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New Visions for Enhancing P-12 Standards-Based Pedagogical Content Knowledge: An Interdisciplinary Collaboration Between Teacher Education and Arts and Sciences Faculty
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There is a growing body of literature relative to teaching the academic disciplines to prospective teachers. Historically, content and pedagogy have been treated as separate and distinct entities. This pattern has been evident in the separation between content specialists and teacher educators as each group typically operates within their own perceived domains. Recent research has begun to shed light on the situatedness of pedagogy within the content being taught. As Shulman (1992) notes, some studies have supported the notion that “most human learning and teaching is highly specific and situated (p. 14).” Shulman (2000) calls the oldest problem of pedagogy “the appearance of learning, or illusory understanding” in which people appear to know something that closer examination reveals they really don’t know. It is only through pedagogical practices that require conversation, exploration, inquiry, and what Shulman calls “making the internal, external,” that learning occurs. Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, et. al. (2005) cite research in cognitive psychology which indicates that teaching expertise is developed within the various domains, rather than generically, and that examination of the challenges faced by P-12 learners within specific academic areas should be a crucial component of teacher education. However, not all teachers are limited to one or two major academic disciplines. Grossman, Schoenfeld, and Lee (2005) examine the issues posed by areas of teaching that require a range of academic content areas (e.g., elementary teachers). One approach that they offer is to “create more opportunities within the liberal arts component of teacher education for prospective teachers to begin to think about both the ways of thinking within different disciplines and the pedagogical entailments of different subject matters (p. 231).” This approach can foster greater collaboration between teacher education faculty and their colleagues in arts and sciences. Shulman (1993) emphasizes that “We need to make the review, examination, and support of teaching part of the responsibility of the disciplinary community (p. 6).” This shared responsibility for teacher preparation holds promise for creating more coherent teacher education programs that will develop teachers grounded in pedagogical content knowledge, and ultimately resulting in improved learning outcomes for P-12 learners.
C. Contributions: This proposal attempts to make a contribution in relation to the value-added benefits of our candidates participating in a teacher preparation program. If they leave our preservice program with enhanced content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, the learning of their students should be enriched because of this preparation. The data we are analyzing and will share at the conference will demonstrate our candidates’ ability to make pedagogical content connections in their school experiences and to their own knowledge base. We are planning to monitor and analyze this group of candidates’ PRAXIS II scores. For further research we can also follow these candidates into student teaching and make the explicit connection to their student learning. By that time in their preparation program we would expect that the candidates are able to use data from their classrooms to make value added teaching decisions.
D. Relevance: The relevance of our initiative is using qualitative and quantitative evidence to inform and enhance successful (exemplary) practice. We have data from these specific educational objectives –
1. Increased communication between A & S and Teacher Education faculty around the P –
12 academic content standards.
2. Increased awareness for approximately 200 Teacher Education students about the
connection between the P – 12 academic content standards, and Arts and Science courses.
3. A connection between the School of Education and Allied Professions’ unit outcome of
“critical reflection” and the candidates’ portfolio entries.
4. An introduction to the expectations for the content PRAXIS II tests would be an
outgrowth of these PCS as we will monitor this group’s PRAXIS II content scores and compare them to the previous year’s scores.
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| | Authors: Hart, Patricia., Tillman, Beverly., Ferguson, Susan., Bardine, Bryan., Krakowski, Rebecca., Pair, Don. and Yungblut, Laura. |
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There is a growing body of literature relative to teaching the academic disciplines to prospective
teachers. Historically, content and pedagogy have been treated as separate and distinct entities.
This pattern has been evident in the separation between content specialists and teacher educators
as each group typically operates within their own perceived domains. Recent research has begun
to shed light on the situatedness of pedagogy within the content being taught. As Shulman (1992)
notes, some studies have supported the notion that “most human learning and teaching is highly
specific and situated (p. 14).” Shulman (2000) calls the oldest problem of pedagogy “the
appearance of learning, or illusory understanding” in which people appear to know something
that closer examination reveals they really don’t know. It is only through pedagogical practices
that require conversation, exploration, inquiry, and what Shulman calls “making the internal,
external,” that learning occurs. Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, et. al. (2005) cite research in
cognitive psychology which indicates that teaching expertise is developed within the various
domains, rather than generically, and that examination of the challenges faced by P-12 learners
within specific academic areas should be a crucial component of teacher education. However, not
all teachers are limited to one or two major academic disciplines. Grossman, Schoenfeld, and Lee
(2005) examine the issues posed by areas of teaching that require a range of academic content
areas (e.g., elementary teachers). One approach that they offer is to “create more opportunities
within the liberal arts component of teacher education for prospective teachers to begin to think
about both the ways of thinking within different disciplines and the pedagogical entailments of
different subject matters (p. 231).” This approach can foster greater collaboration between
teacher education faculty and their colleagues in arts and sciences. Shulman (1993) emphasizes
that “We need to make the review, examination, and support of teaching part of the responsibility
of the disciplinary community (p. 6).” This shared responsibility for teacher preparation holds
promise for creating more coherent teacher education programs that will develop teachers
grounded in pedagogical content knowledge, and ultimately resulting in improved learning
outcomes for P-12 learners.
C. Contributions:
This proposal attempts to make a contribution in relation to the value-added benefits of our
candidates participating in a teacher preparation program. If they leave our preservice program
with enhanced content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, the learning of their
students should be enriched because of this preparation. The data we are analyzing and will share
at the conference will demonstrate our candidates’ ability to make pedagogical content
connections in their school experiences and to their own knowledge base. We are planning to
monitor and analyze this group of candidates’ PRAXIS II scores. For further research we can
also follow these candidates into student teaching and make the explicit connection to their
student learning. By that time in their preparation program we would expect that the candidates
are able to use data from their classrooms to make value added teaching decisions.
D. Relevance:
The relevance of our initiative is using qualitative and quantitative evidence to inform and
enhance successful (exemplary) practice.
We have data from these specific educational objectives –
1. Increased communication between A & S and Teacher Education faculty around the P –
12 academic content standards.
2. Increased awareness for approximately 200 Teacher Education students about the
connection between the P – 12 academic content standards, and Arts and Science courses.
3. A connection between the School of Education and Allied Professions’ unit outcome of
“critical reflection” and the candidates’ portfolio entries.
4. An introduction to the expectations for the content PRAXIS II tests would be an
outgrowth of these PCS as we will monitor this group’s PRAXIS II content scores and
compare them to the previous year’s scores.
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