Categories of Teachers’ Knowledge

Knowledge Domains
 Didactic triangle

“The triangle has as its vertices the teacher, the pupil and
the knowledge. These terms are of course generic in the
sense that, for example, the term ‘teacher’ carries with it all
the components of the educational system that assigns this
role to him/her. ‘Knowledge’ means all available
knowledge in mathematics, for example, including the
school mathematics communicated through the curriculum,
but also knowledge of its transformation for the purpose of
teaching”. (Shulman, 1987)
 Didactic triangle

“Teaching is represented by the link between the

teacher and the knowledge. Teachers with their
education and professional experiences take with
them into the classroom a number of perceptions
about their work, about the subject, about the
teaching of the subject and about the pupils.
These, in turn, influence the teaching of the
subject. “(Ball, et al.2008)
 Shulman’s Key Categories of
Teachers’ Knowledge.
 General pedagogical knowledge
 Knowledge of learners
 Knowledge of education context
 Knowledge of educational, philosophical and
historical grounds
 Content knowledge
 Curriculum knowledge
 pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
 Key Domains of Teachers’ Knowledge for
Teaching Mathematics
 Subject matter knowledge (SMK)
 Common content knowledge (CCK)
 Horizon content knowledge (how topics are related in
the curriculum)
 Specialized content knowledge (SCK)
 Knowledge of content and students (KCS)
 Knowledge of content and teaching (KCT)
 Knowledge of content and curriculum (Ball, et al.2008)
 Horizon content knowledge (how topics are
related in the curriculum)

• Horizon knowledge is an awareness of how

mathematical topics are related over the span of
mathematics included in the curriculum.
• Teachers may need to know how the mathematics they
teach is related to the mathematics students will learn in
next grade to be able to set the mathematical foundation
for what will come later.
• It also includes the vision useful in seeing connections to
much later mathematical ideas.
 Common content knowledge
(CCK)
• Is the mathematical knowledge and skill used in settings
other than teaching.
• By “common,” however, we do not mean to suggest that
everyone has this knowledge.
• Rather, we mean to indicate that this is knowledge of a
kind used in a wide variety of settings—in other words,
not unique to teaching.
• Understanding of the mathematics in the student
curriculum plays a critical role in planning and carrying
out instruction.
 Common content knowledge (CCK)….
• Teachers need to know the material they teach; they
must recognize when their students give wrong answers
or when the textbook gives an inaccurate definition.
• Teachers need to use terms and notation correctly.
• Teachers must be able to do the work that they assign
their students.
• Are diagonals of a parallelogram perpendicular?
• (that is not ‘common’ knowledge).
 Specialized content knowledge (SCK)
• Is the mathematical knowledge and skill unique to teaching
• Teaching requires knowledge beyond what is taught to students.
• The mathematical demands of teaching require specialized
mathematical knowledge not needed in other settings.
• Accountants have to calculate and reconcile numbers and
engineers have to mathematically model properties of materials, but
neither group needs to explain why, when you multiply by 10, you
“add a zero.”
 Specialized content knowledge (SCK)
…..
• An example : why do we have to find a common
denominators when adding fractions?
• These and questions like them are the daily fare
of teaching. The demands of the work of
teaching mathematics create the need for such
a body of mathematical knowledge specialized
to teaching.
 Knowledge of content and
students (KCS)
• Is knowledge that combines knowing about students and
knowing about mathematics.
• Teachers must anticipate what students are likely to
think and what they will find confusing.
• When choosing an example, teachers need to predict
what students will find interesting and motivating.
• Central to these tasks is knowledge of common student
conceptions and misconceptions about particular
mathematical content.
 Knowledge of content and
students (KCS)….
• When assigning a task, teachers need to anticipate what students
are likely to do with it and whether they will find it easy or hard.
• Teachers must also be able to hear and interpret students’
emerging and incomplete thinking as expressed in the ways that
pupils use language.
• Each of these tasks requires an interaction between specific
mathematical understanding and familiarity with students and
their mathematical thinking
• Many demands of teaching require knowledge at the intersection of
content and students.
 Knowledge of content and students (KCS)
….

