School Didactics And Learning: a school Didactic Model Framing An Analysis of Pedagogical Implication of Learning Theory

The Teacher’s and Students’ Culturally Defined Role
. In order to understand what teaching is, it is,
among other things, important to understand 
who
the teachers are; their personality, their view of mankind
and society, and education, what they hold important in life etc. By this we have said nothing about the
process of teaching as such, but is it really possible to understand what a teacher does if we do not
pay attention to the question of who the teacher is? Is the teacher’s personality or ideological conviction
completely devoid of interest in this perspective? In other words, is teaching only a commonplace technique
of instruction that is first learned and then applied? No, since teaching is an intentional, goal-oriented
activity, it is always value-related. Therefore teaching cannot be equated with any kind of technique.
Rather, teaching is a moral practice.
This study is directed towards institutionally organized TSL situations, i.e. situations characterized by
certain culturally agreed-upon expectations and roles; a teacher is supposed to be able to teach, the students
are told to trust the teacher, the students conceive of themselves as learners that must pass exams, etc. In a
TSL situation in school, the participants’ roles are not solely defined by their intentional interaction in the
situations in question but also by the cultural role they have in visiting that institution. Compared to a TSL
situation in ordinary life, it is not necessarily the structure of the communicative pattern itself that differs
from the pattern in schools, but the conditions circumscribing the situation. One such condition is the
curriculum, another is the traditions of a specific school. It is thus impossible to grasp the TSL process in
the institutionalized school without viewing it in relation to the curriculum, hidden or not, as well as to
many other structural factors constituting this organization (Loser & Terhart, 1994; Lundgren, 1972). Thus
learning in schools is one form of contextually embedded learning practice (for a discussion see Mertaniemi
& Uljens, 1994; Uljens & Myrskog, 1994).
The Content
Fourth, we have the question of content. If a teacher helps the student to reach some kind of competence,
there is always this “something” present in the situation. It is, in fact, very difficult to imagine a
pedagogical situation that would not contain any kind of content—there has, it seems, to be some kind of
content. Thus, if the content is such a fundamental feature of a pedagogical situation, then this must be
acknowledged as a relevant problem in trying to understand teaching. As we will see, several questions are
related to content: especially the question of how the content is constructed in an institutionalized
educational setting is important (Menck, 1975, 1987).
Methods
The fifth question of relevance in this connection concerns the actual methods that a teacher makes use of in
pedagogical work (Schulze, 1993). This includes several sub-questions which will be dealt with in more
detail in connection with the theory to be presented later on. In short then, this question involves (a) the
methods used to represent the actual content, (b) the working methods used by the students and (c) the
instructional and evaluative methods used by the teacher (Terhart, 1989).
Conclusion
In this chapter we have referred to the complexity of pedagogical reality. Questions to be posed in order to
grasp this complexity have also been indicated. Yet most problems remain unsolved. One of the first is how
the many questions raised above should be related to each other in order to form a structured whole. But
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SCHOOL DIDACTICS AND LEARNING

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before we go that far, it is time for a more elaborate analysis of learning. As teaching is often thought of as
something facilitating learning, we must also define the relation between teaching and learning more
precisely.
ON LEARNING
Before we can make any suggestions concerning the relation between teaching and learning, we must
investigate the phenomenon of learning as such. The motive is twofold—first, practical pedagogical activity
is often thought to affect individual learning. Second, the theory of teaching must relate to learning in one way
or another.
Thus, what is learning? How should it be limited? What are the basic features of learning? The focus of
attention in what follows will be the notion of change. Which changes, we will ask, of all human changes,
are identified as learning changes?
The discussion aims at posing questions that will help us to delimit the phenomenon of teaching; if
teaching aims at influencing individuals in such a way that changes called learning are brought about, then
it may be helpful to understand what is counted as a learning change among different types of human
changes.
It should be observed that the present discussion is consciously delimited to only a few issues; (a) the
process and result of learning, (b) maturation and learning, (c) experience and learning, (d) learning and
invention.
THE PROCESS AND RESULT OF LEARNING
Generally speaking, a common crucial question in theories of learning is how changes occur in the way in
which an individual acts or experiences, understands, conceptualizes, approaches, recalls, handles,
manipulates, or treats something in his natural and cultural context. Several of the activ ities mentioned (the
list is not meant to be either exhaustive or definitive) can refer either to the process whereby an individual
requires a better or new comprehension or skill in some specific matter 
or
to a more stable mental state like
a present conscious awareness of something or a potentiality to do something. This means that the same
terms are, not always but often, used to refer to both the process of learning and the result of learning. In
other words, one can learn by acting or by reflecting, and a better ability to act or deeper reflection on
something may be the result of a reflective learning process.
A theory of learning should thus not be limited to what is changing in learning, though learning always is
a change of something. A theory of learning should explicate both the nature of the process, to the extent
that this is possible, and also what is changed by learning (Carey, 1985, p. 200):
Any theory of learning must have at least two components: a specification of the initial state and a
specification of the mechanisms in terms of which that initial state is modified… Psychologists who
decry the lack of mechanisms of conceptual change focus on only half of the problem.
What is counted as belonging to the process of learning, i.e. leading to some result, and what is called the
result of the process, are dependent on e.g. what the goal of learning was. A beginner may identify the
mastery of some necessary first step as an important instance of learning, without comprehending that what
was learned was almost negligible with respect to the task. A more experienced person who is learning
2. DIDACTICS AND THE TSL PROCESS
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something partly new may have another understanding of what distance must be covered before one has
reached a point worth calling a result of learning.
But is it necessary to reach intended knowledge or competence in order to call a change learning? This is
a reasonable question since we can easily identify situations where people have tried to reach the mastery of
something without succeeding. An individual has, in other words, studied in order to reach some kind of
knowledge, but not learned. From a pedagogical perspective there certainly is good reason to keep up this
distinction between studying and learning, since teachers are in fact concerned with teaching students how
to study, hoping thereby to make learning come about. What we are able to influence in educational
situations is precisely how students try to reach a certain degree of competence, i.e. how they study. We
may then compare the result of this activity with the study activity itself.
In situations where an individual is intentionally (deliberately) striving towards mastery of x, but without
making “any progress at all”, this judgement most often stems from the learner and is to be understood
against the background of the learner’s goals or expectations. The judgement often stems from a learner that
is disappointed with the progress made. However, some progress