Components Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge Research Articles

Identifying pathways of teachers’ PCK development

This paper describes a method of analysing teacher growth in the context of science education. It focuses on the identification of pathways in the development of secondary school teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by the use of the interconnected model of teachers’ professional growth (IMTPG).The teachers (n = 12) participated in a one-year action research project focused on their individual concerns related to teaching science. The use of the IMTPG revealed that teachers use different pathways of learning to develop different aspects of their PCK. For each PCK component, three distinct pathways could be identified, two of which clearly were associated with professional growth. When examining these two pathways in detail, it was found that (1) teachers learned about new instructional strategies and assessment methods mostly through literature reviews and discussions with peers and (2) teachers who analyzed and reflected on student learning as it happened in their classrooms developed understandings that helped them to select and apply instructional strategies to further promote student learning. Both the analytical method as well as the identification of the different developmental pathways help to better understand teacher development in the context of classroom practices.

Negotiating ethical issues in Biology: three case studies

This paper attempts to answer the questions as to what are the chief transactional strategies for negotiating ethical issues in high school biology classroom. One of the major aims of the paper is to highlight the components of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) reflected in their transaction of ethical issues. Using the ethical matrix and Toulmin’s model of scientific argumentation the paper dissects three case studies. It was found that teachers’ knowledge of argumentation (KArg) and knowledge about ethics (KET) are the components of PCK that can significantly affect teachers’ arguments related to ethical issues. The quality of teachers’ arguments varies and is contingent upon their beliefs about a technology, knowledge about argumentation, and notions about ethics. Implications are broadly drawn for science teacher education at high school level; mode of presentation of ethical issues in the classroom, textbook writers and curriculum designers.

Geography pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of four Geography pre-service teachers as they completed their final practicum of their Bachelor of Secondary Education programme. It uses Shulman’s (1986, 1987) two categories of PCK as a conceptual framework to identify the participants’ PCK of their Geography teaching. The first type of PCK is teachers’ representations of content that is pedagogically powerful for students; the second type of PCK refers to teachers’ understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult for students. Historically, researchers have tended to focus on the teachers’ representations component of PCK while little evidence-based research has been reported on the second category of PCK. Findings from this study show that all participants demonstrated both types of PCK. This study sheds light on the importance of teacher-educators modelling both types of PCK as both are equally important for pre-service teachers.

Evaluating the pedagogical content knowledge of pre- and in-service teachers of business and economics to ensure quality of classroom practice in vocational education and training

Research on teachers’ professional knowledge and skills is becoming increasingly important. However, valid assessments of teachers’ knowledge and skills are scarce. In this study, we report on our development and validation (following the international Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing) of a situation-based tool to assess pre-service and in-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of business and economics in vocational education and training. We present a conceptual model and empirical evidence indicating the validity of test content and internal structure of the new developed assessment. We conducted conceptual analyses, interviews and standardized ratings with experts, and piloted the tool with 338 pre-service and in-service teachers. Our results indicate that our assessment tool is valid and reliable to measure case-related PCK (a central component of situation-oriented knowledge) of pre-service and in-service teachers. A video- and performance-based assessment tool for assessing the strategic component of PCK is developed and currently being validated. Together, these tools can serve to assess the professional knowledge and skills of business and economics teachers.

The Spectrum of Pedagogical Orientations of Malawian and South African Physical Science Teachers towards Inquiry

