Introducing Pedagogical Content Awareness to Model Growth in the Context of Teacher Peer Mentoring

• In Event: New Perspectives on Teacher Learning: Teachers as Facilitators of Peers' Professional Growth

Abstract

Objectives: Teachers' professional growth is commonly studied through the prism of teacher-student interactions and corresponding models of teachers' professional knowledge (Shulman, 1986; Guskey, 2003; Blinded, 2015; Carlson & Daehler, 2019). However, recent reviews revealed that despite the growing involvement of teachers in their peers' professional growth, e.g. in mentoring new teachers at school or participating in professional learning communities, research on teacher collaborative discourse is fragmented and tends to be methodologically weak (Lefstein et al., 2020a; Thurlings & den Brok, 2017). Although professional development experiences using peer discourse based on authentic classroom evidence entails mentoring (Horn, 2007), models of professional learning, e.g. Clark and Hollingsworth (2002), lack a framework to study teachers' professional growth as mentors to their peers.
Perspectives: We elaborate a model to fill this gap according to which pedagogical content awareness (PCA) is related to two domains of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): the domain of teaching actions or enactments and the disciplinary domain (the taught discipline, e.g. science, and the corresponding educational research, e.g. research in science education). The respective levels of awareness, related to these domains are termed Awareness in Action – AIA and Awareness in Disciplines – AID (Mason, 1998, 2002, 2008; Blinded, 2019; Blinded, 2018; Blinded, 2018).
According to our model, pedagogical knowledge growth refers to "knowing more," and occurs when a teacher adds more elements to her knowledge. Pedagogical awareness growth refers to "knowing more about" and happens when a teacher can connect explicitly between such elements e.g. when reasoning about her choices based on comparisons. For example, a math teacher who learns a new way of teaching a certain topic acquired more action knowledge, but being able to reason about her choice of this way over other teaching actions demonstrates her awareness growth concerning different actions ( growth in her AIA). When a teacher can justify her teaching choices based on elements or conceptual structures belonging to her disciplinary knowledge related to the above-mentioned two disciplines, she demonstrates a growth from AIA to AID.
Significance: Our model suggests combining PCK with PCA (Pedagogical Content Awareness: the awareness regarding structures within the PCK--not "noticing that something exists"). This, by definition, is a content-focused model, which is researchable since indicators of growth in PCA are definable and observable. For example, one can search for evidence of AID growth by using, as an indicator of such growth, the importance of the notion of alternative conceptions for physics teaching and analyze accordingly a teacher-teacher videotaped discourse. The model can support teachers’ professional development by providing means to evaluate the productivity of different types of peer pedagogical discourses (Lefstein, Vedder-Weiss, & Segal, 2020b) according to the growth in PCA generated.
Finally, our model can also be applied to peer mentoring by referring to mentoring pedagogical knowledge and the corresponding Awareness In Counsel (AIC) -- awareness of processes that foster PCK and PCA (See Figure 1 in the Appendix).

Authors

• Yaron Lehavi, The David Yellin College of Education

• Ruti Segal, Oranim Academic College of Education, Shannan Academic College of Education

• Avraham Merzel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem