Maneiras em desenvolvimento

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING

VOL. 41, NO. 4, PP. 370–391 (2004)

In Search of Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Science: Developing Ways of Articulating and Documenting Professional Practice

John Loughran, Pamela Mulhall, Amanda Berry Faculty of Education, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton 3800, Australia Received 27 February 2003; Accepted 17 July 2003
Abstract: This study examines the development of ways of documenting and portraying science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). As a result of a longitudinal study into science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, a method is developed for capturing and portraying PCK that comprises two important elements. The first is linked to the particular science content, termed Content Representation (CoRe), and the second is linked to teaching practice, termed Professional and Pedagogical experience Repertoire (PaP-eR). Through this approach new understandings of PCK emerge that are of interest in terms of both academic (knowledge building about PCK) and teaching perspectives. This study includes a full CoRe and one PaP-eR and fully demonstrates how these two elements interact to begin to portray science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. ß 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 370–391, 2004

In his search for the expert pedagogue, Berliner (1988) made clear that teaching for understanding was based on a genuine scholarship of practice. This was displayed through a teacher’s grasp of, and response to, the relationships between knowledge of content, teaching, and learning in ways that attest to notions of practice as being complex and interwoven. One consequence of this work was the recognition that teachers’ professional knowledge is difficult to categorize and therefore exceptionally difficult to articulate and document. Berliner was one of a number of researchers at that time who encouraged the education community to pay more attention to teachers’ knowledge and to