RESEARCHING SCIENCE TEACHER PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been embraced as a way of describing the knowledge possessed by teachers and developing models of science teacher education. We try to analyse the possibility of improving quality of science teacher training on the basis of PCK development. The Taxonomy of PCK Attributes addresses the distinctions within and between the knowledge bases of various disciplines, science subjects and science topics. The concept of PCK conceived by Shulman (1986) embraces the idea that successful teachers have a special understanding of content knowledge and pedagogy which they draw on in teaching that content. Over the past two years we researched the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of pre-service and experienced Czech science teachers. The aim has been to capture, document and share teachers' PCK about specific science topics in ways that may be accessible to teachers and researchers involved in science education. One of the tasks of the science teacher is to help students to understand some of the content knowledge of science. In doing so, Shulman (1986; 1987) posited that teachers make use of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a special kind of knowledge that teachers have about how to teach particular content to particular students in ways that promote understanding. We are more interested in finding ways of helping pre- and in-service teachers to improve their practice. Key words: pedagogical context knowledge (PCK), science teachers, general PCK, subject-specific PCK, domain-specific PCK, topic-specific PCK, taxonomy of PCK attributes.