KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR TEACHING AND PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE (PCK): SOME USEFUL MODELS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS’ TRAINING

Abstract

In recent years the profession of teaching has reached a maturity to the point of being considered a producer of own knowledge necessary to the practice. The teacher is no longer seen as a technician, but as an intellectual actor and the specialized literature advocates teaching as a profession, and it recognizes that the teacher has “knowledge base”, a set of skills that are developed during his teaching activity. The Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is a concept that seeks to represent the teachers’ professional knowledge and it has been widely used in the literature about teachers' knowledge. It has proved a fruitful model for investigations aimed to document the knowledge that makes one a good teacher. Despite the relevance that the PCK is, the consensus on what is the PCK is still far from being achieved and many researches propose different models and concepts for the PCK, sometimes conflicting. Many works brings the PCK and speak of it as if it were a clear concept and do not clarify which model / conception are using, which makes investigations on the PCK difficult and ends up attracting a lot of criticism. Thus, this study aims to look critically at the various models proposed in the literature most used and point differences and similarities so that an overview can be built with more insight and analyze their use and validity. The study will also present some ways to have access to PCK and the relation between PCK and teacher education is also discussed. Key words: knowledge base of teaching; pedagogical content knowledge; professional knowledge; teachers’ education; teachers’ knowledge.