This study investigated and compared the pedagogical orientations of physical sciences teachers in Malawi and South Africa towards inquiry or direct methods of science teaching. Pedagogical orientation has been theorized as a component of pedagogical content knowledge. Orientations were characterized along a spectrum of two variants of inquiry and two variants of direct instruction. Teacher preferences for pedagogy were measured using case-based assessment items which depicted actual scenarios for teaching particular physical sciences topics and provided four alternative teaching method options. Item topics were common to both the Malawian and South African science syllabuses. Response data were obtained from 164 Malawian high school physical sciences teachers at community, conventional and grant-aided schools, for comparison with previous South African data. Analyses produced pedagogical orientation profiles for each teacher and item in terms of the distribution of choices between the four options and these were aggregated by school type and compared with the corresponding profiles for South African teachers on the same items. Responses to items covered the whole spectrum of approaches, although relative proportions depended on teacher, topic, type of school and country. Aggregated responses for both countries tended more toward variants of inquiry than of direct instruction. In some cases, Malawian teachers had an unexpectedly strong direct didactic preference. A direct didactic orientation was mainly prevalent amongst teachers from disadvantaged Malawian community schools and South African rural schools. South African teachers from suburban schools exhibited a stronger guided inquiry orientation than their Malawian counterparts from grant-aided schools. In contrast, teachers at Malawian conventional schools had a stronger preference to adopt variants of inquiry (guided and open) than South African teachers at corresponding township schools. Teachers at more privileged schools, that is, Malawian grant-aided and South African suburban schools, showed stronger guided- and open-inquiry orientations than teachers at less privileged schools. School type and contextual circumstances affected teachers’ pedagogy choices in both countries, having a substantial influence on the approaches that teachers would adopt in their own situations.

A Case Study of the Award Winning Science Methods Course for Elementary Preservice Teachers in the US Teacher Education Program Based on the Components of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)

A Case Study of the Award Winning Science Methods Course for Elementary Preservice Teachers in the US Teacher Education Program Based on the Components of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)

Upper Secondary Teachers' Knowledge for Teaching Chemical Bonding Models

ABSTRACTResearchers have shown a growing interest in science teachers’ professional knowledge in recent decades. The article focuses on how chemistry teachers impart chemical bonding, one of the most important topics covered in upper secondary school chemistry courses. Chemical bonding is primarily taught using models, which are key for understanding science. However, many studies have determined that the use of models in science education can contribute to students’ difficulties understanding the topic, and that students generally find chemical bonding a challenging topic. The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ knowledge of teaching chemical bonding. The study focuses on three essential components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): (1) the students’ understanding, (2) representations, and (3) instructional strategies. We analyzed lesson plans about chemical bonding generated by 10 chemistry teachers with whom we also conducted semi-structured interviews about their teaching. Our results revealed that the teachers were generally unaware of how the representations of models they used affected student comprehension. The teachers had trouble specifying students’ difficulties in understanding. Moreover, most of the instructional strategies described were generic and insufficient for promoting student understanding. Additionally, the teachers’ rationale for choosing a specific representation or activity was seldom directed at addressing students’ understanding. Our results indicate that both PCK components require improvement, and suggest that the two components should be connected. Implications for the professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers are discussed.

Mapa del conocimiento didáctico y modelo didáctico en profesionales del área biológica sobre el contenido de célula

This paper proposes the analysis of a questionnaire of the Representation of Content (ReCo, Loughran et al. 2004) so as to generate a map of the pedagogical content knowledge of the cell in five professionals of the biological area who work as biology teachers in secondary education Chile. The analysis will identify the relationships established between the domains of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)-Maps of the PCK and the didactic model of the participants. It is possible to identify similar and distant beliefs among participants, according to the PCK domains and their relationships. The results show that the PCK is specific to each professional, that the relationships between the component of PCK are mainly conceptual in the participants, that the constructivist didactic model is the least common and that the most widely shared beliefs among professionals are those related to the knowledge component of student understandings. The convenience of analyzing PCK maps as an element to guide actions that contribute to substantiate the performance of these professionals is discussed.

