The fundamental concept would have to be understanding1, both on the teacher's and the learner's part. The teacher would have to understand the material to be imparted, understand the goals to be accomplished and how to recognize success in that respect, understand the receptivity and ability of the student. The student would have to understand the intentions of the teacher, understand the material once imparted, understand what is required of him during the learning process and after. (These itemizations are not exhaustive.) Reciprocal understanding should be involved in every aspect.

1Or a near-synonym such as comprehension.

Thanks for your brilliant idea, but in fact, the understanding (or comprehension) may define only as a philosophical background for didactics, not a didactic's concept itself. This is very clear expressed at your words: naturally, we may observe an "implementation" of understanding at every aspect of teaching and learning: while producing goals, organization of material, evaluation of students' abilities and results, as well as appreciating teacher's intents by students etc. So, understanding is a kind of existentials, which may be revealed in aspect of das Dasein oder die Sorge selbstverständlich. My question is about how to conceptualize a sort of "mutual understanding" of teacher and a student, given at a special situation, aimed at a special goal within a definite context of educational institution etc.

I would not consider just one concept, but four concepts that indicate didactics: Acting, reflecting, theorising and experimenting oriented to the learning styles that we can have in the classroom. These concepts are used in the new pedagogical strategy: REAPSES method (Castellanos, 2020).

It is very interesting idea, but in a definite aspect, it appears just like 4 ancient elements of the World: the Earth, the Water, the Air and the Fire, or 4 sides of the Cartesian square... Frankly speaking, i'm a little bit confused with prevailing only rational outer structures, be them functional or mental. IMHO, one should take into account a kind of "human layer" of a didactics unit, which may represented by motives, purposes, involvement etc.

Congrats for your presentation Alexandre Bermous which I did read with great interest. Am in line with Karl Pfeifer .

The primary focus of didactics as a field of study is the teaching process, including its goals, content, methods, organizational forms, technologies, and outcomes. Accordingly, the key concepts include "learning content," "teaching methods," "forms of organizing learning," "teaching aids," "learning technologies," and "learning outcomes." There cannot be a single main concept, as the teaching process itself represents a system of interconnected components.

Inna Koreneva No doubt all these concepts seem to be parts of the "golden canon" of didactics, but in fact ther's a problem of a entity all of them do belong to. All the concepts representing processes (learning, teaching, education etc.) seem to belong to the Plato's, Heraclites and Hegel traditions of metaphysics; categorizations like "aims", "forms", "methods" - are coming from the Aristotle's logics, and finally, "tecnologies" are transitive, including the ancient idea of "techne" as well as the "cognitivism" and the "producing truth", which is peculiar for the post-modern world. So, the problem of their system background is substantial...

Dear colleagues. Thank you very much for the initiative of scientific comprehension of the problems of modern didactics! I also found it interesting to analyze the ways of development of modern didactics on the example of vocational education. I absolutely agree with my colleagues in the idea of defining the semantic basis for studying the problem. Equally interesting are ontodidactics, REAPSES method and other proposed ideas. For us it was interesting to analyze the contours of modern didactics from the position of instrumental support of the educational process on the basis of the analysis of international publications. The results of our searches were presented in the article “Contours of modern didactics of professional education: an analysis of foreign studies” - https://pnojournalarchive40.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/pdf_240506.pdf. I would be grateful for feedback.

Today's didactics are based on a few fundamental ideas. Stress the use of technology and creative teaching techniques, a learner-centered approach, and flexibility in response to contemporary educational demands. Contemporary didactics necessitate that teachers be adaptable and sensitive to the evolving educational environment, which includes changes resulting from worldwide occurrences like as the COVID-19 epidemic.

This study aims at identifying didactics as a science with its own concepts and theoretical principles. It also aims at clarifying the development of this concept in Arabic and foreign languages and clarifying the difference in the use of the connotation of this word among the Arab countries and to make distinction between types of didactics. (PDF) Didactics: an overview on the key concepts. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365608436_Didactics_an_overview_on_the_key_concepts [accessed Jan 28 2025].

Elizabeth Diaz Rodriguez Thank you for you response, but i'd like to focus on some features of today's situation, which make didactics to differ. First, all the traditional didactics ideas are basing on a presumption of "teacher's craft", which surpasses the skills of a learner. But in fact, in today's classroom both teacher and learner are surpassed by AI... Second, an idea of GENERATIVE AI is also deeply transforming basis of traditional didactics: instead of mastering of existing knowledges, it's proposed an idea of algorithm of generating them. Third, within a context of AI, it arises a fundamental question of HUMAN knowledge and competence (just like championship in human chess are greatly loosing their attractiveness after machine codes began to win humans...)

