Description

What shall I do with my students to make the science concepts comprehensible to them? What

instructional strategies, resources are there to help me? What are my students likely to already

know and what will be difficult for them? How best shall I assess what my students have

learned? These questions are common for every teacher, and central to describing the knowledge

that distinguishes a teacher from a subject matter specialist. Such knowledge is described by the

concept known as Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK).

Shulman introduced the concept of PCK (1986, 87) and since then, various researchers have

worked on this concept. The PCK for science teaching consists of various components such as:

orientation to science teaching, knowledge of instructional strategies, knowledge of students'

understanding of science, knowledge of science curriculum, knowledge of resources and

knowledge of assessment.