Abstract
Teacher education goals, standards, and policies were once considered to be mostly under the purview of university programs. However, with the advent of international tests, articulation of standards both for student achievement and teacher performance, and calls for more accountability, education policy is increasingly established by a wide range of stakeholders that extend beyond the traditional education community. These stakeholders are asking many questions related to who is qualified to teach a particular subject area; what types of knowledge, skills, and supports are needed for teachers to be highly effective; and what are the most appropriate ways to assess teacher quality? Despite these questions, recent research on teacher learning has not focused strongly on current policy issues (Sleeter, 2014). It has long been proposed that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) represents the professional knowledge base for teaching subject matter (Shulman, 1987). The construct has helped science education researchers understand how knowledge for teaching science is different than knowledge of science or knowledge for teaching other disciplines, and has helped frame the curriculum of teacher education programs. To date, much of the research has focused on different methods for documenting teachers’ PCK and various approaches to developing it, but little effort has been devoted to considering the implications of this research in the context of current policy initiatives that are affecting education systems. The 2012 PCK Summit challenged participants to not only consider their current work, but also discuss emerging issues for future PCK research. Due to a collective interest in the policy contexts that frame our work in research and teacher education, the authors of this chapter volunteered to participate in a dedicated forum on exploring how PCK research connects to policy. This chapter represents the outcome of those initial discussions and subsequent examination of policy issues and recent PCK research. The purpose of this chapter is to explore connections between PCK research and policy areas related to science teacher development. To accomplish this, it is necessary to explain our view of PCK. We ascribe to Loughran, Berry, and Mulhall’s (2012) definition of PCK as “the knowledge that teachers develop over time, and through experience, about how to teach particular content in particular ways in order to lead to enhanced student understanding” (p. 9). In the following sections, we consider four major policy areas: (1) pre-service teacher education; (2) curriculum reform; (3) professional development; and (4) teacher evaluation. For each area, we define examples of current policy issues, discuss policy implications based on recent research, and posit future research questions.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Re-examining Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Science Education |
Editors | Amanda Berry, Patricia J. Friedrichsen, John Loughran |
Place of Publication | U.S. |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
Pages | 199-213 |
Number of pages | 15 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781315735665 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781138832992 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- pedagogical content knowledge
- science teachers, training of