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Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is specialized knowledge necessary to teach a subject. PCK integrates subject-matter content knowledge with knowledge of students and of teaching strategies so that teachers can perform the daily tasks of teaching. Studies in mathematics education have found correlations between measures of PCK and student learning. Finding robust, scalable ways for developing and measuring computer science (CS) teachers’ PCK is particularly important in CS education in the United States, given the lack of formal CS teacher preparation programs and certifications. However, measuring pedagogical content knowledge is a challenge for all subject areas. It can be difficult to write assessment items that elicit the different aspects of PCK and there are often multiple appropriate pedagogical choices in any given teaching scenario. In this paper, we describe a framework and pilot data from a questionnaire intended to elicit PCK from teachers of high school introductory CS courses and we propose future directions for this work.
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Exploring preservice teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge of teaching fractions
Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) influences their instruction and, by consequence, their children’s opportunities to learn better. Within the domain of fractions, items assessing PCK are nested within larger assessments, with little explicit focus on the PCK domain. We report on the development and initial validity argument for a PCK for Fractions assessment that assesses preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) knowledge of students’ fractional reasoning. Results suggest the assessment can differentiate between PSTs of different levels in their teacher education program, and that items appear to assess the intended construct. Implications for future study, and for how PCK may develop among PSTs is discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1908159
- PAR ID:
- 10274518
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education
- Volume:
- 42
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1703 to 1707
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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One of the critical barriers to increasing pre-collegiate computer science course offerings in the U.S. is a lack of qualified computer science teachers. Programs such as TEALS, a teacher preparation program pairing high school teachers with computing professionals to offer CS courses, provide opportunities for in-service teachers to gain experience teaching computer science. However, it is not clear whether the high school teachers develop sufficient pedagogical expertise to sustain high-quality computer science course offerings at their schools. Furthermore, the field of computer science education lacks valid and reliable ways of measuring pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a construct that describes the knowledge teachers need for effective instruction. In this poster, the authors present these results from the first year of a three-year NSF grant to study how TEALS participation influences novice computer science teachers' PCK: 1) a theoretical framework describing the critical components of CS PCK, 2) the results of the first field test of a CS PCK assessment, including the psychometric properties of the assessment, and 3) a comparison of how teachers performed on the assessment at the beginning and end of their first year of computer science teaching and how they performed relative to their computing professional mentors.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.51272/pmena.42.2020-270
