be suitable for you. Coming back to our university selection discussion, you really need to first figure out your preferred learning style, and then find the ideal university that can accommodate your needs. From my experience and observation, there are six major types of pedagogy, namely:

1. Textbook-based programme

2. Discussion Board-based programme

3. Research Paper-based programme

4. Proctored Examination–based programme

5. Facebook-based programme

6. Content-enhanced programme

Textbook-based Programme

In this kind of programme, you will be reading books all the time. For example, let’s say a marketing course spans over 12 weeks, and there are 24 chapters in the textbook. You will probably read the first two chapters in week 1, the next two chapters in week 2, and so on until the whole book is finished. In the online discussion board, every week your professor will probably ask you some questions that are related to the assigned reading. You may also be asked to complete some multiple-choice questions online as well on a weekly basis.

The beauty of such online programme is that as long as you are willing to spend time to do your textbook reading, you should be able to complete your discussion board and paper assignments easily. This is because most of the answers can be found from the textbook. The route to obtaining high marks is straightforward: read the textbook, lift the standard answers from the textbook, and add in your personal or business experience to complete the assignment. Since you will know precisely what chapter you are supposed to read throughout the whole course, you can plan your study schedule ahead and read some chapters in advance for better preparation. As a result, this kind of programme also fits pretty well with those who do not like surprises.

That said, a textbook-based programme is not suitable for everybody. If you do not have the habit of reading books on a regular basis, you may find it very difficult. Don't even think about squeezing time on a Sunday night to read through two chapters because it is very painful. Be honest with yourself. Do you really enjoy reading a thick textbook? Moreover, some students may find this kind of programme a bit boring due to the lack of interaction with other students.