In the spring of 2020 an unprecedented event occurred: the COVID-19 virus pandemic spread around the world producing consecutive Lockdowns to control the cases of contagion. This directly affected educational institutions. Most of them with face-to-face teaching systems and, in turn, generally with didactic pedagogical systems, had to adapt to rapid digitalization, in many cases hastily.

In this context, the already existing inequalities increased:

• being overwhelmed by the expectation of autonomy in learning
• an absence of social contact
• no access to IT equipment for personal and exclusive use
• issues arising from the concurrence of the learning and the home space

What is authentic pedagogy?

Authentic pedagogy is a methodological approach to teaching through experience knowledge is acquired, thereby enabling students to to think, consider, deliberately discover, discuss their experience and logically construct concepts that are relevant to themselves.

In other word, it is a much more plastic and active methodology than didactics, where the student is a passive agent receiving knowledge.

Case of study

In England Higher Education (HE) institutions are required by statutory regulations to produce an Access and Participation Plan for the period 2020/21 to 2024/25. Such a plan is to include targets to reduce the gaps between different groups of students in relation to access, success and progression.

With the new situation, the existing gap between groups was further increased, so to minimize it, teaching methodologies were adapted to be relevant and feasible in the new social environment of online learning, where social interactions in learning were affected by the digital divide.

Instead of classes with a didactic methodology in which there is a speaker and a passive audience, workshops with a concrete structure have been implemented, as followed:

1. Structuring the literature review chapter
2. Engaging with research methods literature
3. Searching for sources
4. Conducting and writing up analysis
5. Undertaking comparative analysis
6. Reviewing your positionality: reflecting on how my understanding has changed
7. Structuring your abstract

Each workshop followed a consistent sequence of activities tailored to specific academic skills or research practices. It went from the macro (from the most general) to the micro (to the detail).

Due to logistical problems, many of the students chose not to participate via these functions, so the implementation of a chat was proposed.

According to the report of the case of study, COVID and the application of technologies for teaching and learning revealed the wide differences between social groups, as well as the vulnerabilities of the teaching systems and how to engage children in their learning process.

The use of authentic pedagogy facilitated the possibility of forming a learning community for university researchers in the context of online teaching and learning during the pandemic. However, it does not describe what the real impacts were in the communities where the technique was applied. Nor does it provide indicators that allow us to know the level of performance of the tasks performed and the level of learning.

Despite the advantages provided by the application of authentic pedagogy, such as:

• Students could think and generate relevant ideas
• Students would discover applicable theory and concept
• Students are also sources of knowledge
• It engages students and makes them more dedicated

It does not analyze the weaknesses of the methodology, as for example:

• to generate relevant ideas
• increase specific vocabulary
• Not every student will provide useful idea

A number of questions arise that are not addressed in the study: What happens in these cases? how were these difficulties solved during the application of the workshops? what performance indicators were used to analyze the implementation of the proposal?

Case of study: " Navigating pedagogical challenges through authentic pedagogyduring the transition to online learning amid COVID-19"

Bibliography:

• " Navigating pedagogical challenges through authentic pedagogy during the transition to online learning amid COVID-19  ", July 2022 - Jennifer van Krieken Robson, Francesca Zanatta
• " The Role of Didactic and Authentic Pedagogy Toward Student’s Achievement  ", January 2019 - Ibrahim A.M
• " Authentic pedagogy: examining intellectual challenge in social studies classrooms ", July 2018 - Jeremy Stoddard, David M. Gerwin,Andrea S. Libresco &Lamont E. Maddox
• Authentic Literacy Pedagogy: An Overview 
• Kalantzis and Cope, Debating Authentic Pedagogy