Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONTENT KNOWLEDGE
Shulamit Kapon
University of Haifa
Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical examination of teachers' cognition involved in
integrating new practices to the instruction of science. It reviews studies of Pedagogical
Content Knowledge (PCK) and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) and
questions their applicability in conceptualizing teachers' knowledge at the individual
cognitive level. It argues that while categorical models of teachers' knowledge are productive
for acknowledging and assessing specialized knowledge for teaching, they are still far from
fully describing teachers' complex coordination of knowledge. Informed by the Knowledge in
Pieces epistemological perspective (diSessa, 1993) it is suggested that teachers knowledge
could be more productively modeled as a dynamic complex system in which PCK (or TPCK)
reflects an evolving state of a complex system instead of a dichotomist category of
knowledge.
Keywords: pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge in pieces, online teaching
INTRODUCTION
How well do prevalent categorical conceptualizations of teachers' knowledge account for the
coordination and development of specialized knowledge for teaching during actual practice?
This question is particularly crucial when considering the large-scale integration of
educational technologies in the instruction of science. K12 online learning programs are
becoming widespread (Barbour, 2009; Powell & Patrick, 2006). Information communication
technologies (ICT) contain no inherent specific instructional functions, and many of the predesigned online curricular materials are not necessarily fully designed for the instructional
functions a teacher might implement at a given moment. Take for example a physics teacher
who teaches a fully online class. Consider the possible ways in which this teacher might use
an available technology and online instructional resources by redesigning and transforming
them in moment-to-moment activity aimed at achieving a local particular instructional goal.
This teacher draws upon and coordinates various types of knowledge such as previous
instructional experiences, content knowledge, familiarity with the class as a group and the
students as individuals, knowledge about the available technology, available curricula,
alternative instructional schemes, etc.
The complex coordination described above is sometimes carried out over a microgenetic time
scale as the teacher cognizes, explores and responds to the students reactions, with the local
instructional goal in mind. It also has a developmental aspect. A teachers first efforts at
employing a particular online-instruction scheme probably differ from her uses of this
scheme as a skilled online teacher. Thus the form and function of the instructional action
employed by a teacher change over time and with accumulated experience.
How well do prevalent categorical theoretical conceptualizations of teachers' knowledge
account for this coordination? This paper argues that they are still far from achieving this
goal. It questions the productivity of conceptualizing teachers' knowledge at the individual
cognitive level as compartmentalized into categories and subcategories, and suggests an
alternative perspective.
Table 1
Interpreting existing findings on teachers knowledge from a KiP perspective
Research findings
CONCLUSION
It was argued here that while categorical models of teachers' knowledge are productive for
acknowledging and assessing specialized knowledge for teaching, they are still far from fully
describing teachers knowledge at the individual cognitive level. It is hypothesized here that
to account for the coordination and development of specialized knowledge for teaching
during practice, such as the complex coordination of knowledge involved in teaching a
disciplinary content in a fully online classroom, it might be more productive to model
teachers knowledge as a dynamic complex system in which particular exemplars of PCK (or
TPCK) reflect an evolving state of a complex system instead of dichotomist categories of
knowledge.
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