Subjective perceptions of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) university teachers’ professional beginnings: Quantitative research into pedagogical content knowledge

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present methodology and results of a quantitative phase within a research into English for Specific Purposes university teachers and their subjectively perceived changes in pedagogical content knowledge from a retrospective view of their professional beginnings. The introduction describes the investigated issues and explains key concepts. The first chapter refers to the theoretical background of teacher professional development. Since the quantitative research phase is a part of a mixed research design, the second chapter deals with the whole research including the research objective and questions. The third chapter is devoted to the quantitative research phase during which an anonymous electronic questionnaire was sent to the whole population of Czech university teachers of English for Specific Purposes and processed statistically as well as descriptively. The fourth chapter presents the obtained quantitative data discussed within the individual components of pedagogical content knowledge - conceptions of purposes for teaching subject matter, curricular knowledge, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of students’ understanding. The conclusion summarises all the information and proposes some recommendations for pedagogical practice.

Closing the gap between beliefs and practice: Change of pre-service chemistry teachers' orientations during a PCK-based NOS course

The purpose of this case study was to investigate how pre-service chemistry teachers' science teaching orientations change during a two-semester intervention designed to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the nature of science (NOS). Moreover, the way that pre-service chemistry teachers translated their change in orientation into both their instructional planning and their PCK was examined. Thirty pre-service chemistry teachers enrolled in a Research in Science Education course participated in the study. Responses to an open-ended instrument, interviews, observations, and documents such as lesson plans and reflection papers were used as qualitative data sources. Through in-depth analysis of explicit PCK and further deductive analysis, we identified the influence of the intervention on participants' orientation and how participants translated their orientation into their planning and PCK. Analysis of data revealed that most of the pre-service teachers' naïve and transitional views about NOS changed into informed ideas after explicit-reflective NOS instruction. Participants revised their science teaching orientations by including more reform-based orientations at the end of the course (i.e., teaching NOS-related orientations). Their plans included at least one NOS aspect as an objective, which indicates that all of the participants designed their lesson plans with more informed views about at least one NOS aspect. In terms of aligning their reform-based orientations with other PCK components, pre-service chemistry teachers were more able to align their orientation with knowledge of instructional strategy and assessment than with knowledge of the learner. Implications for science teacher education and research are discussed.

Reflections from Pre-Service Teachers Mathematics Teaching Process

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has been considered to be the most important factor for identifying the role of the teacher in carrying out effective teaching. This paper examines, with respect to the components of PCK, the types of difficulties that a group of pre-service teachers encountered during the process of designing teaching activities. For this purpose, 8 pre-service teachers (4 elementary mathematics and 4 classroom teachers) are observed whilst teaching mathematics during the Teaching Practicum course and are interviewed. The study reveals that both groups of pre-service teachers had similar problems in teaching practices. Pre-service teachers experienced difficulties in determining the activities with regard to prior knowledge of the students, deciding the difficulty level of the activities and sorting them, informing students about the purpose of the activities, conducting activities according to their perceived purposes and making transitions between activities.

The Integration of Teacher’s Pedagogical Content Knowledge Components in Teaching Linear Equation

<p class="apa">This qualitative research aimed to explore the integration of the components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in teaching Linear Equation with one unknown. For the purpose of the study, a single local case study with multiple participants was used. The selection of the participants was made based on various criteria: having more than 5 years of experience teaching mathematics and possessing high and low level of knowledge in algebra and high general PCK in mathematics. Six teachers were selected to be the respondents in this research. The data were collected using i) stimulated recall interview, ii) observation, and iii) analysis of documents. Nvivo 8 software was used to help the researcher organize and analyze the data. Kohen Kappa reliability values obtained from three experts were very good, exceeding 0.8. The findings showed that the integration of content knowledge component of pedagogical implications (CàP) is the most frequently used component in the teaching of Linear Equations with one unknown. This indicates that teachers focus mostly on the components of content knowledge and knowledge about students. The teachers were least likely to integrate content knowledge with pedagogical knowledge, which has implications on the knowledge of the students (C&PàS). The study suggests the need to improve teacher’s knowledge through collaborative partnership with colleagues and through courses.</p>

Preservice Science Teachers’ Science Teaching Orientations and Beliefs About Science

