1. PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT
KNOWLEDGE (PCK) FOR
ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
NextGen STEM Teacher
Preparation in WA State
2019 PCK Working Group

2. WHAT IS PCK ALL ABOUT?
PCK is how you represent subject matter to students
PCK is ideas about students’ conceptions and
misconceptions
PCK is understanding topic-specific learning
difficulties students may have
Shulman, 1986

3. PCK COMPONENTS FOR TEACHING
ELEMENTARY SCIENCE (SMITH,
2000)
Knowledge of children’s ideas and the usual barriers
they encounter in understanding conceptual content
Knowledge of strategies that facilitate learning for
girls, minorities, ELLs, and students with special needs
Understanding of the role of representations,
examples, and metaphors in facilitating children’s
understanding
Knowledge of teachers’ orientations toward teaching
science (syntactical knowledge)

4. PCK FROM A CONSTRUCTIVIST
PERSPECTIVE (COCHRAN ET AL,
1993)
Knowledge of students
Knowledge of environmental contexts
Knowledge of pedagogy
Knowledge of subject matter

5. PCK FOR TEACHING PRESERVICE
TEACHERS (SMITH, 2000)
Knowledge of students’ experiences as science
learners
Students’ assumptions about scientists and their work
Students’ ideas about what learning to teach science
ought to involve

6. PCK HAS A HIERARCHY, FOR
EXAMPLE IN SCIENCE
1. Science PCK
2. Specific discipline PCK (e.g. – physics v. chemistry)
3. Specific topic within a discipline PCK (e.g. – electric
circuits)

7. BUT WHAT ABOUT ELEMENTARY
TEACHERS PCK?
Elementary teachers work with specific topic PCK
Elementary teachers rarely develop specific discipline
PCK
Elementary teachers tend to have limited knowledge in
both science content knowledge and science PCK
Appleton, 2008

8. ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’
FOUNDATION FOR PCK
1. Substantive content knowledge
 Children’s naïve ideas
 Teaching strategies
 Curriculum repertoire
 Content representation
2. Syntactical content knowledge
 Orientation to teaching science/technology/engineering/math
3. STEM experiences
 Views of science, technology, engineering, math
 Views of STEM learners
 Views of STEM teaching

9. TWO LEVELS OF PCK
1. Espoused/planned PCK (the type of knowledge
needed for planning instruction)
2. Enacted PCK (what a teacher does in the classroom
in response to the students’ learning needs)

10. RESOURCES
Appleton, K. (2008). Developing science pedagogical content
knowledge through mentoring elementary teachers. Journal of
Science Teacher Education, 19, 523-545.
Cochran, K. F., DeRuiter, J. A., & King, R. A. (1993). Pedagogical
content knowing: An integrative model for teacher preparation.
Journal of teacher Education, 44(4), 263-272.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in
teaching. Educational researcher, 15(2), 4-14.
Smith, D. C. (2000). Content and pedagogical content knowledge for
elementary science teacher educators: Knowing our students. Journal
of Science Teacher Education, 11(1), 27-46.