Enriching pedagogical content knowledge of prospective chemistry teachers: How can the science methods course help?

This study investigates the perspectives of prospective chemistry teachers regarding activities and interactions important toward enriching pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) during a secondary physical science methods course. Case study methodology was used for four prospective chemistry teachers to investigate the activities and interactions involved in the enrichment of PCK. Each subject drew three concept maps, one representing the subject\u27s content knowledge of a particular topic, another outlining the subject\u27s intended teaching method for the topic, and the third indicating the subject\u27s concerns with regards to teaching the topic. The subjects were then interviewed to determine the subject\u27s prior knowledge structure regarding the topic. Throughout the semester, subjects participated in the normal activities of the methods course, including performing three microteaching episodes. Following each episode, subjects reviewed and made changes on the previously drawn maps. Changes were the subject of probing questions asked during subsequent interviews. Additionally, written assignments for each participant and researcher observations were collected to provide rich detail about the experiences of each subject. The findings suggest that PCK results from the integration of many possible combinations of teacher knowledge bases. Activities suggested as enriching PCK were varied, however, activities associated with microteaching episodes focused participants on the integration of contextual and curricular knowledge into PCK. Therefore, it was speculated that activities provide a focus to the construction of PCK. This focus was also shown to be dependent on participant response to the activity. Participants also suggested that interpersonal and intrapersonal interactions were important for effective PCK enrichment. Interpersonal interactions provide an impetus toward PCK enrichment, while intrapersonal interactions offered the personal rationale for PCK enrichment