What is didactics?

We explain what didactics is and how it develops in the educational field. In addition, how this science can be classified.

1. What is didactics?

The word didactic comes from the Greek didasko . In the first instance, teaching can be defined as the science of learning and teaching . Within this science of teaching and learning, the combination of doing and didactic knowledge is necessary, that is, theory and practice.

The practice is very important since it is known that the human being learns through experience . It is also normal to teach from it. However, it is important not to rely exclusively on the teachings through this technique. That is why it is so important to complement it with the theory.

It is elementary to emphasize that a good theory must be able to be carried out, that is, it must be applicable to reality . There are authors who affirm that it is not necessary to rely on the dichotomy of theory and practice, that both must go hand in hand, since praxis itself is both action and reflection .

Being a science, teaching has a formal and a material object .

• The formal object can be defined as the approach with which the material object is observed. The latter refers to the learning and teaching process.
• The material object can be identified with the various strategies and methods that are used in the process.

2. Teaching Teaching

While the concept of teaching can be applied in various aspects, it is normally used in school organizations. Through this science we try to organize and argue the teaching techniques . For this, the student and the teacher are usually distinguished on the one hand , and the curriculum and the context in which they learn are added.

Within the teaching there is a classification of it:

• Differentiated teaching.  Also known as differential. It receives this name since it is used particularly in each case, depending on the person or the characteristics of the group in which one works. It is considered that this is the didactic that should be used in any case, that is, it adapts to the diversity of individuals.
• General Teaching  It encompasses the rules and principles that govern didactics. For this, it is in charge of analyzing the elements that are often repeated on several occasions and studying the different didactic currents. Once this task is done, it presents certain prototypes to explain what has been analyzed, and can be applied in groups in a general way.
• Special teaching  It takes up the norms mentioned above, created by general didactics and applies them specifically in a particular subject, that is, in the social sciences , in the natural sciences , in mathematics , in physical education, etc. That is why it is even more specific than the first.