Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Teacher Education

Abstract

The term pedagogical content knowledge was introduced by Lee Shulman in his presidential address to the American Educational Research Association (Shulman 1986). Shulman argued that for a long time, research on teaching and teacher education had undeservedly ignored questions dealing with the content of the lessons taught. Shulman presented a strong case for pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a specific form of knowledge for teaching which refers to the transformation of subject matter knowledge in the context of facilitating student understanding. Fundamental in the definition of PCK is the notion that teachers’ knowledge of strategies to teach a certain topic is related to, if not base..