Content matter and pedagogy are not mutually exclusive
notions that need to be addressed separately by teaching professional. So
states Professor Les Shulman of the Sanford University Graduate School of
Education. Shulman has created a hybrid
theory of sorts, which he has dubbed Pedagogical
Content Knowledge or PCK. The theory suggests that the two entities should
be combined and that educators need to know curriculum knowledge as well as
knowledge of educational contexts.
Those who have examined PCK
believe that the strategy deals with concept formulation, teaching
techniques, as well as the knowledge as to what makes a curriculum concept
either easy or difficult for school students to learn.
Classroom teachers need to know not only the material to be
taught but also the techniques and strategies that will enable students to
grasp and acquire the content. Over the
years there has been a great deal of discussion of whether coursework taught in
our nation’s colleges of education were critical in the preparation of
teachers. State alternate route certification programs as well as organizations
like Teach for America believed that the desire to teach children as well as
content expertise were all that was required to be successful in the classroom.
Shulman, as well as others, would argue otherwise. Even if you single out grade
levels, the HOW to teach, has at least as much relevance in the process of
being a successful teacher as does the content knowledge.
In today’s classroom PCK must also be integrated with
technology as both an access point to obtain a vast amount of information as
well as a teaching strategy. Todays classroom teaches must be both mindful of
PCK and be able to adapt strategies for use in a diverse classroom.
c. 2015 J. Margolis
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