• What is Psychopedagogy?
• Main exponents of psychopedagogy
• Profile of the psychopedagogue
• Areas of psychopedagogy

We explain what psychopedagogy is and what its exponents were. The profile of the psychopedagogue and the fields of psychopedagogy.

Psychopedagogy is the cross between psychology and education.

What is Psychopedagogy?

Psychopedagogy is a discipline which aims to analyze human behaviors related to education, the learning and vocational orientations.

The main objective of psychopedagogy is to create different tools or processes in order to increase people's education. Teacher training and a analysis psychological aspects of each situation are some of the possible ways to approach this issue.

Psychopedagogy, according to the Royal Spanish Academy, is that branch of the psychology that analyzes the phenomena of a psychological order in order to formulate in a more adequate way the methods didactic and pedagogical. It is the result of the cross between psychology and education.

Main exponents of psychopedagogy

Jean Piaget concluded that the knowledge process is not linear.

Among its main exponents we find Jean Piaget, Lev Vigotsky and Jerome Brumer. Let's look at these authors in a brief resume and his contributions to psychology and how these have been extremely useful for psychopedagogy.

• Jean Piaget. He is undoubtedly one of the central figures in psychology. This Swiss biologist, epistemologist and psychologist has managed to revolutionize the paradigms of the psychology of his time with his genetic theory.
  While the term genetics may generate some confusion, it is necessary to clarify that it does not refer to the genetics in biological terms, but rather in terms of genesis, origin and evolution. Piaget reached the conclusion that the process of knowledge is not linear, but is divided into different phases that he called "periods of cognitive development."
  These processes are cumulative and are highlighted by assimilation, that is, by the acquisition of a new knowledge, and another process called accommodation, in which the child adjusts this new information to the cognitive structure. Piaget's theory was decisive for psychopedagogy, since it focused its attention on how children know, modifying their structures cognitive.
• Jerome Bruner. He insisted on the need to change the behaviorist way of learning, which consisted of repetition and memorization techniques, since according to this author they did not exploit the total capacities of the individual.
  Given this, he insisted on the importance of interactive learning, dialogue as a way of enhancing the process, added to the need to focus on processes and concepts rather than on specific events and figures. As we can see, it not only influenced psychopedagogy, but also the pedagogical field in general.
• Lev Vygotsky. He was a Russian psychologist who in his short life did a long work that greatly influenced social psychology. Among his main ideas we find the idea of ​​environment, understood as the means through which the person takes the tools to grow.
  This breaks with some innate ideas, according to which the person already has all the tools to develop himself. Among the main "tools" that the person finds in their environment is the language.

Profile of the psychopedagogue

The profile of a psychopedagogue must necessarily be investigative but at the same time rigorous in its procedure. You must interact in a fluid way with the person you are going to work with (who are almost always children).

The clinical method is crucial, as it is through interviews, questionnaires and annotations the psychopedagogue will advance on the particular problem of the child.

The support of the family and recurring contact with the professional to inform him of the situation. The psychopedagogue has to use his theoretical framework to work with something subjective such as an individual, therefore there are no "fixed rules" or absolute methods, but theories that can guide us in the treatment (either preventive or to work with a particular problem ).

Areas of psychopedagogy

Psychopedagogy has a direct action in the classroom.

Within the field of learning, psychopedagogy can develop different functions. Among them, the development of didactic methods to attend to the diversity that we can find in the learning processes.

As we all know, the standardized learning process tends to create some difficulties, since not all of them evolve at the same rate or in the same way. This is particularly important in those children who have some type of learning difficulty.

Another point less known for the population but that is very important for the exploitation of the potential of the capacities of the academic student body and even of the professional sector.

In this case, the role of psychopedagogy is to develop strategies for a better decision making.

Finally, we can highlight the direct action on the classroom that pedagogy can exert. This is normally known as a tutorial action, and it is very important when solving conflicts of different kinds.

As we can see, this type of psychopedagogy is characterized by team work. Its main tasks include creating values for the group and carry out practices that can serve for a greater coexistence among the students.