Keywords

Introduction

As a construct that promises to be helpful in describing what science teachers need to learn, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) can be an interesting idea for teacher educators. The challenge has been how to incorporate ideas about PCK into designs for science teacher education and, in turn, demonstrate teachers’ learning. The work of the Second (2nd) PCK Summit was to refine our model of PCK in ways that would better illustrate the group’s thinking and to explore methods of gathering data on science teachers’ PCK. How to use this Refined Consensus Model (RCM) of PCK to frame research that identifies science teachers’ PCK from empirical data is an interesting challenge for both teacher educators and researchers. The research work described in this chapter is approached from a teacher educator’s perspective. The idea is to investigate how PCK, as conceptualised in the RCM, might be useful in guiding the design of experiences intended for science teachers’ learning while at the same time illustrating teachers’ PCK. This chapter describes how teacher-developed learning studies might be an approach to observe teachers’ developing PCK in ways that can inform our thinking about how to model and research PCK.

Studying PCK in Science Teacher Education

Studying PCK from a teacher educator’s perspective means thinking about PCK as a tool for describing what teachers need to learn about teaching science. Teaching is an incredibly complex and dynamic activity that takes time and effort to learn well (Lampert, 2001). It is a multifaceted activity that involves planning, enacting, and reflecting around tasks intended for student learning. To support teacher learning, teacher educators are challenged to design tasks for teachers—preservice and continuing—that will develop teachers’ thinking about teaching and that document their progress (Grossman, 2005). A model for science teacher knowledge that represents the complexity of knowing about science teaching could guide teacher educators in developing teacher-educative tasks and assessing teacher learning.

The RCM of PCK described in Chap. 2 of this book is a significant step in creating a model that represents what teachers know about teaching subject matter. Based on years of thoughtful work and multiple conversations, the refined model represents the thinking of the participants in the second international summit on PCK. This model provides a framework in which to situate studies of PCK for science teaching. The predictive power of the model now needs to be tested, for its ability to be helpful in describing teachers’ thinking in ways that predict outcomes for students. For teacher educators, having predictive power means being helpful in designing tasks that support and assess teachers’ progress in learning about teaching subject matter. To do this work well, a set of methods for gathering evidence that describes science teachers’ PCK in meaningful ways is needed.

With this goal in mind, I have been exploring a method to investigate science teachers’ PCK within a framework of learning about teaching. In teacher education, PCK is conceptualised as the knowledge of teaching subject matter (in this case, science) that is used and developed within practice (Feiman-Nemser, 2008). Thus, tasks intended for teacher learning should engage teachers in the activities of teaching while learning about teaching (Hammerness et al., 2005). It is also important for teachers to engage in thinking about student learning while learning about teaching (Sykes, 1999). These outcomes require the development of teacher-educative tasks that emphasise the study of student thinking in connection with plans, enactments, and reflections. In other words, teacher-educative tasks should highlight teachers’ pedagogical reasoning behind the act of science teaching. An approach that is embedded within the complex work of science teaching, with the potential to both develop and illustrate teachers’ thinking, is learning study.

Learning Study to Support Teacher Learning

Learning study is a recent proposal for supporting teacher learning that builds upon the well-known lesson study approach to professional development (Cheng & Ling, 2013; Tan & Nashon, 2013). In contrast to lesson study, learning study is not focused on lesson plans per se, but rather on plans for engaging and uncovering students’ thinking in order to learn about learning (Wood, 2015). It is important to note that planning is a complex activity of teaching that requires sophisticated thinking across multiple timeframes from within a class period to across weeks (Calderhead, 1996). In learning study, teachers focus on the complexity of understanding subject matter and how students express their thinking. Teachers are asked to select an object of learning. In other words, teachers select a phenomenon for students to investigate and develop explanations around. A well-chosen object will lead to explanations that require and develop subject matter thinking. Learning study requires teachers to construct complex tasks that will enable students to illustrate their thinking in multiple ways. Teachers anticipate and then analyse students’ thinking while students develop and revise the products of their work (e.g., investigation plans or reports, annotated diagrams or models, written explanations, and oral presentation of reasoning). In this way, learning study illustrates what teachers know and are learning about their students’ interactions with subject matter ideas. By embedding the study of PCK within tasks for science teacher learning, researchers can get closer to uncovering the reasoning that illustrates teachers’ developing PCK.

