Pedagogy by proxy: developing computing PCK through shared lesson resources

In 2014 teachers of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) faced a major National Curriculum change resulting in new programmes of study for Computing. A multiple case study involving nine experienced teachers analysed audio-visual and documentary data from lesson planning sessions. This presentation will explore the various ways that teachers located, modified and re-used digital materials and accessed online communities of practice to develop their crowd-sourced curricula. These teachers’ digital competence allowed them to assimilate unfamiliar but necessary concepts into the pedagogical reasoning process and helped them to develop new subject and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Findings showed that knowledge deficits slowed down the fluency of teachers’ lesson-planning processes, but the location and use of crowd-sourced resources helped them to develop PCK. A key conclusion from this study is that digital competence with a focus on pedagogical reasoning needs to be promoted as part of initial teacher education and agile professional development