It is clear from the literature that different groups of people place different emphases on the importance of certain types of professional knowledge. In particular this discussion has focused on the form in which it is useful to know about a subject. For example,
government reports and recent legislation in England and Wales (DFE 1993, DfEE 1998, TTA 1998) provide evidence of the value placed on subject content knowledge, while other publications emphasise the importance of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987; Bennett & Carre, 1993; Turner-Bisset, 2001). A number of research projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s looked at the effect of developing subject knowledge with practising teachers particularly in the area of science concepts - on teacher and pupils performance (Smith & Neale, 1989; Summers & Kruger, 1994; Carré, 1993). As a result educators began, on the basis of the evidence, to believe that development of content knowledge by itself is not sufficient to guarantee any substantial improvement in the quality of classroom teaching. It is also necessary to identify appropriate pedagogical content knowledge in relation to the particular ideas and concepts being taught (Summers & Kruger, 1994, p. 517).
Shulman (1987) has been influential in this shift from content knowledge to pedagogical content knowledge. His work on knowledge bases (table 3.2) has informed educators thinking about the knowledge that teachers need in order to teach effectively, and therefore the knowledge that needs to be included in initial teacher education.
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42
Knowledge base Characteristics
Content knowledge The amount and organisation of knowledge in the mind of the teacher. This includes both substantive and syntactic structures of a subject, i.e., the variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of the discipline are organised, and the ways in which truth or falsehood, validity or invalidity, are established.
General pedagogical knowledge
With special reference to those broad principles and strategies of classroom management and organisation that appear to transcend subject matter
Curriculum knowledge
With particular grasp of the materials and programmes that serve as tools of the trade for teachers.
Pedagogical-content knowledge
That form of content knowledge that embodies the aspect of content most germane to its teachability. It includes, for any given subject, the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations. In other words, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others.
Knowledge of learners and their
characteristics
Knowledge of pupils social and cultural backgrounds, knowledge of how children learn.
Knowledge of
educational contexts Ranging from the workings of the group or classroom, the governance and financing of schools, to the character of communities and cultures.
Knowledge of educational ends
Purposes and values, and the philosophical and historical grounds.
Table 3.2: Shulman s 7 knowledge bases for teaching (Bennett & Carré, 1993: 7)
Whilst some of these knowledge bases have been identified in one form or another by others (Cooper & McIntyre, 1996), Shulman introduced a new element, that of
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). The nature of PCK has been summarised by Calderhead (1987b):
the abilit to represent the subject matter is an important aspect of an individual s subject matter knowledge. If teachers want to develop understanding in their students, they must be concerned with the representations students develop in their effort to comprehend the content of instruction. To facilitate the development of powerful, appropriate
representations, teachers need to evaluate their own understanding of the subject matter (Calderhead, 1987b:109)
That PCK is (a) different to subject content knowledge and (b) a necessary element of knowledge for teachers has been demonstrated in research. For example, the need to evaluate their own understanding of subject matter has been powerfully stated by a student teacher:
Chapter 3: Learning to teach
43 I don t think even people with an undergraduate degree have enough [subject matter knowledge] the ve studied it but it s just not reall available to them. (Wilson, Shulman and Richert, cited in Calderhead,1987b:121)
This notion of availabilit is drawn on b Bennett & Carr (1993) who suggest that the form subject matter knowledge takes is not, in itself, enough for effective teaching and that Pedagogical Content Knowledge is a crucial part of this process.
Since 1987 Shulman s model of knowledge bases for teaching has received some criticism. These criticisms are summarised by Turner-Bisset (1999) who also states how, with
Neville Bennett (1993), she found that it was impossible to distinguish between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge; in the act of teaching, all knowledge was presented pedagogicall in some wa (1999: 42). Turner-Bisset s (1999, 2001)
dissatisfaction with Shulman s model led to the development of a more comprehensive model (appendix 2). Where this model varies from Shulman s is in its detail (knowledge of learners is further sub-divided into cognitive and empirical aspects), in its connectedness (as outlined above), and in its inclusion of Knowledge of Self which was not present in Shulman s categories. It also varies in the wa in which PCK is shown as being so fundamental that, rather than it being seen as one base among several, it should be construed as an overarching base which feeds into and draws from the others.
Several other studies have shown that, in the act of teaching, a number of different types of knowledge and skills are integrated and often unconsciously (Calderhead and Shorrock, 1997; Medwell et. al., 1998) so it would be natural to expect that subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge would also be hard to separate in the act of teaching. Using this model as a tool for anal sing beginning teachers practice Turner-Bisset showed that, at an earl stage of development as a teacher, onl some of the knowledge bases are combined; for example, a teacher may have good subject knowledge in science, but limited pedagogical content knowledge, so that she may not be able to share her scientific knowledge with her learners (1999:48). More recentl , Parker (2004) has shown how, if student teachers are
to become expert in synthesising subject and pedagogy they will need to build up their own personal knowledge of not only the subject itself but also the difficulties for learners inherent within the relevant conceptual area. (Parker, 2004: 830)
Chapter 3: Learning to teach
44 The implication is that through situated learning i.e. placing the students themselves in active learning situations which focus on specific concepts pedagogical content
knowledge is more effectively developed. However, Parker suggests that students need to be explicitly aware of both the domain-specific (subject) and generic (pedagogic) features of the learning process in order to understand how they relate to each other and combine to become PCK. This will be returned to in chapter 4.
Knowledge bases of effective, experienced teachers has been the focus of research
conducted by Medwell et. al. (1998). In the context of exploring what makes an effective teacher of literacy they observed that, while educators had a fair amount of empirical evidence to draw on that informed understanding of effective teaching, there was little on effective teachers. Their decision to focus on the latter led to a shift in emphasis from the process of teaching to the knowledge, skills and qualities of the teacher. In particular they focused on the subject knowledge that effective teachers have that novice teachers do not. In addition, their research investigated how this subject knowledge is utilised by teachers in ways that make them effective. For these reasons the bulk of their data were gathered from teachers identified as effective teachers of literacy by their head teachers and, to a lesser extent, from novice teachers to enable some form of comparison to be made. Their results suggested that it did not seem to be the case that the teachers selected appropriate ways to represent (pedagogy) pre-existing knowledge (content) to children. Rather, they appeared to know and understand the material in the form in which they taught it. (Medwell et. al. 1998:76, m italics). In other words, effective teachers knowledge about content and teaching and learning strategies was integrated, the knowledge base of these teachers thus was their pedagogical content knowledge . This supports the views of Turner-Bisset (1999) in differing from Shulman s idea of selecting content and then thinking about how to best transform it. However, Medwell et. al. (1998) did find that novice teachers were more inclined to act in a way described by Shulman and Parker (2004), suggesting that this sequence is a necessary stage before Content
Knowledge can become embedded in practice as Pedagogical Content Knowledge as it is with expert teachers.
Setting aside the inter- and intra-personal aspects of teacher knowledge (Collinson, 1999), it is clear that conceptions about teaching and learning, and their associated beliefs, will
Chapter 3: Learning to teach
45 affect how learning to teach is conceptualised. These conceptions and beliefs will be held by both the educators and the student teachers and it is the ways in which those interact that will affect students development as teachers. The following section will examine how teacher educators conceptualise learning to teach in the context of ITE, and the final section (3.3) will examine student teachers conceptions of teaching and learning to teach.