Learning Study and PCK for Science Teaching

Learning study and PCK are approaches to understanding the development of teacher knowledge and skills that are both squarely situated with the practice of teaching. It is reasonable to think that by engaging in the structured study of science learning, science teachers will use and develop PCK. And like teaching science, the processes of studying learning and developing PCK are both dynamic and complex. The RCM attempts to untangle this complexity for PCK by describing three realms of PCK from the professional knowledge of a community of science teachers and educators, to that of an individual teacher, to the ideas used to inform and the actions taken in an instance of teaching (see Chap. 2). In a parallel fashion, learning study is framed by the professional community’s knowledge of teaching and aims to develop each teacher’s ideas in ways that will enable him or her to skilfully teach in specific cases. The RCM also describes the interplay of levels of PCK in ways that align with the dynamic work of studying learning. Teachers necessarily engage in planning, enacting, and reflecting with a particular setting, student(s), and learning goals in mind in order to add to their own understanding, which can in turn contribute to the community’s understanding of science learning and teaching. The next step in this line of thinking is to unpack how the RCM can guide the design of a learning study assignment and how the assignment artefacts can inform the RCM.

From a teacher educator’s perspective, the design of a learning study as a task for teacher learning should be framed by the broader ideas about teaching science while being situated in a specific case of teaching science. Although teacher learning about teaching is considered to be embedded in specific instances of planning, enacting, and reflecting, teachers will need the knowledge and skills to reason about many instances of teaching science. Teacher educators are charged with preparing science teachers for multiple settings and sets of learning goals for students at different stages. The RCM identifies this broader or community-based knowledge as collective PCK (cPCK). Similarly, enacted PCK (ePCK) is described as the knowledge and skills used by a science teacher when they are engaged in the practice of teaching in a particular setting with a particular learning goal for particular student(s). Situating the work of science teacher education within the RCM implies using the realm of cPCK to frame the design of tasks for teacher learning while using ePCK to frame the analysis of a teachers’ work within these tasks.

Studying science teachers’ ideas about learning and teaching subject matter within the context of a learning study is a twofold, intertwined task of developing and analysing science teachers’ PCK. One phase of the work is to integrate ideas about PCK in order to develop and describe the experience for teachers and in turn support their learning. Another phase is to use ideas about PCK to analyse teachers’ responses in ways that enable the qualitative features of their thinking to be described and documented. Framed by the RCM, one phase requires the broader framework of cPCK, while the other phase illustrates instances of ePCK. Thus, the questions guiding this exploration into how PCK might be studied in teacher education could be framed as:

  • One: In what way can cPCK guide the design of learning study as a task for science teacher learning?

  • Two: In what ways do teacher-developed learning studies illustrate science teachers’ ePCK?

As a teacher educator, my examination of an approach to use and study PCK is embedded within tasks developed for teacher learning. In this case, a learning study approach was used to design an assignment to serve two purposes. One was to support teachers in learning about teaching science, while the other was to explore how the assignment could uncover teachers’ developing ideas about teaching science. Developing the assignment and examining teachers’ work was an iterative process across several semesters of a graduate course in curriculum and instruction. For clarity, this work is presented here as two phases—designing the learning study and illustrating teachers’ ideas—and uses examples from one cohort.

Designing the Learning Study Assignment

The learning study was developed as an assignment in a graduate course in curriculum and instruction. This course is a regular offering that is not necessary for teachers only, but since it is a core course in curriculum and instruction, most students who enrol are licensed teachers. The course topics include subject matter for teaching (Grossman, Schoenfeld, & Lee, 2005), learning progressions where students’ thinking about science becomes more sophisticated over broad spans of time (Corcoran, Mosher, & Rogat, 2009), and ambitious teaching that considers inquiry and discourse essential to developing all students’ scientific thinking (Windschitl, 2008, 2013). As a course assignment, the graduate students’ study of learning is informed by reading and discussion around each of these perspectives for thinking about learning and teaching science.

Learning Study Plans

The learning study assignment in this course is focused on the planning phase of a learning study. The process of planning in learning study generally includes selecting subject matter, identifying an object of learning, and considering patterns of variation (Wood, 2015). Translated to an assignment, graduate students select and justify a subject matter idea for learning, identify and describe a cognitive task centred on a phenomenon, and create an “anticipation guide” describing on-target and off-target student thinking. Since the learning study is not a lesson plan, details about materials and student activities are not emphasised. It is also important to point out that learning study goes beyond planning to include the examination of student work using the anticipation guides. Then, based on their students’ work, teachers refine their ideas about student thinking and plan future instructional tasks. This second phase of learning study is part of a subsequent graduate course for teachers.

