What is General Didactics?
What is General Didactics?
The terms educational materials or toys are always widely heard, but what is the meaning of general didactics ? What does this adjective refer to? Well, this word refers to the discipline that aims to study the processes and elements that participate in teaching and learning. Therefore, it deals with teaching techniques and methods.
As we have pointed out, the word general didactic usually accompanies other terms in such a way that we forget the specific meaning of this word and what it refers to in particular.
Definition of General Didactics
General didactics can be defined as the branch of pedagogy that is responsible for searching for methods and techniques to improve teaching, so that knowledge reaches those educated, who are usually children, in an effective way.
Therefore, didactics is part of learning and has a scientific nature. We could say that it is responsible for addressing, analyzing, and designing the schemes and plans intended to embody the bases of each pedagogical theory , and whose purpose is to provide appropriate knowledge at each stage of children’s learning.
It is a discipline that supports teachers when selecting and developing the content they are going to teach to their students. General didactics orders and supports the teaching models and the learning plan that students must follow, taking into account their age.
The concept of general didactics can be understood from several points of view. It can be understood as a technique, as a theory or as a basic science of instruction . Likewise, teaching models are characterized by having a theoretical profile (descriptive, explanatory and predictive) and a technological profile (prescriptive and normative).
General Didactics in Education
In any case, education has been changing and the didactic models that are applied for learning have also changed. What twenty years ago was a common model for all schools has now changed and we can talk about greater flexibility. In the past, education was based solely on a single didactic teaching model that was traditional.
It focused on teaching without caring too much about how, that is, the methods to achieve good learning were not studied , nor the contexts in which knowledge was attempted to be imparted or the personal characteristics of each individual. But luckily all this has changed and learning methods have adapted to new times.
Currently, when teaching it is very important to use effective general didactics , that is, one that includes a prior analysis of the context of the students in general and of each individual in particular. What general didactics seeks is that teaching is effective and the method is appropriate for each of the students. It seeks to develop the essential self-training capabilities so that the knowledge achieved is internalized and can be applied in the daily lives of individuals.
General didactics is responsible for defining an appropriate teaching technique so that the learning of the students and each one of them is effective. It is related to the task of teaching itself and is responsible for analyzing educational processes in the intellect of an individual and in the methodologies that have been carried out.
It must be taken into account that several components are involved in the didactic act so that it can be carried out. We have to talk about the teacher or professor, the student or student, the social context of learning and the school curriculum that is part of the teaching and learning processes, and is made up of four constituent elements: objectives, contents, methodology and evaluation.