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In a learning environment are all those objects, real or symbolic, catalysts of the educational process.
Definition
What are the so-called “didactic mediators”?
In a learning environment like school or family, everyone is objects – real or symbolic – catalysts of the educational process.
They make it more efficient at that improve communication (verbal and non-verbal) between teachers and students, thanks to its flexibility and adaptability to the different educational styles of the latter.
Damiano and Italian studies
Among the studies of Italian pedagogues on didactic mediation, the best known volume is probably that of Elio Damiano, author of the book “Didactic mediation”, In which he defines the didactic mediator as “What acts as an intermediary between subject and object in the production of knowledge, replaces reality so that knowledge can take place, but does not replace reality by discarding it, while requiring to be treated as if it were reality, but always, as mediator, clearly maintaining the awareness that reality is not exhausted with signs, whatever they may be ”.
Types of educational mediators
His work is also important in a taxonomic sense, as it highlights 4 types of mediators:
1- active: or that they resort to direct experience (for example, the scientific experiment);
2- iconic: that is, they use the language of icons (graphic and spatial), made up of images, diagrams, and concept maps.
3- analog: which could also be called “playful”, since they are based on the dynamics of the game and simulation.
4- symbolic: that use conventional and universal codes of representation (abstract concepts, linguistic phrases, metaphors, symbols, analogies, allegories and rhetorical figures in general …)
Realistic corridors
According to Brofenbrenner, the aforementioned classification of Damiano is based on the greater or lesser proximity of the didactic mediators to reality.
Active mediators, in fact, are the closest to the latter, since they are based on direct experience: they could also be called “empirical”, Since they use the experimentation instrument a lot – in the laboratory and not.
The advantage of these corridors is that they are very accurate because an experiment allows Learning to “objectify”, but they have times and costs long and expensive construction.
The same happens with analog mediators: dramatizations, role plays, group activities, which facilitate the understanding of concepts by students, thanks to their inherent realism.
However, they are not practical in the aftermath of closing, and most of all require some preparation and costs.
Mediators far from reality
The iconic and symbolic mediators, unlike the active and analogical ones, are further removed from reality and, therefore, do not require a waste of material resources, but of intellectual resources from both sides involved in the educational process: those who explain and those who try to learn.
Thus, they present the problem of their difficult understanding by students, who could simply record the learning data mnemonically without actually assimilating it.
That is why they are normally used in conjunction with the technique of repetition He was born in reinforcement, also because they are cheap to adopt in terms of money and time and can therefore be repeated at will during the learning experience.
The reticulated technique
Given the differences between the first and second types of mediators, it is desirable that the teacher adopt them with a diversification strategy that provides integrated use of all the didactic mediators we have just talked about.
However, the didactic path must be mediated reticulate, non-linear: this means that all didactic mediators must be used not in sequence (from the furthest to the closest to reality and vice versa), but in a connected way, using the one or those that are most appropriate (or convenient) to the situation .
This will allow a less monotonous climate in the classroom, and a use of mediators that respects more the cognitive styles of each student.
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