Because teaching involves showing students how to solve problems, This I achieved by grouping students and using formative assessment each lesson to move students to new groups when their abilities allowed them to do so. And again… we’re all different. Utilising multi-modal resources I seek to engage students and give them hands on, pictorial and abstract experiences with the content. For those answering near 100% pedagogy (0% content knowledge?! I’m going to go big or go home here. If it’s the former, I’m afraid no percentage combination would be a winning one. I learned to teach by watching colleagues. Standard 2— Know the content and how to teach it. There are a variety of ways to do this, including asking concept questions. That they are now more skilled w/ pedagogy then when they started or that they were driven by reflection to change and learn. You pay a lot of interest at the beginning (content knowledge) and then you get to pay more and more of the principle (classroom practice). I have seen many cases of teachers telling students not to do certain questions (because they didn’t know how to do them) or they alter the questions so they are back in their wheelhouse of ‘tricks’. But at the same time, just because you know your stuff doesn’t mean you can teach it. I also was much closer to the learning process so that made me a better teacher and understander of mistakes and misconceptions. Teachers are required to have sound content knowledge of an area if they are to teach it effectively (Kastberg, 2004). Even so, I found that through some good lines of questioning, I was able to help him understand things much better. [17.4KB], Download Unit Overview - Soccer Skills.docx, Tuesday, 18 June 2013 Indigenous students from the school performed a musical piece with their didgeridoos. My favourite lessons are the ones in which I learn alongside my students rather than transferring my knowledge directly to them. I know you will have an engaging 10 minute discussion with your students. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) plays an important role in classroom instructions. In addition, they know they need to increase their pedagogical skills so that they better understand how to move the student from a misconception to a corrected conception in a way that makes sense to that student. I hope to have many opportunities to use smart board technology in the classroom and become better skilled in implementing engaging smart board activities. It is not always easy for teachers who have always been good at the teaching part to accept that they need some help with the content part. It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate with and build relationships with others and with the world around them. I also think this goes for many subjects. You need someone in your department higher than 20%, and there’s added bias here, because so many people are saying they ALREADY had that (and needed better marketing). If I grow in content knowledge for a while without adding any deeper sense of pedagogy the balance starts skewing in that direction. I started out as a full time teacher with an emergency credential having never taken an education class or done a minute of student teaching. Deep knowledge of your students assists in selection of content; I always aim to choose the most engaging content within the curriculum. How to Teach Now. Still chewing…, Math content knowledge is important… but Math Knowledge for Teaching is what is the most important! Knowing the structure of mathematics, the connections and the relationships between concepts is vital. Which means at the HS level most teachers should have the content area knowledge necessary to teach the material. Reflecting back, the topics I was less secure on, I taught the best because I boned up on my content knowledge. Pure math undergrad with no classroom experience. While teacher content knowledge is crucially important to the improvement of teaching and learning, attention to its development and study has been uneven. Demonstrate broad knowledge of, understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages. Without the ability to make relational connections with students and communicate effectively (teaching ability), content knowledge is nearly irrelevant. :fingers crossed: i’ve seen amazing teachers teach from places of content weakness and do it well and have students learn. Examples of pre-assessment activities include KWL charts, mind maps, brain storming, and tests. I have a degree in mathematics and began my career teaching math to students with disabilities. predicting, questioning, monitoring, summarising, Use of all spelling knowledges - visual, phonological, graphological, orthographic, morphological, Mental Computation (counting on, doubling), Authentic and meaningful e.g. This program is designed to assist teachers in understanding some of the most significant beliefs and cultural practices of the Ngunnawal people. Getting it for me is understanding what math understanding looks and feels like. [161.8KB], Tuesday, 18 June 2013 Two things, if you have time. In my opinion, teachers should have a good content knowledge to enter the classroom and good mentors to develop pedagogical strategies. [The most common reaction is: “That’s it???!! So now I see it like mortgage payments. This is a part of being adaptive as you need to adapt to new challenges quickly and efficiently. It hooks onto the vintage interface! by Terry Heick. It’s a lofty goal. In fact, if I had it my way, teachers of elementary students would specialize by content at least to some degree, just as high school teachers do. Maybe it depends on exactly how those two things are measured, and I don’t have a good way to quantify either of those. No one is ready for teaching. That’s when I came upon “The Mathematical Experience,” by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh. Clearly something I’ve never done but definitely aspire to do later in my career. I’ve found that the more math you have at the upper level can limit your ability to see approaches to topics at a lower level. Using culturally inclusive practices from authentic indigenous sources within the classroom can help to can promote understanding, perspective and respect for the indigenous community. Therefore in my experience, really good teachers are strong learners and thus develop content knowledge. Similar story to Robert above. I have a few questions that have been rolling around in my brain. If I hadn’t studied math content deeply on my own, I do not think I would have fully recovered from my experience as a math student. I had the opportunity to view easy to implement formative assessment strategies such as red block = students do understand an instruction and green block = students do understand. As someone else mentioned it takes a special kind of pedagogy and content knowledge to see how to respond to students misconceptions with counting and one to one correspondence in the lower grades. by Terry Heick. In the classroom, there are multiple content areas which must be taught in a short period of time, and it is therefore necessary for a teacher to be able to find information on the content they are going to teach efficiently. 