An Entangled Pedagogy: Looking Beyond the Pedagogy—Technology Dichotomy

Abstract

Abstract‘Pedagogy first’ has become a mantra for educators, supported by the metaphor of the ‘pedagogical horse’ driving the ‘technological cart’. Yet putting technology first or last separates it from pedagogy, making us susceptible to technological or pedagogical determinism (i.e. where technology is seen either as the driving force of change or as a set of neutral tools). In this paper, I present a model of entangled pedagogy that encapsulates the mutual shaping of technology, teaching methods, purposes, values and context. Entangled pedagogy is collective, and agency is negotiated between teachers, students and other stakeholders. Outcomes are contingent on complex relations and cannot be determined in advance. I then outline an aspirational view of how teachers, students and others can collaborate whilst embracing uncertainty, imperfection, openness and honesty, and developing pedagogical knowledge that is collective, responsive and ethical. Finally, I discuss implications for evaluation and research, arguing that we must look beyond isolated ideas of technologies or teaching methods, to the situated, entangled combinations of diverse elements involved in educational activity.

Spaces and Places for Connection in the Postdigital University

“…This fluidity of spheres and practices suggest a need to move away from binary conceptions of the digital and in person, and a need to smudge the lines of those enclosures of thought that linguistically common expressions — ‘remote’, ‘in person’, ‘face to face’ — surrounding the digital impose. The implications of this are that we can see educational practices as entangled (Barad 2007 ), as always constituted by digital activities, regardless of modality (Fawns 2019 , 2022 ), and technologies as situated within sociomaterial assemblages. Changing practices warrant us to unbound our thinking; as Gourlay ( 2022 : 59) describes, we are gathering: growing insights into the sheer complexity, contingency, and shifting nature of educational practices and engagement in terms of spatiality, embodiment, and movement.…”

Technology and educational ‘pivoting’ in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic: A collected commentary

“…The recent co-edited book titled "Critical Digital Pedagogy" (Stommel, Friend, & Morris, 2020) brought together many TEL field authors critically reflecting on the possibilities of digital learning and teaching with lowered boundaries lifelong and life-wide. Deepened recognition of socio-material entanglements (Fawns, 2022;Fenwick & Landri, 2012) in teaching and learning (as in all other work and life endeavours) invites us to broaden our understanding of hybridity beyond fluidity in remaining open to opening dimensions which we yet are to discern. Nørgård and Hilli (2022) also appear to be moving in this direction of openness with their contemplation of "hyper hybridity" where the "different media platforms, elements, and places are put into action to create an ecology of teaching and learning that forms complex entanglements of people, materials, contexts and media" (p. 28).…”

Listening to the Post-script: Intersections Between Improvisation and Indeterminacy in Music and Education

“…What the studies cited above don’t explicitly address is the role of technology in teachers’ and learners’ improvisatory practices, how it enables or hinders their ability to improvise, or how it contributes to determining activity. In postdigital education, we need to better understand the constraints, possibilities and risk of technology (Fawns 2022 ). In terms of improvisation, this means gaining a better understanding of ways in which technology might enable or constrain improvisational processes and outcomes.…”

“…However, it is important to consider whether there may be reasons for incorporating improvisational practices in education that go beyond the promotion of student-centred learning. In presenting a model of entangled pedagogy, Fawns ( 2022 ) foregrounds the importance of making purpose, context and values explicit, and regularly revisiting them ‘to ensure that they meaningfully and iteratively inform choices around methods and technology, whilst also recognising the shaping role of technology and methods as part of the pedagogical mix’ (9).…”

“…The purpose would be to provide practical resources that would allow us to be more deliberate in the choices we make as educational designers and teachers to achieve the educational goals we see as important, particularly if we want to ‘orient our actions towards that which is not visible in the here and now – the student’s subject-ness’ and to ‘close our eyes to what is visible, to the evidence that tries to tell us that the student is not yet ready…’ (Biesta 2017 : 94). As part of the process, we need to need to better understand and recognise the ‘shaping role of technology and methods’ and how they feature in the pedagogical mix (Fawns 2022 ), particularly as we work with less structurally defined educational forms.…”