This paper offers clarification of science teacher orientations as a potential component of pedagogical content knowledge. Science teaching orientations and beliefs about science held by 237 preservice science teachers were gathered via content-specific vignettes and questionnaire, respectively, prior to participation in a UK-based teacher education program. Data presented support Didactic, Academic Rigor, conceptual change, activity driven, and inquiry orientations as intuitive teacher stances. The paper proposes a continuum for these five science teaching orientations, ordered by potential teaching quality that may be useful to science teacher educators. Even though all participants were qualified scientists, naïve beliefs about science were prevalent, with few examples of informed and partially informed beliefs. Alignment of orientations and beliefs shows that orientations override preservice teachers’ notions of science teaching. Therefore, a further recommendation based on these data is that preservice science teachers’ beliefs about science are regarded as a component of subject matter knowledge and excluded from science teaching orientations.

A New Role Change Approach in Pre-service Teacher Education for Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Context of a Student Outreach Lab

How pre-service teachers (PST) develop pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) during science teacher education is an open research question. Our teacher education module, theoretically based on PCK, specifically combines biology PSTs’ education with high school students’ biology education and includes an innovative role change approach. Altogether, 41 PSTs each participated in three subsequent module days with students (N = 823) from 50 classes. The module’s content dealt with the syllabus topic Genetic Fingerprinting. During participation, the PSTs changed their role by assuming a student’s role on the first day, a tutor’s role on the second day, and a teacher’s role on the third day. By quasi-experimentally administering pre- and delayed posttests, we qualitatively monitored, then content-analytically categorized, and finally quantitatively analyzed three specific PCK components. In contrast to a control group (which did not participate in the module), our treatment preferentially changed the PSTs’ orientations toward teaching biology to a more student-centered orientation (both intra- and inter-group differences with medium effect sizes). Additionally, the PSTs who participated in the three modules days differed before and after module participation in how they addressed potential student learning difficulties and identified potential instructional strategies for avoiding these difficulties. The changes in these PCK components point to a step-by-step development of the PSTs’ PCK. In this process, our participating PSTs assessed the importance of their three roles on the 3 days quite differently; most notably, we found one relationship between the teacher role and the PSTs’ student-centeredness. We specifically discuss the potential and importance of our role change approach within science teacher education.

Development and Nature of Preservice Chemistry Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Nature of Science

The purpose of this case study is to delve into the complexities of the early development of preservice chemistry teachers’ science teaching orientations, knowledge of learners, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment during a two-semester intervention designed to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching nature of science (NOS). Thirty preservice chemistry teachers enrolled in a Research in Science Education course participated in the study. Qualitative data sources included responses to an open-ended instrument, interviews, observations, and artifacts such as lesson plans and reflection papers. Through the in-depth analysis of explicit PCK and constant comparative method of analysis, we identified the influence of the intervention on participants’ PCK for NOS. Analysis of data revealed four major themes related to the nature of preservice chemistry teachers’ NOS teaching practices and their PCK for NOS: (1) prerequisite knowledge and beliefs are necessary to teach NOS, (2) there is a developmental progression of PCK for NOS from knowledge to application level, (3) teachers need some comfort in their NOS understanding to teach NOS, and (4) the higher integration of PCK components leads to successful NOS teaching practices. Implications for science teacher education and research are discussed.

Looking at the Mirror: A Self-Study of Science Teacher Educators’ PCK for Teaching Teachers

In this self-study, we aimed to delve into how re-designing and teaching re-designed practicum course offered to pre-service teachers (PTs) enriched our, as science teacher educators, development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching science teachers. This self-study was conducted during a compulsory practicum course in which we served as teaching assistants (TAs). The qualitative data collected through journal entries written by the help of mentoring experience, Content Representation (CoRe), reflection papers, formal observations of PTs‘ teaching practices and microteaching each week, formal and informal meetings with PTs. The results were presented through vignettes that included an emphasis on a critical examination of our prior practices, the changes made in the practicum, and the difficulties that PTs faced. This self-study was valuable for us regarding the development of our PCK and building interplay among all PCK components. In light of the experience we gained, implications for science teacher education and research were provided.

