The characteristics of Dutch experienced history teachers' PCK in the context of a curriculum innovation

Abstract

To relate the content knowledge of teachers more specifically to teaching practice, Lee Shulman (1986) proposed the concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge as a specific and unique form of teacher knowledge. In this thesis, I define PCK as: “the knowledge of, reasoning behind, and planning for teaching a particular topic in a particular way for a particular purpose to particular students for enhanced student outcomes” (Gess-Newsome, 2015, p. 36). Following the model of Magnusson and colleagues (1999) 5 PCK elements are defined: (1) knowledge of instructional strategies and representations, i.e. the way in which the teacher transforms subject matter knowledge and (2) knowledge of students’ understanding, i.e. the learning process and the content related problems of the student; (3) knowledge of assessment, i.e. knowledge that teachers use to establish what students have learned; (4) knowledge of the curriculum, i.e. knowledge about the prescribed curriculum and the implemented curriculum and (5) teaching orientation – i.e. goals for and beliefs about teaching and learning. The understanding of teachers’ PCK is largely based on research in the domain of science and mathematics teaching. In this thesis I expand PCK research to the domain of history teaching. The main research question of this thesis is: What are the characteristics of Dutch experienced history teachers’ PCK in the context of a curriculum innovation? In Chapter 1 we conducted a review on PCK and history teaching and in Chapter 2 we described the PCK of Dutch experienced history teachers by developing a framework based on the earlier mentioned 5 PCK elements. In Chapter 3 we showed that the PCK of history teachers is related to content or to their subject goals and thereby elaborated on the content and context dependency of PCK. In Chapter 4 we analysed the changes in the PCK of the experienced history teachers during a curriculum innovation. We concluded that the extent to which the original goals and beliefs (teaching orientation) of the teachers matches the goals of the curriculum innovation, appears to determine their attitude towards the curriculum innovation and their PCK. Teachers’ PCK changes over the years and becomes even less varied in some cases. In those cases, a curriculum innovation leads to added stress instead of knowledge development. The sources for PCK changes in the context of a curriculum innovation are: experience; subject matter knowledge; PCK courses; contact with cooperating colleagues; interaction with students; goals and beliefs of the teachers. The role of teaching orientation seems important. Based on the literature and our findings, teaching orientation seems to be a context and content specific PCK element that gives direction to the other PCK elements. It is a construct that could include a large variety of goals and beliefs. Finally, I want to advocate the use of the concept PCK in research on subject-related teaching and I wish for more descriptions of concrete PCK. This eventually could inform us which parts of PCK are more general and which parts are domain or topic specific.