1

TSCHAPPAT MASTERS PORTFOLIO

Knowledge of Content
Candidates demonstrate their ability to plan and design instruction that supports every
student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas,
cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community
context. The Candidate demonstrates the understanding and use of a variety of instructional
strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their
connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.

If one cardinal principle of teaching is a commitment to the welfare and education of

young people, another is a commitment to subject matter. Accomplished teachers are dedicated

to acquainting students with the social, cultural, ethical, and physical worlds in which we live,

and they use the subjects they teach as an introduction to those realms. A comprehensive

understanding of subject matter entails more than the recitation of dates, multiplication tables, or

grammatical rules within a single content domain. Rather, it requires the pursuit of substantive

knowledge by exploring domains and making connections to become fully engaged in the

learning process. The goal of curriculum and instruction is for students to gain a true

understanding of content, gain transferrable skills and be authentically engaged in the learning

process. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) refer to the design of such curriculum as “backward

design” (p.17) in which the instructor begins the plan with desired results, determines evidence

of student understanding and then plans the methods of instruction. This 4th grade unit on

ecosystems is an example of backwards design, in which the instructional design started with a

“big idea” and several enduring understandings for each content area included in the unit. The

unit was designed to align with Alaska content standards for science, geography, history,

reading, writing, and art. The “big idea” of the unit presented is to explore the impact that

humans have on ecosystems.

Understanding the relationship that students have with the natural world and the impact

they have on the world around them provides them with learning “value beyond school”, or what
2
TSCHAPPAT MASTERS PORTFOLIO
Wiggins and McTighe (2005) would refer to as the “transfer value” (p. 69) of a big idea is the

understanding that “learning will be more adaptive or powerful when students can connect new

information to their own experiences” (Newmann et al., 1996, p. 286). The unit described earlier

is the first step in students’ understanding that humans can alter the living and non-living factors

within an ecosystem, thereby creating changes to the overall system. In order to construct new

knowledge and understanding of ecosystems, the student must first be able to identify their

personal experiences and then connect those experiences to new information to create meaning.

Inquiry is a process of questioning and discovery, as Koechlin and Zwann (2014) elaborate, it is

a social process as well: “inquiry is at its best when teachers design the learning experience to

include plenty of opportunity to work with others” (p. 10). In the unit described, students

engaged in the questioning process with how ecosystems, as a community of organisms, are

dependent on another for survival and how natural disturbances effect an ecosystem.

Wiggins and McTighe (2005) stress the importance of assessing for understanding

through the use of authentic performance-based tasks. Such tasks demonstrate understanding

through the “transferability of core ideas, knowledge and skill… variety of contexts” (p. 153).

Understanding our students learning processes helps us decide the instruction; how we will

teach, what we will teach, and the pace at which we will teach it. If we know ahead of time what

the most prevalent misconceptions are we can then design learning experiences and questions

that fill the gaps. All this goes to show that curriculum must and does change regularly, making

it an even more essential foundation on which to base our teaching methods. By effectively using

curriculum, you’ll be helping your students stay on top of the latest in-demand skills and to have

a more coherent learning path. Experts in teaching science recommend that scientific reasoning

be taught in the context of rich subject-matter knowledge. Plainly put, “Teaching content alone
3
TSCHAPPAT MASTERS PORTFOLIO
is not likely to lead to proficiency in science, nor is engaging in inquiry experiences devoid of

meaningful science content” (Willingham, 2016, p.4).

To be effective in the classroom, accomplished teachers need to have a strong command of the

subject matter they teach. Students are more likely to connect with a lesson and therefore recall

the lesson’s information if it genuinely combines more than one subject matter. This also

supports Piaget’ Constructivist Theory that learning occurs when connections are made through

active and hands-on learning (Kitchener, 1991). This kind of learning can be naturally

incorporated into lessons that cover more than one content area. Content knowledge is the basis

for effective teaching however, knowledge is not stagnant. As quickly as information and

technology evolves in this day and age, it is essential that teachers stay abreast of evolving trends

and developments in their areas of expertise – this is true for what they teach – content – and

how they teach it –pedagogical knowledge. For teachers this truly means being a life-long

learner.
4
TSCHAPPAT MASTERS PORTFOLIO
References

Koechlin, C. & Zwann, S. (2014). Q tasks: How to empower students to ask questions and care

about the answers (2nd ed.). Markham, Canada: Pembroke Publishers.

Kitchener, Richard. (1991). Jean Piaget: the unknown sociologist? The British Journal of

Sociology, 42:3, 421-442. Retrieved from JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i225014

Newmann, F., Marks, H. & Gamoran, A. (1996). Authentic pedagogy and student performance.

American Journal of Education, 104 (4), 280-312. Retrieved from:

https://scinapse.io/papers/1985852959

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson.

Willingham, Daniel T., (2016) Knowledge and practice: The real keys to critical thinking,

Knowledge matters: restoring wonder and excitement to the classroom. Retrieved from:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZcM2U66OrUcMXs5EpXbLpvR5pmhCy-pV/view?

usp=sharing