The dissemination of pedagogical patterns

Abstract

Pedagogical patterns have been around since 1995, but several authors claim their impact is limited. However, these claims are based on authors' own observations and not on methodical evaluations of the use and dissemination of pedagogical patterns. This claim is in contrast to the vision of the creators of pedagogical patterns—they think pedagogical patterns can be used for capturing and transferring knowledge of teaching within the community. In this article, I analyse the results of a questionnaire and try to answer whether the creators of the pedagogical patterns have reached their vision among computer science teachers at universities around the world. The results indicate a rather high familiarity with pedagogical patterns. The attitude towards pedagogical patterns is positive among both teachers with knowledge and teachers without knowledge of pedagogical patterns. The attitude towards pedagogical patterns as a tool for further development of teaching is to some extent positive. The results show that the group with knowledge of pedagogical patterns, as well as the group with a positive attitude towards pedagogical patterns, is difficult to describe.

Acknowledgement

First and foremost, thank you to the teachers who have taken the time to answer the questionnaire; several have replied to the questionnaire and expressed a further interest in pedagogical patterns. Furthermore, I would like to thank Louise Heltborg for her help with the statistical analysis. Finally, I would like to thank Ola Berge, Ole Eriksen and Michael Caspersen for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.