Pedagogic methods for a new century. Are they really innovative?

Abstract

In this work 14 pedagogic innovation areas, widespread in the educational system over the last two decades, are examined. A classification of four approaches is proposed, according to their educational goal and didactic principles: (1) experiential and inquiry learning, (2) cooperative learning, (3) intelligence and thinking-based teaching, and (4) emotion and motivation-based teaching. The historical antecedents of each of those approaches show that they mainly go back to last century pedagogic ideas, which have been improved with new didactics and technological tools. From the revision of recent research on its benefits and limitations we infer the interest of such innovations being orchestrated with direct instruction strategies, as well as the need to develop a research, focused on the process and the dificulties of its implementation in classroom.