Defining cPCK for the Learning Study Assignment

To inform the design of the learning study assignment, components of PCK were identified by reviewing the literature on science teacher PCK and through empirical work with science teachers (Park & Oliver, 2008; Schneider, 2015). The five components of cPCK used as a guide for this assignment are described below.

  • Orientations to teaching science. Teachers’ ideas about: (a) nature of learning and teaching science, (b) goals of teaching science, and (c) purpose of teaching science.

  • Science curriculum prepared for teacher and student thinking. Teachers’ ideas about: (a) scope of science ideas that are important and worth learning, (b) standards as guides for planning and assessing, and (c) sequence of science ideas organised for learning.

  • Frameworks for science teaching. Teachers’ ideas about: (a) inquiry science learning environments that characterise science and (b) discourse in science, both oral and written.

  • Student thinking about science. Teachers’ ideas about: (a) students’ initial science ideas and experiences, (b) development of students’ science ideas, (c) how students express science ideas, (d) challenging science ideas for students, including why the ideas are challenging, and (e) appropriate level of science understanding.

  • Instructional strategies for science topics. Teachers’ ideas about: (a) natural phenomena experiences and (b) assessment of science learning.

Aligning Learning Study and cPCK

The first question for this work asks in what way can cPCK guide the design of learning study as a task for science teacher learning? To answer this question, the development of the learning study assignment was informed by both the components of learning study and the components of cPCK. The task of developing a learning study as an assignment involved creating clear and helpful directions for how, exactly, teachers should plan a learning study. To uncover teachers’ pedagogical reasoning, the assignment was designed to prompt their reasoning about teaching science. In addition, the framework of the learning study needed to be consistent with the work of planning and the directions to prompt teachers’ pedagogical reasoning had to fit with the purpose of the pedagogical task.

Thinking about cPCK did indeed improve the description of this assignment by supporting the addition of descriptive details for the directions (see Appendix 1). For example, rather than ask teachers to simply identify a target science idea (i.e., learning objective), the directions guide teachers in how to identify a “big idea” and then support their decision. Informed by thinking about specific cPCK components of purpose, scope, and goals, the directions were refined to have teachers select a high impact idea that is worthwhile and meaningful for students and appropriate for students across multiple grade levels. Based on the cPCK concept of sequence (see part c of the Science Curriculum component above), the “big idea” is one where students can develop increasingly more sophisticated thinking over broad spans of time. Similarly, directions for identifying a phenomenon and describing a task were refined when thinking about inquiry, discourse, and expressing ideas, while directions for anticipating student thinking were refined by thinking about initial and challenging ideas for students. The complete alignment between the components of the learning study assignment and cPCK is outlined in Table 7.1.

Table 7.1 Alignment of learning study and collective PCK components
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Illustrating Teachers’ ePCK

This particular learning study assignment was part of an introductory graduate-level course in curriculum and instruction. Ohio science teachers enrolled in the course as part of a programme to prepare current high school teachers to teach introductory-level college content in their high school classrooms. The study group included 19 high school chemistry teachers across multiple course sections in the same semester, and as Ohio teachers, all were using the same state-provided content standards for chemistry. These teachers developed learning study plans as part of the course.

In order to investigate possible differences in their enacted PCK (ePCK), teachers were identified as new (1–3 years of experience), some experience (4–10 years), or much experience (11 or more years). Their content knowledge background was described as excellent (content major with high grades in area), good (content major with lower grades or non-major with high grades in area), or developing (non-major with modest grades area). The examples presented here were selected from three chemistry teachers who focused their work on atomic models. This selection of the same teaching topic meant qualitative differences in ePCK could be highlighted. Teacher A was a new teacher with a good background in chemistry, while Teacher B also had a good background in chemistry but more teaching experience (some). Teacher C was a new teacher but had an excellent background in chemistry. With different levels of experience and chemistry background, the work of these three teachers tests the learning study as a task to uncover differences in teachers’ ePCK.

