Exposing Pathways for Developing Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge at the Topic Level in Science
This chapter seeks to illustrate how pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) at the topic level is positioned within the Refined Consensus Model (RCM) of PCK by retrospectively applying the RCM to an existing study. It demonstrates this positioning by trackin
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Exposing Pathways for Developing Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge at the Topic Level in Science Elizabeth Mavhunga
Abstract This chapter seeks to illustrate how pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) at the topic level is positioned within the Refined Consensus Model (RCM) of PCK by retrospectively applying the RCM to an existing study. It demonstrates this positioning by tracking the development of chemistry pre-service teachers’ PCK in electrochemistry across the newly conceptualised realms of collective, personal and enacted PCK. In this study, pre-service teachers are seen developing their personal PCK (pPCK) in the topic from a structured course based on collective PCK (cPCK) for the topic of electrochemistry and demonstrating part of their enacted PCK (ePCK) in the topic by developing a teaching programme on the topic. Data were collected using tools that were able to specifically measure the pre-service teachers’ pPCK in electrochemistry (pre- and post-intervention tests) and from classroom tutorial assignments during the intervention. The analysis of test data to detect shifts in the quality of pPCK was enabled using a criterion-based rubric, while a qualitative in-depth content analysis was employed on the collected assignments. Findings indicated a differentiated improvement in the pre-service teachers’ pPCK and in their ePCK for planning to teach the topic. Implications drawn for researchers in science teacher education include the importance of explicitly referencing the level or grain size of PCK under investigation in PCK studies and the realm in which the construct is located, as promoted in the RCM.
Introduction What distinguishes science student teachers from others? A likely response to this question would refer to learning the knowledge needed to teach abstract and difficult science content for learner understanding despite the diversity in the classroom. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the teacher knowledge identified by Shulman (1986) as linked uniquely to the profession of teaching. PCK offers teachers the E. Mavhunga (B) Science Education Division, School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 A. Hume et al. (eds.), Repositioning Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Teachers’ Knowledge for Teaching Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5898-2_5
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knowledge to pedagogically restructure and package difficult and abstract content knowledge in formats accessible for learner understanding. The science education community has embraced PCK as the knowledge for teaching science (Abell, 2008; Darling-Hammond & Richardson, 2009), and the knowledge to be passed on to prospective science teachers. This transference of knowledge demands PCK to be addressed without ambiguity, as is the purpose of the collective chapters in this book. For example, it is important for pre-service teachers to be consciously aware of their learning in order to be aware of their
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