Académique Documents
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Review
Teacher knowledge: What is it? How do we uncover it? What are its
implications for schooling?q
Miriam Ben-Peretz
Department of Education, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel
a b s t r a c t
Keywords:
Teacher knowledge
Professional knowledge
Practical knowledge
Commonplaces
Curriculum subject knowledge
Teacher change
This paper follows the ways in which publications in TATE, that focus on teacher knowledge, provide
insights into the development and growth of scholarly understanding of teacher knowledge. Relevant
questions are: How is teacher knowledge dened? What modes of inquiry are adopted by the
researchers? What are conceived as the implications of teacher knowledge for schooling? In order to
answer these questions, nine papers were chosen from TATE according to the following criteria:
1.
2.
3.
4.
q This review also serves as the Editorial for the Teaching and Teacher Education
Virtual Special Issue on Teacher Knowledge, available online at: http://cws-live-st.
elsevier.com/wps/nd/S06_342.cws_home/tate_vsi_teacher_knowledge.
E-mail address: mperetz@construct.haifa.ac.il.
0742-051X/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.07.015
1. Introduction
The knowledge of teachers has become a focus of interest to
educators and policy makers (Shulman, 1986), attracting the
Moreover
.it emerged that almost all subcategories of the system of
categories used in the study featured in the practical theory of
all participants. This means that by the end of their training,
participants had developed a practical theory which allowed
scope for the instruction, interactional and contextual
perspectives. We can conclude from this that all student
teachers developed a rich practical theory (pp. 125e126)
These ndings are important and their message for teacher
education is that learning to teach in a work-based context has
great potential for the professional development of teachers. This
paper joins the tendency to view teacher knowledge as dynamic
and encompassing rich and diverse components.
4. Discussion
I start the discussion with a personal comment. I found the
process of reviewing a set of papers, focusing on one theme, most
interesting and rewarding. The selection of papers for analysis was
a difcult task as quite a number of publications could be viewed as
pertaining to teacher knowledge. Still, I decided to limit myself to
nine papers as the optimum number without turning my review
into a list of papers to be summarized.
In this discussion, I focus on several issues. First, the denition of
teacher knowledge. It seems that over time the term teacher
knowledge was expanded and broadened signicantly. The earliest
paper analyzed, Grossman and Richert (1988) dened teacher
knowledge as follows:
a body of professional knowledge that encompasses both
knowledge of general pedagogical principles and skills and
knowledge of the subject matter to be taught (p. 54)
Thus, teacher knowledge focuses on enabling teachers to fulll
their central role: teaching subject matter domains using appropriate pedagogical principles and skills. Following Connelly and
Clandinin (1988), Tamir (1991) suggests integrating professional,
general, and personal idiosyncratic knowledge of teachers. He
views this complex knowledge of teachers as vital for ensuring
their students mastery of subject matter. The notion of teacher
knowledge as related to instructional competencies in the classroom is expanded by Connelly, Clandinin and He (1997). Their focus
is on teachers personal-practical knowledge developing over time
in different contexts.
The paper by Edwards and Ogden (1998) brings us back to the
centrality of subject matter in teachers knowledge. The focus of the
paper is curriculum subject knowledge, namely, the transformation of student teachers subject knowledge into tasks that
aim to promote pupil learning of the subject (p. 744).
Scholars choose their own denitions of knowledge growth of
teachers. Clarke and Hollingsworth prefer to speak about teacher
change. As far as this change concerns the personal domain of
teachers, their knowledge, beliefs and attitudes, the authors
suggest that changes in teachers action in their practice might
cause a process of the
construction of a variety of knowledge types (content knowledge,
pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge) by
individual teachers in response to their participation in the
experiences provided by the professional development program
and through their participation in the classroom (p. 955)
The impact of context on teacher knowledge is highlighted in
Tangs (2003) paper that focuses on student-teachers professional
learning in their eld experiences. The paper differentiates among
The categories of practical teacher theories are close to Shulmans categories of pedagogical knowledge of learners, context
Articles reviewed
Grossman, P. L., & Richert, A. E. (1988). Unacknowledged
Knowledge Growth: A Re-Examination of the Effects of Teacher
Education. Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 4, Issue 1,
pp. 53e62.
Tamir, P. (1991). Professional and Personal Knowledge of
Teachers and Teacher Educators. Teaching and Teacher Education,
Vol. 7, Issue 3, pp. 263e268.
Connelly, M. F., Clandinin, J. D., & Fang, H. M. (1997). Teachers
Personal Practical Knowledge on the Professional Knowledge
Landscape. Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 13, Issue 7,
pp. 665e674.
Edwards, A., & Ogden, L. (1998). Constructing Curriculum
Subject Knowledge in Primary School Teacher Training. Teaching
and Teacher Education, Vol. 14, Issue 7, pp. 735e747.
Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a Model of
Teacher Professional Growth. Teaching and Teacher Education,
Vol. 18, Issue 8, pp. 947e967.
Yee Fan Tang, S. (2003). Challenge and Support: the Dynamics of
Student Teachers Professional Learning in the Field Experience.
Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 19, Issue 5, pp. 483e498.
Holden, C., & Hicks, D. (2007). Making Global Connections: The
Knowledge, Understanding and Motivation of Trainee Teachers.
Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 23, pp. 13e23.
Buitink, J. (2009). What and How do Student Teachers Learn
During School-Based Teacher Education. Teaching and Teacher
Education, Vol. 25, pp. 118e127.
Gorski, P. (2009). What Were Teaching Teachers: An Analysis of
Multicultural Teacher Education Coursework Syllabi. Teaching
and Teacher Education, Vol. 25, Issue 2, pp. 309e318.
References
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives
of experience. New York: Teachers College Press.
Grossman, P. (1990). The making of a teacher: Teacher knowledge and teacher
education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Grossman, P., & Thompson, C. (2008). Learning from curriculum materials: scaffolds
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Hayes, S., Capel, S., & Katene, W. (2008). An examination of knowledge prioritisation
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Jenks, C., Lee, J. O., & Kanpol, B. (2001). Approaches to multicultural education in
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Schwab, J. J. (1964). The structure of the disciplines: meanings and signicances.
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Educational Research, 15(3), 4e14.
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform.
Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1e22.
Tamir, P., Nussinovitz, R., & Friedler, Y. (1982). The design and use of practical tests
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