Beyond the Best Practice Binary: Articulating 'Relational Potential' in Pedagogy

• In Event: Artificial Intelligence, Learning, or Teaching

Abstract

In this piece, I offer a case study as an introduction to using the framework of relational aesthetics to articulate 'relational potentials' in pedagogy. I juxtapose this way of talking about pedagogical practice with the model of 'best practice,' in which strategies are discussed in binary terms: 'endorsed' or 'unendorsed,' 'effective' or 'ineffective.' I argue that thinking about the relational potentials afforded in a particular pedagogical strategy offers teachers more robust opportunities to understand what 'can' unfold in a classroom setting when one utilizes a particular strategy: what the strategy affords, impedes, and fosters. By doing so, teachers are better positioned to offer relational interventions that close off or open space for some of these relational potentials to become relational actualities.

Author

• Samantha Elizabeth Piede, Teachers College, Columbia University