Many countries are in the process of adopting radical changes to the purpose, nature and organisation of the school curriculum as the principles of lifelong learning are transferred to schooling. One of the most fundamental changes is in the emphasis on learning how to learn as a transferable skill set that underpins the whole curriculum. On this basis we are seeing the importation into schools of ideas and practices drawn from adult education and the commercial sector. In particular those that posit that the most effective relationship between those who learn and their learning lies in self-direction through mastery of the performativity cycle (goal setting, activity, evaluation). The second radical change, also cross-curricular in focus, is the formalisation of learning in schools that was previously considered as part of the implicit, or hidden curriculum. Learning outcomes under such themes as Health and Wellbeing relate directly to the ‘socialisation’ of students with a focus on developing their personal qualities and their social conduct. Both these changes place an increased emphasis on children and young people’s capacity for self-regulation which has profound implications for teachers and their professional practice with a particular emphasis on school students as ‘learners’ and the pedagogic process as a matter of ‘teaching and learning’. In recognition of these implications there has been an expansion of advice on pedagogic practice in both policy documents and in the educational literature.

At the same time the relationship between the creation and use of knowledge by children and young people as both individuals and in groups has tended to remain relatively unexamined. The paper argues that whereas learning processes remain much as they have always been it is these relations to knowledge that have radically altered and to which pedagogic practice needs to respond.

This paper examines how pedagogy is defined and used in the literature and argues that there is a gap in the current discussion between attending to the broad, societal determinants of pedagogic practice and prescribing specific forms of pedagogic activity in classrooms. The notion that pedagogic activity can be based on ‘learning’ as something independent of intents with regard to knowledge is seen as problematic. It is argued that there is the need to attend to the median level of developing an effective conceptual framing of what it is that needs to be learned and why in order to guide choices about pedagogic activity.

Drawing from policy sources and educational literature this paper explores the nature of current advice to teachers and discusses how effective or otherwise it may be in helping them to understand and fulfil a new role in their classrooms. At the global level pedagogic advice has emerged from various agencies following the publication in 1996 of Lifelong Learning for All by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which marked the transition of the term ‘lifelong learning’ from its reference to adult education to its application to ‘all learning endeavours over the lifespan’. Current advice to teachers about a suitable pedagogy in response to these requirements is contained in the OECD’s Practitioner’s Guide (Groff, 2012), which draws on an earlier document commissioned by the agency, The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice (Dumont et al., 2010). The Guide outlines how ‘the learning sciences’ can inform the design of learning environments. On the basis of the change to a knowledge economy and the resulting requirement for young people to acquire “adaptive expertise” the booklet presents a definition of learning for the 21st century. In the literature pedagogy is largely defined at two levels. At the macro level authors refer to different traditions of teaching practice derived from a) the history and culture of different regions (Bruner 1996, Alexander 2001, Leach & Moon 2008) b) the variety of power relationships that educational practices support or embed (Bernstein 2000, Apple 2004) and c) the constructions of worthwhile knowledge and conduct that delineate curricular content (Shulman 2005, Giroux 2007). At the micro level of pedagogic advice about classroom activity the global focus on a constructivist approach to learning has served as a basis for a number of texts advising on teaching and learning strategies (Black et al.2002, Hattie 2012, Loughran 2013, Waring & Evans 2015)

The paper examines whether the notion of a 'sciences of learning' is an adequate basis for the derivation of pedagogic advice and concludes that it not because it obscures the purpose of educational activity by equating means with intent. The implications of the radical changes in the relationship between individuals and groups and their engagement inn the use and creation of knowledge are lost if pedagogy is conceived as simply being a relation between learning and teaching rather than a three-way relationship between learning, teaching and knowledge.

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