Didactic transposition: characteristics of this teaching process

Didactic transposition is a process in which scientific or academic knowledge undergoes a series of transformations. to adapt it to a less technical level, affordable for non-specialized students. That is, it consists of modifying a wise or scholarly knowledge to make it plausible to be taught.

This idea was originally raised by Michel Verret (1975) and later reintroduced by Yves Chevallard, a didactics theorist. of mathematics that originally applied it to this discipline, although later this concept has been extrapolated to other fields of know.

This process is very important in teaching. since, if it is carried out in an appropriate way, it will be possible to provide the students with useful, current and scientifically based knowledge, but without abusing technical terms or too specialized information.

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What does the didactic transposition consist of?

Scholarly or scientific knowledge is that which has been obtained and elaborated by specialized institutions. in a certain field of knowledge, such as biology, chemistry, psychology, among many others. others. Being a very technical knowledge, it is necessary that it be modified in such a way that it can be learned by people who are not specialized in the subject.

The didactic transposition implies a series of phases in which scientific knowledge is progressively adapted to the level of the students. This knowledge is molded according to the objectives of the curriculum proposed by the education authorities and, both the authors of school books as well as the teachers themselves in the classroom are involved in this process, endowing the knowledge with utility for the students. students.

Scientific knowledge undergoes two main transformations. First, it is modified in such a way that it can be taught and become an object of teaching. Teachers and experts in the field of education are involved in this first transformation.

Subsequently, the second transformation occurs, in which the teacher takes this knowledge that has already been modified and adapts it based on the characteristics of your classroom.

It is of fundamental importance that the teacher, as a participant in the didactic transposition, take into account the characteristics of the students that make up the classroom: socioeconomic differences, stage of development, cultural diversity, learning difficulties, language differences, number of students in class...

The teacher must ask three questions in relation to the knowledge that he is going to teach:

• What is it going to teach?
• Why are you going to teach it?
• How are you going to teach it?

How to adapt the knowledge to the level of the students?

When it comes to transforming knowledge, it must be done in such a way that it is not distorted or presented in a too generalized way and the essence of its content is lost. It is essential to avoid that, in the reformulation and simplification of this knowledge, it comes to contradict the scientific knowledge from which it starts.

It is very important to be updated on scientific knowledgeGiven that science advances very quickly and what until relatively recently was taken as true can perfectly be refuted after a while. If the teacher does not update her knowledge, he may run the risk of teaching knowledge that has become outdated and mislead his students.

As an example of outdated knowledge to teach, we have the already famous case of Pluto when it was relegated to the category of dwarf planet. Many textbooks kept presenting it as the ninth planet in the Solar System for years.

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Approach to teaching

The teacher must take special care when teaching the contents in the classroom, since there can be two types of distances:

1. Distance between the knowledge to be taught and the knowledge taught

The teacher must monitor that the knowledge to be taught and that which is finally taught in the classroom correspond, or at least they are not too far apart in terms of their fundamental content.

2. Distance between the knowledge taught and the knowledge learned by the students

Students have a knowledge base prior to the acquisition of a new one, which can facilitate or hinder new learning. Also, it may be the case that the new learning has not been correctly adapted at the student level.

It is very difficult for all the content taught to students to be fully learned. The teacher must take this into account, in addition to encouraging motivation and the desire to learn in the students.

Characteristics

When the end of the process has been reached, the knowledge to be taught presents a series of characteristics which facilitate its learning:

1. Discretization of knowledge

The knowledge to be taught, although it originally belongs to a certain field, differs from it in that it is less specific. It continues to start from the field in which it originated, but allows it to be formulated explaining a more general knowledge.

2. Depersonalization of knowledge:

All academic knowledge has one or more authors behind it. As it adapts to less specialized levels, it becomes detached from the name of the person who made it.

3. Programmability of knowledge acquisition

The knowledge to be taught has been elaborated in such a way that allows it to be introduced, explained and concluded clearly. In other words, it is scheduled to be explained progressively in a school context and to guarantee that students understand and learn it.

4. Publicity and social control of learning

By being modified to reach less specialized levels, the knowledge to be taught can reach a broader audience, allowing it to be exposed in the media. Thanks to this, a certain social control can be exercised over the general culture of the population.

Bibliographic references:

• Gomez-Mendoza, M. Á. (2005). Didactic transposition: history of a concept. Latin American Journal of Educational Studies, 1, 83-115.
• Chevallard, Y. (1991) La Transposition Didactique du Savoir Savant au Savoir Enseigné. Grenoble, La Pensée Sauvage editions.