Teacher Im/Material: Challenging the New Pedagogies of Instructional Design

Abstract

The authors critique the increasingly technologized teaching and learning environment of higher education. They argue that fresh pedagogical understandings are needed to inform thinking about instructional design. While the imperative to use communication technologies to increase learner access is laudable, the question of "access to what?" should also be addressed in all of its complexity. Disparate terrains of new literature about teaching and learning, technology and corporeality can bring fresh perspectives to bear on the nature of pedagogical work. However, such literatures are rarely brought together. In this article, the authors work across aspects of learning theory, critical theory, and poststructuralism to explore the question, "access to what?" In so doing, they raise important questions about the embodied nature of teaching and learning and the potential of both "embodied" and "disembodied" teaching to produce and counter marginalization. The argument is that all decisions about the appropriateness of particular pedagogical practices must engage with such questions.