Exploring teachers’ interpretation of the curriculum on Faraday's law in relation to their PCK

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand how teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) recorded through non-observational means is related to their interpretation of the South African curriculum in Faraday’s law. Curriculum enactment by the teachers during the teaching of their lessons was used as an indication of their curriculum interpretation. Four Grade 11 teachers from schools in the Tshwane municipality were chosen through purposive and convenience sampling as participants for this study. The data reflecting teachers’ PCK about Faraday’s law (reported PCK) was captured with the use of Content Representations (CoRes) and pre-interviews. From the assumption that teachers’ interpretation of the curriculum is reflected in their lesson presentations, data collected from lesson observations and post-interviews was compared to the information contained in the curriculum to determine how teachers’ presentation of lessons on Faraday’s law aligned to the curriculum, or deviated from it. The Topic-Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK) model was used as the conceptual framework of this study that guided the characterisation of the teachers’ reported PCK about Faraday’s law in terms of five components, namely: curricular saliency, what is difficult to teach, learners’ prior knowledge and misconceptions, representations, and conceptual teaching strategies. Teachers were assigned a competency level based on their knowledge within each of these components using a rubric. The teachers’ interpretations of the curriculum were then compared to their reported PCK. The analysis specifically looked at whether teachers presented their lessons in a similar way to the curriculum or adapted or extended it for promoting conceptual understanding, and whether this related to their level of competence in a particular component of PCK. The results of this study showed that teachers’ interpretation of the curriculum, in terms of what is stated in it and whether it requires extensions in order to aid conceptual understanding, was predominantly attributed to their level of competence within a particular component of PCK. Examples included adapting the sequencing of concepts in the curriculum and extending it by using representations that are not alluded to in it. However, there were also a few instances where teachers’ interpretation of the curriculum did not align with their level of reported PCK about Faraday’s law. Based on these findings, recommendations were made for the curriculum to be expanded to viii include information that would further inform teachers’ PCK of Faraday’s law as the teachers of this study mostly interpreted the curriculum at face value. Pre-service teacher training should also place emphasis on developing teachers’ ability to interpret and analyse the curriculum in terms of the components of TSPCK so that they are able to recognise shortcomings which require adaptions or extensions in order to design conceptually effective lessons.