• In developing an instrument to measure

such knowledge, we ask questions, for
example, confusion between area and
perimeter lead to wrong answers
 Knowledge of content and teaching (KCT)

• Combines knowing about teaching and knowing about mathematics.

• Mathematical tasks require mathematical knowledge and the
instructional design.
• Teachers sequence particular content for instruction.
• They choose which examples to start with and which examples to
use to take students deeper into the content.
• Teachers evaluate the instructional advantages and disadvantages
of representations used to teach a specific idea and identify what
different methods and procedures should be followed.
 Knowledge of content and teaching (KCT) ….

• Mathematical tasks requires an interaction between specific

mathematical understanding and an understanding of pedagogical
issues that affect student learning.
• Teachers need to make instructional decisions about which student
contributions to pursue and which to ignore or save for a later time.
• During a classroom discussion, a teacher must decide when to
pause for more clarification, when to use a student’s remark to
make a mathematical point, and when to ask a new question or
pose a new task to further students’ learning.
 Knowledge of content and teaching (KCT)
….
• Each of these decisions requires
coordination between the mathematics at
stake and the instructional options and
purposes at play.
• The demands of teaching require
knowledge at the intersection of content
and teaching.
 The shifts that occur across the four
domains…
• An example, ordering a list of decimals[0.27, 7/26, 29/104, 0.28,
6/19] (Common Content Knowledge), generating a list to be ordered
that would reveal key mathematical issues (Specialised Content
Knowledge), recognizing which decimals would cause students the
most difficulty (Knowledge of Content & Students), and deciding
what to do about their difficulties (Knowledge of Content
&Teaching), are important yet subtle. That we are able to work
empirically as well as conceptually helps us to refine our categories;
still, we recognize the problems of definition and precision exhibited
by our current formulation.
 Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)….

• PCK was originally defined by Shulman (1987, p. 8) as ‘a special

amalgam of content and pedagogy’ comprising knowledge of the
representations useful for teaching a subject and knowledge of
(mis)conceptions and difficulties with the subject that are commonly
experienced by learners.
• Shulman (1986, p. 9) recognized that good teachers came to
understand which were ‘the most powerful analogies, illustrations,
examples, explanations, and demonstrations’ for making subject
knowledge comprehensible.
In essence, PCK is a matter of translating subject content for learners
(Depaepe et al., 2013)
Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
 Subject matter knowledge (SMK)

• Subject matter knowledge (SMK) is knowledge of the

content of the discipline per se (Shulman, 1986, p. 9),
consisting both of substantive knowledge (the key facts,
concepts, principles and explanatory frameworks in a
discipline) and syntactic knowledge (the nature of
enquiry in the field, and how new knowledge is
introduced and accepted in that community).
 Domains of Mathematical
Knowledge for Teaching….
 Shulman’s Major Categories of Teacher
Knowledge

 General pedagogical knowledge, with special

reference to those broad principles and
strategies of classroom management and
organization that appear to transcend subject
matter
 Knowledge of learners and their
characteristics
 Shulman’s Major Categories of Teacher
Knowledge
 Knowledge of educational contexts, ranging
from workings of the group or classroom, the
governance and financing of school districts,
to the character of communities and cultures
 Knowledge of educational ends, purposes,
and values, and their philosophical and
historical grounds
 Shulman’s Major Categories of Teacher
Knowledge
 Curriculum knowledge, with particular
grasp of the materials and programs that
serve as “tools of the trade” for teachers
 Pedagogical content knowledge, that
special amalgam of content and pedagogy
that is uniquely the province of teachers,
their own special form of professional
understanding (Shulman, 1987, p. 8)
 References
• Loewenberg Ball, D., Thames, M. H., &
Phelps, G. (2008). Content knowledge for
teaching: What makes it special?. Journal
of teacher education, 59(5), 389-407.
Thank You!

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