Developing pre-service teachers' pedagogical content knowledge

Abstract

In his presidential address to the American Educational Research Association in 1985. Lee Shulman introduced the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to emphasize the importance of subject matter in teaching and learning processes. Shulman argued that teachers need PCK to transform particular subject matter in ways that enable, and promote, student learning (Shulman, 1986). PCK is the knowledge that distinguishes teachers of subject matter from other subject matter experts. In Shulman's concept of PCK, two components are central, that is, knowledge of strategies to represent specific subject matter (e.g., through schemes and analogics) and knowledge of students learning, or failing..