A central aim of university teaching is to transform students’ conceptual understanding of disciplinary knowledge. In order to achieve this, lecturers make decisions on subject matter and teaching... Show moreA central aim of university teaching is to transform students’ conceptual understanding of disciplinary knowledge. In order to achieve this, lecturers make decisions on subject matter and teaching approaches. However, there seems to be little attention for the role of subject matter pedagogy in university teaching. This study aims to explore a knowledge base of teaching through lecturers’ accounts of a relation between subject matter, theory and practice in Child and Education Studies (CES). Four narratives of the lecturers suggest that subject matter is central to how a relation between theory and practice is taught. At the same time, orientation towards teaching was relevant to teaching subject matter. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that every lecture runs into their own limits when teaching theory and practice. The findings suggest that university pedagogy is informed by specific subjects rather than the discipline. Implications for teaching and academic development are discussed Show less
This dissertation reports on the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of science teachers during a professional development program. This research intended to help us understand why and how teachers... Show moreThis dissertation reports on the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of science teachers during a professional development program. This research intended to help us understand why and how teachers make their classroom decisions as they teach science. The main questions in this study were: What is the pedagogical content knowledge of science teachers when they prepare and conduct lessons as part of a specific professional development program to improve their science teaching and how does this PCK change during this program? This study showed that teachers__ orientations, one of the PCK components, are complex because teachers have multiple goals and use multiple strategies when teaching a lesson. The study also showed that science teachers__ PCK can best be typified and described using teachers__ concerns, goals, and purposes in teaching science. When studying PCK development, this study showed that science teachers__ PCK development followed two different pathways of change. One pathway where teachers reflected on their classroom outcomes and the other pathway where they fail to reflect on these outcomes. When studying PCK in practice, there was evidence that when teachers use their PCK in inquiry lessons, their concerns and their orientations were closely related to their planning of inquiry-based instructions. Show less
