We explain what psychopedagogy is and what its exponents were. The profile of the psychopedagogue and the areas of psychopedagogy.
What is Psychopedagogy?
The psychopedagogy It is a discipline that Its purpose is to analyze human behaviors related to education learning and vocational guidance.
The main objective of psychopedagogy is to create different tools or processes to increase people's education. Teacher training and a psychological analysis of each situation are some of the possible ways to address this issue.
Psychopedagogy, according to the Royal Spanish Academy, is that branch of psychology that analyzes psychological phenomena in order to more appropriately formulate didactic and pedagogical methods. It is the result of the intersection between psychology and education.
See also: Constructivism
Main exponents of psychopedagogy
Among its main exponents we find Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Brumer. Let's look at these authors in a brief summary and their contributions to psychology and how these have been extremely useful for psychopedagogy.
- Jean Piaget He is undoubtedly one of the central figures of psychology. This Swiss biologist, epistemologist and psychologist has managed to revolutionize the psychology paradigms of his time with his genetic theory.
Although the term genetics can generate some confusion, it is necessary to clarify that it does not refer to the genetics in biological terms, but rather in terms of genesis, origin and evolution. Piaget concluded that the knowledge process is not linear but is divided into different phases that he called “periods of cognitive development.”
These processes are cumulative and stand out for assimilation, that is, for the acquisition of new knowledge, and another process called accommodation, in which the child adjusts this new information to the cognitive structure. Piaget's theory was decisive for psychopedagogy, since it focused its attention on how children know, modifying their cognitive structures. - Jerome Bruner. He insisted on the need to change the behaviorist way of learning, which consisted of repetition and memorization techniques since according to this author they did not exploit the total capabilities of the individual.
Given this, he insisted on the importance of interactive learning, of dialogue as a way to enhance the process, added to the need to focus on processes and concepts rather than on specific facts and figures. As we see, it not only influenced psychopedagogy, but also the pedagogical field in general. - Lev Vygotsky He was a Russian psychologist who in his short life did a long work that greatly influenced social psychology. Among its main ideas we find the idea of environment, understood as the medium through which the person takes the tools to grow.
This breaks with some nativist ideas, according to which the person already has all the tools to develop themselves. Among the main “tools” that a person encounters in their environment is language.
Psychopedagogue profile
The profile of a psychopedagogue it necessarily has to be investigative but at the same time rigorous in its procedure. You must interact fluidly with those you are going to work with (who are almost always children).
The clinical method is crucial, since it is through interviews, questionnaires and notes The psychopedagogue will advance the child's particular problems.
The support of the family and recurring contact with the professional to inform them of the situation is very important. The psychopedagogue you have to use your theoretical framework to work with something subjective like an individual, therefore there are no “fixed rules” or absolute methods, but rather theories that can guide us in treatment (whether preventive or to work with a particular problem).
Areas of psychopedagogy
Within the field of learning, psychopedagogy can develop different functions. Among them the development of teaching methods stands out to address the diversity that we can find in learning processes.
As we all know, the standardized learning process tends to generate some difficulties, since Not everyone evolves at the same pace or in the same way. This takes on particular importance in those children who have some type of learning difficulty.
Another point that is less known by the population but is very important for exploiting the potential of the abilities of academic students and even the professional sector.
In this case, the function of psychopedagogy is to develop strategies for a better decision making
Finally, we can highlight the direct action in the classroom who can practice pedagogy. This is normally known as a tutorial action, and is very important when resolving conflicts of different types.
As we see, this type of psychopedagogy is characterized by the group work. Among its main tasks is to create values for the group and carry out practices that can serve for greater coexistence among the students.
