Pedagogical content knowledge as reflected in teacher-student interactions: Analysis of two video cases

Despite the theorized centrality of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching, we have little evidence of the relationship between PCK and students' learning and know relatively little about how to help teachers to develop PCK. This study is a preliminary attempt to address these gaps in our knowledge of PCK through exploration of two German physics teachers' classroom instruction in consecutive lessons on optics. We show how video analysis can be used to gather evidence for one aspect of teachers' PCK: their use of content knowledge in interactions with students. We identify three potentially important characteristics of this aspect of PCK: flexibility, richness, and learner-centeredness. By contrasting teachers with high and low gains in student knowledge and interest, we explore potential mechanisms by which this aspect of PCK might affect student outcomes. Because German teacher preparation programs emphasize content more than pedagogical knowledge, these cases contribute to our understanding of the support that teachers with strong content knowledge may need in translating this knowledge into a form useful for teaching.