Describing ePCK

The second question for this work asks in what ways do teacher-developed learning studies illustrate teachers’ ePCK? To answer this question, teachers’ responses to components of the assignment were examined in relation to the corresponding components of cPCK. In other words, the cPCK component determined to be most aligned with each component of the learning study (Table 7.1) was used to guide the review of that aspect of a teacher’s response. The intention was to develop qualitative descriptions of teachers’ ideas. For example, when a teacher describes how the subject matter idea they have selected is meaningful for students outside of academic tasks, his/her response is examined for ideas about goals of teaching science. To explore whether the learning study responses were helpful in illustrating differences in teachers’ ePCK, responses from teachers with different levels of experience were compared. To determine whether this task was illustrating ePCK separately from content knowledge, teachers with different levels of chemistry background were compared. Tables 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4 include sample responses selected from these three teachers’ learning studies in order to demonstrate how ePCK is illustrated.

Table 7.2 Teacher A and Teacher B: responses to components of the learning study assignment and ePCK illustrated
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Table 7.3 Teacher B and Teacher C: responses to components of the learning study assignment and ePCK illustrated
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Table 7.4 Teacher A and Teacher C: responses to components of the learning study assignment and ePCK illustrated
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To illustrate ePCK for teachers with different levels of teaching experience, responses from Teacher A (new teacher with a good background in chemistry) and Teacher B (some teaching experience with a good background in chemistry) were compared (see Table 7.2). For example, Teacher A describes the selected subject matter idea (atomic model) as meaningful for students because all matter is made of atoms. In comparison, Teacher B does not directly describe how this idea is meaningful but does mention the need to understand the viewpoint of students. Both responses begin to illustrate the teachers’ ideas about goals for teaching science. Although it is premature to suggest one response is more advanced or correct than the other, differences based on experience with students are suggested.

Comparing responses from Teacher B (some experience with a good background in chemistry) and Teacher C (new teacher with an excellent background in chemistry) explores possible differences in ePCK based on teaching experience for teachers who also have different levels of content background (Table 7.3). In one example, Teacher B describes student thinking by stating that students will use arrows to represent movement, but it is not clear why these ideas are challenging for students. On the other hand, Teacher C describes student thinking by stating that students’ drawings will show their thinking, but it is more specific in describing how students will misunderstand ideas about models and elements. Again, these responses illustrate differences that might begin to uncover ePCK.

A third set of comparisons highlights two new teachers with different levels of content background and limited teaching experience. Teacher A (new teacher with a good background in chemistry) and Teacher C (new teacher with excellent background in chemistry) are both novice teachers, but one has more chemistry background (Table 7.4). In this case, both teachers describe the role of the teacher in an inquiry and discourse environment as encouraging students to investigate or collaborate, but do not have specific ideas about how to do so. This response is reasonable for new teachers. Their responses also differ in that Teacher A mentions feedback, while Teacher C is more specific about the chemistry ideas students will explain. These responses might be indicating similar ePCK, but differences in content knowledge.

Discussion

Using the RCM (i.e. cPCK, pPCK, and ePCK) as a guide, this chapter describes how a learning study was designed and teachers’ responses were examined. It makes sense that PCK, as a construct that is intended to describe what teachers know about teaching subject matter, would be helpful in designing tasks for teacher learning. It also makes sense that evidence collected from artefacts of teaching (in this case, planning), would make teachers’ ideas visible in ways that can illustration their personal PCK (pPCK). Descriptions of whether and in what ways this is, indeed, the case are needed. The descriptions provided here are from a teacher educator’s perspective, exploring this potential approach as a means of illustrating teachers’ ideas while supporting teachers in learning about teaching.

Designing Tasks for Teacher Education

The RCM identifies three realms of PCK, each of which describes PCK at a different level from a community’s knowledge, to an individual teacher, to a subset of ideas and actions used in a particular instance of teaching. It turns out, quite reasonably, that the different realms of the RCM were useful for thinking about PCK in different situations. To design a task for teacher learning, cPCK was a helpful framework for thinking about what ideas should frame a teaching-based task. The RCM, in and of itself, did not have the detail needed to guide the design of the learning study as a planning task. However, thinking about cPCK as a community-based knowledge is consistent with existing thinking about a collective understanding of the components of PCK. The science education research community, for example, has been describing and researching ideas to identify a set of PCK components for some time (Schneider & Plasman, 2011). The RCM helps to clarify how to use the components of PCK most often described in the literature. In this work, the components of cPCK were helpful in developing the learning study as an assignment for teachers. The specific components were a guide in adding specific details and directions to guide teachers in thinking deeply about learning that otherwise might have been overlooked. Because the assumptions underlying the RCM of PCK and the ideas about teacher learning were based on the same fundamental ideas about teaching and learning, it was possible to align each of the components of cPCK with a corresponding component of the learning study task.

