Student teachers’ views of their experiences in a Bachelor’s programme

Background: It is widely accepted that the quality of schools depends on the quality of teachers. Understanding what occurs while learning to teach is an important pursuit for acquiring a sense of the quality of teachers. The initial development of teachers is a critical point from which to activate such understanding.Aim: This study, therefore, examines the ways in which pedagogic content knowledge is developed within experiences that relate to initial teacher education programmes. Pedagogic content knowledge is a concept describing a form of knowledge related to transmitting subject matter knowledge to learners.Setting: A qualitative study was conducted with a cohort of participants in the final year of a bachelor’s degree programme.Methods: Data generation ensued from focus group discussions, complemented by questionnaire data. The study analysed data categorised according to themes.Results: Findings demonstrate that the participants found their initial teacher education programme to have had positive and negative influences with regard to the development of pedagogic content knowledge. Administrative duties, adapting to school contexts, relationships with people of influence (such as lecturers during initial teacher education and mentor teachers), teaching practice (which had the most profound influence on classroom practice) and professional knowledge and skills as taught during initial teacher education were all factors that had an impact on participants’ experiences in developing their pedagogic content knowledge.Conclusion: This paper argues for the need to rethink the structure of initial teacher education programmes in order to better facilitate the development of pedagogic content knowledge.

The Development of an Inclusive Model to Construct Teacher’s Professional Knowledge: Pedagogic content knowledge for sound-based music as a new subject area

This article outlines a systematic process for developing the different knowledge domains required for teaching sound-based (electroacoustic) music as a new subject area. As a new area within the discipline of music, teachers are novices to the field. This requires epistemological deconstruction of what knowledge teachers need in this new field. Then the analysis outlines how to develop teachers’ new knowledge, which can be constructed as subject content knowledge (SCK), pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) and technology pedagogic content knowledge (TPACK). This epistemological analysis informed our creation of teaching materials that develop these different knowledge domains and take account of the complex interplay between them. This process was demonstrated through the ElectroAcoustic Resource Site Projects, which first built subject content knowledge and then created teacher’s packs to build pedagogic content knowledge, and a bespoke CPD programme, which embedded their inter-relationships and built technology pedagogic content knowledge. Most importantly, creating the teacher’s packs employed a user-centred design approach, putting teachers and pupils in the centre of the development process, thereby giving them voice. Voice is an integral part of empowerment in our model, which disrupts the hegemonic grip of the academic curriculum dominated by the traditional music canon. This article adds to the knowledge-base regarding how to develop the different domains required for teaching a new subject. We argue that sound-based music is accessible to all teachers and learners, thereby increasing inclusivity. This in turn can radically disrupt ways of teaching music in schools and the model created provides the necessary scaffolding for a paradigm shift in music teaching on an international level.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF AN ADVANCED CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION

Advanced Certificate in Education programmes was offered by many South African universities to provide opportunities for teachers to upgrade their positions. The purpose of the study was to explore Physical Science teachers’ perceptions of their professional development. In this study we considered three domains of professional development which are content knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and teacher beliefs and attitudes. This study used a mixed method approach using the form of an embedded design. The study was conducted with 156 students enrolled in an ACE Physical Science programme. The teachers stated that their content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge had not only improved, but also their engagement with actual laboratories, and conducting experiments contributed to their teaching experiences. Hence, their self-confidence of physical science teaching evolved. The authors recommend that the ACE programme should also include a mentoring system with teaching practicum via school leadership and subject advisers. Key words: content knowledge, professional development, physical science teachers, pedagogic content knowledge, teacher beliefs, teacher confidence.