A Case Study of Specialized Science Courses in Teacher Education and Their Impact on Classroom Teaching

Figures & data

Figure 1. The refined consensus model of PCK.

Reprinted with permission from Springer Nature, Repositioning pedagogical content knowledge in teachers’ knowledge for teaching science, by A. Hume, R. Cooper, & A. Borowski (Eds.) COPYRIGHT 2020

Table 1. Participants and their science lessons.

PST	Jakob	Pia	Tina
Age	20	25	30
Science specialization from high school	Biology, two years	None	Biology, two years
Teaching-related experience	Leader of leisure activities for 5–17-year-old kids	Substitute teacher, immigrant language training	Parenting
Unaligned lesson	Alcohols	Animal cells	Animal cells and oxygenation
Focus	Alcohols as a group of hydrocarbons, solubility in water, flame color	Comparison of plant- and animal cell structure, metabolism, forms of animal cells	Structure of cells, structure of lungs, diffusion of oxygen, distribution of oxygen
Instructional strategies	Lecture with use of molecule model, discussions and tasks in whole-class and pairs, burning of alcohols at the lab, quick posters from the lab	Whole-class discussion, individual drawing, textbook tasks, lecture with use of illustrations, video, matching of concepts with definitions	Discussions in whole-class and pairs, videos, lecture, individual textbook tasks
PSTs’ preparation	Self-studied hydrocarbon using multiple resources	Self-studied the topic using multiple resources	Self-studied the topic using multiple resources. Experience from teaching about human lungs and heart from first-year school practicum
Aligned lesson	Oil	The stars, the sun, and northern lights	Seasons and moon phases
Focus	Fractions of oil, products based on oil	The sun as a star, distance to stars, surface of the sun in relation to northern lights	Cause of moon phases, seasons, solar- and lunar eclipses
Instructional strategies	Lecture with use of illustrations, distillation of crude oil at the lab, discussions in groups and whole-class	Discussion in whole-class and pairs, lecture with use of illustrations, videos, thought experiment, and textbook tasks	Discussions in whole-class and pairs, lecture with physical model of seasons, practical activity with physical model of lunar phases
How SSCs were relevant to aligned lesson	Petroleum was recently taught in a SSC lesson. The SSC instructor demonstrated the distillation experiment. SSCs did not focus on oil-based products.	SSC included lectures on the sun, life of stars, and northern lights; activities about distances in the solar system, source of northern lights, models of the solar system, and an assignment where PSTs made a northern light forecast.	SSC included lectures on the sun, activities about distances in the solar system, and models of the solar system.

Each lesson was 60 minutes long

Table 2. Codes for classification of instructional strategies.

Codes	Definitions	Examples
Topic-specific strategies	Developed and/or adopted for a specific science topic
Topic-specific representations	Illustrations, examples, models and analogies about specific science topics	Presenting a model to explain the process of distillation
Topic-specific activities	Tasks, demonstrations, simulations, inquiries and experiments about specific science topics	Students are engaged in distilling crude oil in the laboratory
Topic-specific discussions	Discussions of topic-specific issues	Whole-class discussion on what components of plant cells are also found in animal cells
Science-specific strategies	Suitable across science topics	Students are assigned to write a standard lab report from an experiment
General pedagogical strategies	Suitable across school subjects	Students match concepts with correct definitions

Table 3. Codes for rationales, the reasons PSTs gave for enacting an instructional strategy.

Rationales	Definitions	Examples
Topic-specific PCK rationales
Build on prior knowledge	Activate students’ prior knowledge and connect it to the topic at hand	Using a whole-class discussion to help students transfer what they know about plant cells to animal cells
Focus on key aspects	Ensure students understand important concepts and phenomena	Explaining moon phases because it is a central concept in the lesson
Address misconceptions	Instruction targeted to address known misconceptions	Directing a classroom discussion to address a misconception about the sun not being a star
Science-specific PCK rationales
Use models	Student get experience with physical models or conceptual representations of scientific phenomena	To represent seasons, a physical model of the sun, earth and moon is presented in the classroom
Engage in inquiry	Students interpret data/observations to answer science-related questions	Students investigating how moon phases occur using a flashlight and a white ball in a darkened room
General PK rationales
Engage students	Students participate in the lesson	Students discussing in pairs why some stars appear to be brighter than others, giving everyone the opportunity to formulate an answer
Variation	Change in instructional strategy to avoid boring students	Burning of alcohols at the lab to contrast the previous lesson which was heavy on theory
Use technology	Technology is used to make science content more interesting	Students matching concepts and definitions at the interactive board
Follow curriculum or mentor teacher	An instructional strategy is motivated by suggestions from curricular material or mentor teacher	Based on mentor teacher suggestion, students are writing a lab report as homework

Figure 2. Instructional strategies in percentages of strategies reviewed in SRIs. Number of strategies in parentheses.

Figure 3. Rationales for enacting instructional strategies in percentages of strategies reviewed in SRIs. Number of rationales in parentheses.

Figure 4. Knowledge of students informed instruction, in percentages of instructional segments.

Number of segments in parentheses.