The design of the learning study assignment described here suggests that cPCK can be a useful guide for designing educative tasks for teachers. In this way, the RCM of PCK can be helpful in strengthening the education of teachers. Teacher education is frequently the focus of critique with some reformers recommending more robust programmes with stronger links to classroom-based experiences, while others advocate for reducing formal teacher education (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005). The learning study assignment is a carefully designed task that is anchored in well-thought-out ideas about teacher knowledge that supports teachers in thinking about their own students. If more assignments in teacher education were carefully constructed based on ideas about what and how teachers learn, this practice would not only make these experiences more powerful, it may also aid teacher educators in describing the importance of teacher education in ways that could inform policy for teacher education.

Observing ePCK

Learning study does appear to be a useful approach to illustrate teachers’ ePCK for planning. The learning study assignment is consistent with the work of planning and is closely linked to teachers’ pedagogical reasoning around specific subject matter for specific students. The examples above suggest that teachers with similar content preparation may illustrate different types of ePCK. This finding needs to be explored in more depth, but initial indications are that learning study may be illustrating more than content knowledge. The nature of the differences observed for the chemistry teachers appears to reflect differences related to teaching experience separately from differences related to chemistry background. Although not included in the samples provided in this chapter, learning studies from teachers working outside of their expertise (e.g., biology teachers planning for physical science) indicated that these teachers struggled to a greater degree with this planning task. Although this learning study assignment was focused on only the planning aspect of teaching, ePCK ideas suggested by the teachers were representative of the components of cPCK used to design this planning task. It is reasonable to predict that when teachers collect and examine student artefacts in the next stage of the learning study, their ePCK ideas will be further illustrated. Perhaps their ideas about inquiry and discourse environments, in particular, will be better illustrated.

As an approach proposed to capture (i.e. assess) teachers’ ideas, it is important to think about the validity of learning study as an assessment tool. Learning study can be thought of as a performance assessment, and, as such, factors of validity for performance assessments should be considered (Messick, 1994). This learning study assignment has a relative low consequence in that it will not be used to determine anything more than a single grade in a course. However, some other factors worth keeping in mind are content coverage, cognitive complexity, and meaningfulness. The components of cPCK (notably science curriculum, frameworks, and student thinking) were represented in the components of the learning study assignment. Learning study is embedded in teachers’ work of planning for their students and, thus, should be a meaningful task outside of the course assignment. This task also reflects the complexity of teaching and learning about teaching. Learning study appears to be a fruitful path to pursue with assessment design in mind.

Mapping Trajectories

As an approach to thinking about assessing ePCK in ways to infer teachers’ personal PCK (pPCK), it is interesting to think about mapping trajectories to describe how teachers’ learning progresses. Learning progression is a framework for thinking about how learners (in this case teachers) develop increasing more sophisticated ways of thinking over broad spans of time and in connection with instruction and assessment (Heritage, 2008). Measuring progressions is a complex task that involves construct mapping (Wilson, 2009), that is, mapping the layers of increasingly sophisticated ideas for the construct, in this case cPCK. Based on a well-thought-out construct map, artefacts illustrating teachers’ thinking are analysed to suggest a trajectory or path of learning progress. Instruction and assessment become an iterative process in the uncovering of trajectories. This process matches that described here in this chapter, that is, where a construct is used to design instruction and assess learning. This type of work is a step towards describing trajectories for teachers’ pPCK.

Conclusion

Overall, learning study as an approach to develop and illustrate teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge shows promise. The RCM as a model for thinking about PCK in realms or layers was helpful to situate and parse the work of design and research associated with teacher education. Perhaps most interesting is the potential to begin mapping the PCK construct and teachers’ learning trajectories in conjunction with learning study. Learning study is a complex and meaningful task for teachers. It is also a more efficient or concise approach than lesson planning. This quality is an important consideration for an assessment tool. Learning study, however, does require teachers to learn about learning study. While teachers are accustomed to being asked to plan lessons, learning study planning is more focused and complex and can push their thinking in new ways. These are the features, though, that make learning study valuable. This thinking is the type of work that is needed to advance our understanding of how to design and demonstrate excellence in teacher education.