Professional Knowledge for Teaching in Student Teachers’ Conversations about Field Experiences

Abstract

Professional knowledge for science teaching develops over time and interplays with professional experiences in field. In the present study, we explore student teachers' reflective conversation upon teaching experiences, with pedagogical content knowledge, PCK, as an analytical lens. The empirical data is based on nine meetings, with groups of 3-6 student teachers with an academic degree, at three different periods during their one-year short-track teacher education program. The findings show how student teachers focus on the PCK component instructional strategies in their discussion. A difference between the different sets of meetings is the increased presence of discussions regarding assessment of student learning. The findings also elicit different ways of relating components of PCK in varying contexts. The shift over time from a focus on teachers' instructional strategies to also including students' understanding indicates a development toward becoming a teacher. Even though a structured discussion with theoretically grounded didactic questions is established, it is challenging to deepen the discussion when the student teachers' varying teaching experiences are present at the same time. Nevertheless, the study shows the possibilities of structured group discussions about field experiences in a collegial setting in a shorttrack teacher education program, regarding student teachers' development as "becoming teachers."

Exploring the metaphoric nature of programming teachers’ reflections on action - a case study with teaching in mind

“…It requires understanding the structures of the subject-matter […] what makes learning of specific topics easy or difficult" (p. 9). As PCK is domain specific and contextualised (Carlson et al, 2019;Shulman, 2015), it will vary in relation to, for example, subject content taught, student groups or access to technology in the classroom, and the way in which individual teachers' notions of what may be of importance in the classroom seems to vary among teachers (Fahrman et al, 2020) and change over time (Sjöberg & Nyberg, 2020). Therefore, PCK is inarguably specific to the situation.…”

How Do Prospective Teachers Address Pupils’ Ideas during School Practices?

“…It is strongly linked to and influenced by the beliefs the teacher has, their goals in teaching science, and students' results [3]. According to some authors, prospective teachers include their own considerations about pupils' initial ideas and experiences and the development of scientific ideas as part of their PCK [7,8,19].…”

“…For science teachers, PCK includes knowledge of students' thinking about science, science curriculum, science-specific instructional strategies, assessment of students' science learning, and orientations to teaching science [3][4][5]. To develop knowledge of pupils thinking about science, an understanding of their initial science ideas and experiences (including misconceptions), the development of science ideas (including process and sequence), how pupils express science ideas (including demonstration of understanding, questions, responses), and the appropriate level of scientific understanding is necessary [6][7][8][9].…”

“…Then, it seems important to identify where the greatest difficulties lie when prospective teachers address pupils' ideas as an essential part of professional knowledge. It also allows one to describe the teacher's learning progression [17,18] that will impact their PCK [8,19].…”

“…In fact, Ref. [8] found that it was very challenging for teachers to attend to, analyse, and respond to student ideas. According to [33], a high level of attention to pupils' ideas does not imply the use of them to analyse the T/L process or guide instructional responses.…”