Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is used to describe the knowledge teachers use to teach a specific subject to a specific audience. Although PCK is linked to student success and motivation, relatively little is known about the PCK of geography teachers. Through a mixed methods approach, we surveyed a group of 73 Dutch pre-service teachers in their final year of geography teacher education. We used the PCK-consensus model to address both PCK-on action (teacher knowledge) and PCK-in action (teacher practice). We investigated the former through a CoRe-assignment and the latter through a quantitative survey. Teacher’s PCK-in action focussed on teacher-centred lessons with ample attention for visualisations, current events, and efforts to engage students. The results for PCK-on action confirmed the content dependency of PCK. Pre-service teachers chose different geographical topics and used different goals and strategies when teaching these topics. In this context, we also found that they experienced difficulties when teaching controversial issues. In a final step, we combined the results of both methods for 9 teachers in individual PCK portraits. These portraits show that coherence between PCK-elements and, therefore, PCK-quality is still weak for most pre-service teachers. Consequently, their fragile subject matter knowledge seems to influence their developing PCK.
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PCK is seen as the transformation of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge into a different type of knowledge that is used to develop and carry out teaching strategies. To gain more insight into the extent to which PCK is content specific, the PCK about more topics or concepts should be compared. However, researchers have rarely compared teachers’ concrete PCK about more than one topic. To examine the content dependency of PCK, we captured the PCK of sixteen experienced Dutch history teachers about two historical contexts (i.e. topics) using interviews and Content Representation questionnaires. Analysis reveals that all history teachers’ PCK about the two contexts overlaps, although the degree of overlap differs. Teachers with relatively more overlap are driven by their overarching subject related goals and less by the historical context they teach. We discuss the significance of these outcomes for the role of teaching orientation as a part of PCK.
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Veel onderzoek naar de ontwikkeling van vakdidactische kennis is uitgevoerd bij studenten van universitaire lerarenopleidingen. Hbo-bachelor studenten hebben in tegenstelling tot deze groep geen vakinhoudelijke opleiding afgerond. In deze verkennende casestudy is daarom onderzocht hoe hbo-bachelor studenten van de lerarenopleiding aardrijkskunde van Fontys in Tilburg denken over hun vakdidactische ontwikkeling. In vijf groepsinterviews gaven twaalf studenten blijk van een praktische instelling, waarin ze vooral zeggen te leren van vakdidactische cursussen, het leren op de werkplek en van voorbeelden van lerarenopleiders. Bij het leren op de werkplek lijkt de werkplekbegeleider een sleutelpositie te hebben, maar studenten merken een grote variatie in kwaliteit van werkplekbegeleiding op. Tenslotte is opvallend dat deze hbo-bachelorstudenten pas na twee à drie jaar studie het nut van vakdidactiek inzien en dan behoefte krijgen aan meer verdieping.
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