Examining chemistry teachers' use of curriculum materials: in view of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge

This paper aimed to explore how pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers influenced their adaptations of the curriculum materials of the new senior secondary chemistry curriculum, a standards-based science curriculum, in China. This study was based on the premise that the interaction of the teacher with the curriculum materials determines what happens in the classroom. An interpretive approach was adopted and five experienced chemistry teachers in four senior secondary schools participated in this study. Classroom observations and interviews were used as research methods. The data analysis revealed that there were four components of PCK that led to teachers' adaptations of curriculum materials and they were knowledge of students' understanding of science, knowledge of assessment in science, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of science curriculum. Among these four components of PCK, knowledge of students' understanding of science and knowledge of assessment in science were the factors that most influenced teachers' adaptations of curriculum materials. Furthermore, the ways that these four components of PCK influenced teachers' adaptations were different. The implications of the findings and the suggestions for the further studies were discussed in the last section of this paper.

KNOWLEDGE OF ASSESSMENT: AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT IN THE PCK OF CHEMISTRY TEACHERS

Assessment of learning plays a central role in the teaching-learning process, and it has been extensively investigated due to the recognized necessity of adjusting didactic models to the new curricula and social demands. The knowledge of assessment is considered one of the components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by some authors and for other authors is considered one component of the knowledge base for teaching. It is also recognized the strong link between knowledge of the educational ends, goals, purposes and values and the knowledge of assessment procedures. In this work, results focused on ten chemistry teachers are presented with the main goal of assessing and describing the knowledge of assessment practices and its close relationship with the purposes and educational aims. The results of the current study are based on semi-structured interviews, schools’ educational projects, questionnaires, evaluations and teacher lesson plans. The data suggest that there exists an inconsistency in the discourse regarding general education and chemistry education. Although the discourse at all levels, including educational projects, planning and interviews, can be considered as innovative, in actual practice we observed a strong tendency toward the teacher-centered approach and summative assessment. The results show that, in general, the investigated chemistry teachers lack the intrinsic knowledge to elaborate questions that assess students´ higher-order thinking, to use assessment results to improve teaching and learning, to inform planning, and ultimately, to perform assessments for learning that regulate and promote the learning process, in line with their own beliefs regarding the objectives of chemical education. As a result, we can infer problems in other PCK components of these teachers. Keywords: assessment, chemistry teacher education, knowledge base of teaching, pedagogical content knowledge.

The nature and development of interaction among components of pedagogical content knowledge in practicum

This secondary analysis study focused on how interactions among preservice teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) components developed throughout a 14-week CoRe-based mentoring-enriched practicum course, and the nature of those interactions. Data were collected from three preservice teachers, information-rich cases, by the use of content representation (CoRe) and semi-structured interviews. Content analysis and the constant comparative method were employed in the data analysis. Results revealed that the development of integrations was idiosyncratic. Additionally, PCK integration moved from fragmented to a more integrated and coherent one by the end of the semester. Implications for science teacher education and research are discussed.

English

Pedagogical content knowledge is consisted of two components: student knowledge and teaching strategies. Teaching strategies was defined under two sub-headings as strategies for specific topics and specific strategies for any topic. The purpose of this study was to examine the method with which quadrilaterals were taught by mathematics teachers with regard to the teaching strategies component of pedagogical content knowledge. 30 middle school mathematics teachers working at 12 different schools in Turkey participated in this study. Interview method was used for data acquisition. The interview was intended to put forth the strategies that the teachers used for defining, classification and visualization which were included in the strategies of the framework used for the study. Content analysis was used to analyze the data acquired in this study. Study results showed that the definition strategy was used together with the visualization strategy. It was also determined that informal definitions were used in addition to formal definitions and that in general a personal definition was given by listing the various properties of quadrilaterals. The teachers who participated in this study generally used the partial classification of quadrilaterals and the transformation classification of quadrilaterals.   Key words: Pedagogical content knowledge, teaching strategies, quadrilaterals.