Developing pre-service teachers' pedagogical content knowledge for teaching spatial thinking through geography

Abstract

Twenty-four pre-service teachers participated in a workshop designed to provide explicit opportunities to learn what spatial thinking is and how to incorporate it into teaching practice. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) examine the educational effect of the workshop on pre-service teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and (2) provide geographers who prepare teachers in higher education with insights into effective ways to address PCK to teach spatial thinking in teacher preparation programs. The findings of this study indicate that explicit instruction in teaching spatial thinking is necessary and effective to develop pre-service teachers' PCK.

Keywords::

• spatial thinking
• pedagogical content knowledge
• pre-service teachers
• teacher education