Pedagogy

Place-based pedagogy integrates knowledge from the community with academic skills and knowledge (Gruenewald, 2003).  Through place-based pedagogy teachers and students can critically examine local communities, social issues, privilege and oppression that impacts the operation of justice and equity in local communities. Place-based main objective is to recognize heritage, culture and communities and identify ways to empower and engage these communities with classroom curriculum and instruction. The results of students who receive lesson guided through this pedagogy is engaged instruction, which supports de-colonial teaching practices and hence fostering a transformative education. By elementary school students learning through place-based education the importance of the Rio Grande Valley they will engage as authentic participants in the pride and history of the region.

Place-based education (PBE) immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of social studies and other subjects across the curriculum. PBE emphasizes learning through participation in service projects for the local school and/or community. A Place-Based curriculum fundamentally changes the traditional curriculum framework and, thus, the culture in which children learn. The PBE framework shifts the educational system from an outdated industrial input-output linear model to the more dynamic interdisciplinary approach of the information/digital age based in action research. In the Place-Based Model, the goal is to create opportunities for students to think independently (inquiry), collect, analyze, synthesize, and critique information (data), address community opportunities and concerns, and create knowledge and innovative ideas.

Pupils learn best in a positive and nurturing environment established by teachers who believe that every pupil is capable of learning. All pupils have areas of strengths and interests that can be useful in advancing pupil learning. Effective teachers establish an instructional environment that will draw on these strengths. Teachers consider the whole pupil; in other words, they attend to the cognitive, affective, social, and physical dimensions when developing an instructional program. Active engagement and interaction facilitate pupil learning.

New learning is built upon previously learned information. Learning is enhanced when prior knowledge and cultural and social experiences are valued, acknowledged, and leveraged throughout the curriculum. Pupil learning is both individually and socially constructed; it is effective teaching through pedagogy display skills at creating curricula designed to build on students' present knowledge and understanding and move them to more sophisticated and in-depth abilities, knowledge, concepts, and performances. In addition, pedagogy helps to make a range of instructional strategies and resources to match the variety of student skills and to provide each student several ways of exploring important ideas, skills, and concepts.