Recent reforms in science education highlight the need for student-centred approaches to teaching in school curriculum policy in South Africa. Science teachers are required to move away from traditional teacher-centred practices which regard students as mere passive recipients of knowledge. In this study, we examine classroom talk for the type of student participation encouraging moves employed in lessons on basic genetics concepts and the related quality of instructional strategies employed by a university lecturer during a semester course on genetics. A key feature of the course was the lecturer's use of students' prior knowledge including alternative conceptions from a diagnostic assessment to facilitate the learning of pertinent genetics terminologies. Through a qualitative approach, we combine two recently published frameworks-the Analysing Teacher Moves (ATM) and the Elaboration frameworksto analyse teacher talk from transcribed videoed lectures and explore the likely influence on student participation. The findings reveal two dominant student participation stimulating talk-related instructional strategies that seemed to elicit diverse and deeper responses from the students. These include higherorder initiating and rejoinder moves, supplemented by other moves, through which the lecturer provided students with factual information, often in a manner that enabled knowledge synthesis. The intentional use of open-ended questions, explanations and representations and probing students for further contributions signal deliberate pedagogic intentions to promote student interaction while navigating observed language proficiency challenges. The combined analysis framework is recommended for use in future studies on instructional practices which aim to promote fruitful classroom interaction.

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The intervention programmes have a direct influence on teachers’ knowledge of teaching different topics. This paper focuses on how Grade 8 natural science teachers’ knowledge developed during an intervention programme. Eight schools were selected to participate, and 25 Grade 8 Natural Sciences teachers from Gauteng province participated. Data were collected during the intervention sessions, and participants completed a written TSPCK test and content representation tool. Quantitative data were analysed using the Rasch analysis model, and qualitative data were analysed using content analysis of TSPCK episodes using the TSPCK rubric. The episode was a response segment, where TSPCK components were used to transform the topic content. The findings showed that teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge improved significantly in different components of TSPCK. The teachers’ PCK development was revealed through extensive use of knowledge of representation including demonstrations using diagrams aimed at transforming the concept in planning. Besides, during the intervention, teachers were able to collaborate, have explicit discussions on specific topics, and provide explanations on the use of the five TSPCK components. The study implies that the development of PCK in fundamental topics in a discipline can be implemented through a TSPCK-based intervention.

The particulate nature of matter is a fundamental concept in science that students in lower grades find difficult to understand. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been identified as germane for addressing difficult topics and it enhances effective learning. The purpose of this study was to capture the quality of the enacted PCK that practising and pre-service teachers activate during planning. Data were collected through a validated PCK questionnaire which was completed by both practising and pre-service teachers. A rubric was used to code their responses. A Rasch analysis model was used to analyse the five components of the topic-specific PCK construct. Data from an item analysis show that pre-service teachers found the test items to be less difficult than did the practising teachers. We found that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups of teachers in terms of knowledge activated during planning. These findings show that, in transforming the topic content and concepts of the particulate nature of matter, the pre-service teachers integrated more components of enacted PCK compared to practising teachers. Discussions around the curriculum for both groups of teachers might provide insight into the design of future teacher development programmes.