Unpackaging Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Conceptualizing and Measuring Teachers’ Topic-Specific Knowledge of Students. – Heather. C. Hill, Deborah Loewenborg Ball & Stephen G. Schilling
Summary
· The purpose of Hill, Ball and Schilling’s study was to understand and measure mathematical knowledge for teaching which they termed as ‘Knowledge of Content of Students’ (KCS).
- A teacher may have strong knowledge of the content but weak knowledge of how students learn the content.
- Pedagogical knowledge deals with the teaching process which includes ways of representing and formulating the curriculum content which makes it comprehensible to the learners.
- What happens in the classroom between teachers and students is the most important factor in determining quality in education (UNICEF, 2005: 36).
- Hill, Ball, and Schilling concluded that familiarity with aspects of students’ mathematics thinking such as common student errors is one element of knowledge for learning.
Questions
On page 376, Hill, Ball and Schilling mentioned ‘how classroom practices of teachers changed and students learning improved when they studied how students learn the subject matter. However, it is not known whether teachers who did not partake in this professional development possess such knowledge’.
There is a controversial issue in my country between private schools (often recruit untrained teachers) and public schools (recruit trained teachers from Teacher training colleges) about academic excellence. Most people have come to accept that, students in private schools perform better than students in public schools because the teachers teach well.
- · Is it possible that teachers who do not necessarily go through this professional development may naturally possess or know special ways of teaching a topic(s) that may easily be understood by students, hence better performance?
- · Do such teachers still need professional training regardless of how well their students perform?
Reference
UNICEF. (2005) Improving quality education for children through reform of teaching and learning materials.
Hi Milli,
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting issue. I wonder what other factors could affect the higher performance of students in private schools. Could they have more access to higher quality resources? Or perhaps the ratio of teachers to students is higher, allowing students more one-to-one or small-group time with a teacher. Are the students who go to private schools receiving more support outside of school, such as from their parents or tutors? Is education more valued in the homes of students who attend private schools? There are many questions that I would want to investigate in relation to this discrepancy that you describe.
I'm not sure how to answer your first question. But in regards to your second question, I would still submit that teachers should have professional training that requires them to study theories of education, learning, and pedagogy.
Milli, I think I have the same doubts as you. All mathematicians have a wealth of mathematical knowledge, but they may not be good math teachers in schools. As Davis and Simmt (2006) stated, “the mathematics teachers need to know is qualitatively different than the mathematics their students are expected to master.” For the “professional training” mentioned in your question, I would like to know what are the specific contents of this training? In China, if you want to be a math teacher, you need to pass an exam to get a teaching certificate. I think the process of taking the exam is a training session, but I think it's more like you're sharing your teaching methods with examiners. If “professional training” forces pre-service teachers to teach like everyone else, this kind of “professional training” is not necessary. However, some training will indeed make teachers familiar with schools’ rules and regulations, and enable them to gain the insights of teaching from others.
ReplyDelete