History of chemistry as a part of pedagogical content knowledge of pre-service chemistry teachers

The content knowledge of pre-service chemistry teachers which includes, among others domains of chemistry, the knowledge about the history of chemistry, represents the basis for the formation of pedagogical content knowledge of teachers. Pedagogical content knowledge is a part of chemistry teachers’ competences that can be defined as a combination of pedagogy and the content of chemistry, including the history of chemistry as well. According to that we created the workshops within the framework of course of the history of chemistry for the pre-service chemistry teachers with the aim to enable them to gain insight into development of chemistry through different historical periods and, in the same time, to offer them the models for their future work with school students on elaboration of chemistry concepts from historical point of view. The workshops comprised different pre-service chemistry teachers’ activities, for example: work with different sources of historical facts, creating a timeline, performing different roles in quizzes (competitors, items creators, moderator, and supervisors of the accuracy of the answers). The work within the workshops has potential to improve the pre-service chemistry teachers understanding on development of chemistry knowledge. The workshops could be also adapted for students of different ages and level of education