De algo estoy seguro, los contextos educativos actuales han cambiado notablemente debido a que los estudiantes de hoy los considero más complejos que los de antes; y esto es cierto, y se lo debemos a la globalización, a los adelantaos de la ciencia, la tecnología, la informática que cada día hacen más cerca las distancias, y prácticamente nuestros estudiantes viven y comparten la cultura, los valores, la música etc, de otras culturas que están a cientos de kilómetros. Es por esto que para el docente, la didáctica se hace hoy una necesidad apremiante y se convierte en una herramienta transcendental en el aula de clase para el proceso de enseñanza y afianzamiento de aprendizajes en estudiantes con diversidad de complejidades motivados por interese diversos. Es por esto que hoy la didáctica ha tomado relevancia en las instituciones educativas.

Manuel de Jesús Polo Rojas Estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo en que el contexto ha cambiado. Y, precisamente en este sentido, la cuestión es si lo que se demanda son didácticas y otros instrumentos trascendentales, o tecnologías y otras inmanencias. Éste es probablemente uno de los “nervios” de la era (pos)moderna: la ausencia de la metafísica se experimenta no menos agudamente que su predominio en el pasado.

the integration of AI in education is not only a technological advance, but a transformative force that forces us to rethink didactic principles, the role of educators and the very nature of learning. Embracing this shift requires a focus on collaboration between human intelligence and artificial intelligence to foster an adaptive and innovative educational environment. However, let's not forget the challenges that AI faces from competing with each other. Without forgetting the water competition with human beings.

Elizabeth Diaz Rodriguez Absolutely Yes! And a real thing we have to encounter now is that academic culture and society have forgotten for last decades, what is philosophy of life and education besides trivial concepts of the institutuional humanism and sustainable development. Many shocks of last years, beginning from the pandemy in 2020, the Russian-Ukrainian war conflict since 2022, and finally, the new Trumpist picture of the World, and more specifically, the US-Europe partnership (if really is!), unfortunately, have not provoked an adequate intellectual reflection, and now, we can only remind on "water competition" as a real image of an uprising new world...

I agree with the esteemed authors and participants in this discussion. We are undoubtedly experiencing a crucial moment in which our approach to teaching – and not just didactics (!), but education and continuous training – is undergoing (or at least should undergo) a profound transformation.

In the past, education was primarily focused on the transmission of knowledge. Today, however (although some have been practicing this for years), I believe we must shift our focus towards fostering students' overall growth, helping them develop not only cognitively but also emotionally and relationally. These three aspects must be an integral part of the educational process; otherwise, artificial intelligence will surpass us.

The fact that relational, emotional regulation, self-understanding skills are still not at the core of education is, in my view, one of the reasons why we see the emergence of dehumanized individuals who end up destroying and dominating others. Those interested can explore various works on my profile, ranging from didactics to the New Humanism, to better understand the complexity of the response we, as educators, must provide.

Congratulations and thanks to the authors and all participants in this discussion.

Fausto Presutti

Fausto Presutti thank you for your kind and emotional contribution to the discussion! Frankly speaking, i'm not sure that the education in the last decades has not payed enough attention to emotional and relational development. Moreover, i'd say, that we've dealt with a sort of "anti-cognitive revolution" in many countries, including Russia, and a great shift towards different kinds of "humanization strategies", including team-building , tutoring and mentoring in education etc. But the thing we are now confronted and challenged is a "lack of reality", which was first diagnosized by postmodernists, like Baudrillard (La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu) or Zizek (Welcome to the Desert of Real). An apparent rebirth of far Rights is not a substance, but a symptome of an angry society, who wants to cry in a Hamlet's style: "I will speak daggers!" So, this is a REAL challenge, and being REALLY challenged with it, we need to rethink our own position and strategy not only in the context of emotional or relational matters, but - our spiritual backgrounds, and reflections. That's also a self-understanding, which needs to be!

I appreciate your comment. Certainly, each of us expresses the vision based on our past experiences. I would like to add that the true "humanization strategies" you mention cannot, by definition, be part of the “anti-cognitive revolution,” because in order to grow, a human being must develop everything: the various systems and the connections between them. I believe that the way cognitive knowledge is transmitted has now changed, and it must be contextualized and help foster growth in the different dimensions of the human being.

Fausto Presutti i suppose the things how they relate to each other are basically defined by political dispositions. Any kind of cognitivism needs regularities and systems (this may be well illustrated by AI, which is more effecient, ye more training it has), but humanization means prevailing spontaneous and singular (existencial) attitudes. Besides this, i may doubt, wether the value (also virtue) of growth is so common in today's world. The Trumpist revolution seems to explode the major part of institutional trends and political dispositions in the Western world, and nobody knows, to what extent this distruction comes...