Pedagogical Content Knowledge Development and Pre-Service Physics Teacher Education: A Case Study

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how to develop prospective teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in science teacher education. The main focus is on the knowledge transformation process and on the cognitive strategies used to shift prospective teachers' explanations within the domain of modelling thermal physical phenomena. This study investigates the development of PCK within a group of 28 pre-service physics teachers during the first semester of their two-year post-graduate teacher education program. It focuses on the central issue of the relationships between observable phenomena, like macroscopic thermal properties of matter and their interpretation and /or explanation in terms of corpuscular characteristics and/or thermodynamics theory. The strategy is based on the consideration that knowledge transformation is not a one-way process from subject matter knowledge to pedagogical content knowledge, as literature suggests, but a bidirectional process involving deepening of subject matter knowledge and increasing awareness of pedagogical issues.

Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: perspectives and potential for progress

“…Possession of content knowledge is identified as essential to PCK development. Some of their findings concur with those reported earlier (de Jong, et al, 1994;Sperandeo-Mineo et al, 2006;Lederman et al, 1994). Veal (1999) adds a different angle, stating that teachers:--…ground their development of a knowledge base in their existing beliefs.…”

“…The authors report that PCK developed, in that trainees were more able to consider students' needs in preparing teaching strategies after intervention. Sperandeo-Mineo, Fazio and Tarantino (2006) used the macro-micro shift applied to thermodynamics as the subject context for their PCK development study, also finding that pre-service teachers show the same learning difficulties and -representations‖ as school students. They suggest that knowledge transformation -is not a one-way process‖, that is, from SMK directly to PCK.…”

“Careful, Now You Are both the Learner and the Teacher!”: Student Teachers’ Evaluation of Inquiry-Based Peer Lecturing as a Tool in Teacher Training

“…One example is the program presented by Briscoe, Peters and O'Brien (1993), including a general science course whose contents are related to the contents experienced in field application schools, guided reflection on science and on inquiry, and inquiry learning followed by peer teaching sessions of topics which the students chose by themselves (see also Justi & van Driel, 2005). Similarly, Sperandeo-Mineo, Fazio and Tarantino (2006) report a teacher training program centred on several topics of secondary physics where the pre-service students were offered the following steps: they studied pupils' misconceptions and reflected about their possible sources, conducted a short experimental scientific inquiry on the same topic, ies.ccsenet.org International Education Studies Vol. 10, No.…”

From Teaching Physics to Teaching Children: Beginning teachers learning from pupils

“…This article reports on the development of beginning physics teachers' PCK with regard to the teaching of basic electricity during a one-year Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), through the subsequent Induction Year and beyond, bridging the gap between studies which have concentrated on exploring the PCK of pre-service teachers (Sperandeo-Mineo, Fazio, & Tarantino, 2006); or newly qualified teachers (Avraamidou & Zembal-Saul, 2010;Lee, Brown, Luft, & Roehrig, 2007) and other studies which have concentrated on more experienced teachers (Berry, Loughran, Smith, & Lindsay, 2009;Henze, van Driel, & Verloop, 2008;Verloop, van Driel, & Meijer, 2001). …”