1. Planning is the best antidote for the nerves that many people feel when teaching a subject for the first time or meeting a new group of students. plus, isn’t the content bucket easier to add to? I didn’t know the first thing about basic microeconomics, and honestly still don’t. The assignment explores the importance of including indigenous perspectives in the classroom and elaborates further on the 'Land Through the Eyes of the Nqunnawal People' program. (Frankly, I think this is why society is in dire straits these days, running for the shiny thing without caring to do the research, but that’s another argument.) Or do the two need to have more of a symbiotic relationship? Phonology is “the study or description of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) of a language and their … [17.3KB], Tuesday, 18 June 2013 I have completed placements in ACT and NSW and have used both of these curriculum documents as well as the Australian National Curriculum to plan units. I’m intentionally leaving the question and terms open (vague?) The most idealistic, non-mathematical answer is 100% pedagogy and 100% content knowledge, but I know that’s a cop out to your question! In Deborah Ball’s formulation, mathematical content knowledge for teaching is knowing what, knowing how to teach it, and also starting … Like if someone read Tracy’s book and “got it”, I’d be happy to let them have a go. Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students. I had a good conceptual understanding of math, so even though I didn’t major or minor in math or education in school, when I decided to change careers and become a math teacher, I always had students who showed high growth. This major is designed to provide content and pedagogy for teaching Literacy and Numeracy in primary school settings. I started as a volunteer in adult literacy. Skip to content; Importance of Teaching Skills in the Classroom font size decrease font size increase font size; Print; Email; Teachers who are skilled at communication, classroom management and appropriate discipline techniques create a positive learning environment. Content Knowledge for Teaching: Innovations for the Next Generation of Teaching Assessments . After all, how can you develop classroom practice if you have nothing to teach. For one, it is an intimate act splicing time and space. over the span of mathematics included in the curriculum.’ Example: Knowing how the algorithm to multiply together two numbers is related to multiplying together two polynomials.” I have three ed degrees now and no math degree but I have picked up enough math content AND teaching skill over the years that I am confident that I am not doing any harm to my students even when I teach AP Calc or AP Stats. According to Haycraft (1978: 58), “Awareness of this is useful as many mistakes made by learners are due to slight differences in sound production”. For the sake of argument, I will momentarily abandon this and pretend the two are discrete…. My goal for a student is that she will speak with authority on a topic to which she was just introduced. If you don’t know how to teach, you aren’t teaching anything, math included. My first year I had awful pedagogy therefore weak classroom management. Taking one over the other is a difficult pill to swallow. Specifically ones prepping kids for an AP calc or stats exam. So to loop back to the question as I read it, should teachers focus their time developing their pedagogical skill or their content knowledge? Agree with Claire’s 60-40 and that the meaningless tricks come from not knowing the math, and with jstevens009 about needing to know where the content leads to be able to weave the story. In the 'Indigenous Education'(DI) unit I completed I learnt the importance of including and consulting indigenous community leaders in education relating to this area. It develops the numeracy capabilities that all students need in their personal, work and civic life, and provides the fundamentals on which mathematical specialties and professional applications of mathematics are built.'. I’m not sure this is answerable. Returning to the idea that knowing how to teach is more important than knowing what to teach, the design of sound lessons, enrichment activities, and evaluation pieces is a top-level skill that all educators should have and do develop in their area-specific educational methods … If you are a math, history, science, or art teacher, where does literacy fit into your classroom instruction? ), but most importantly, to understand. https://davidwees.com/sites/default/files/screen_shot_2014-09-27_at_8.26.33_pm.png. That was true in spite of the fact that early in my career I had a very traditional view of math teaching (that was how I had been taught after all). However I don’t think that the inverse of that statement is necessarily true. The difference between these words, educate and teach, has resulted in many different instructional strategies, some more active and … It has strong connections to project work, task-based learning and a holistic approach to language instruction and has become particularly popular within the state school secondary (11 - 16 years old) education sector. (But is it a majority of classes? The key if content is an issue is a willingness to learn along with the students. I don’t know.) One of the things I love most in life is a sense of synchronicity. Deborah Ball describes a horizontal content knowledge as “‘[A]n awareness of how mathematical topics are related I see three key flaws in the arguments people are making. Plan in time to develop your subject knowledge in the same way you would set aside time for marking or developing resources. Anecdotal evidence. Teaching at its most literal level educating, imparting knowledge is the most fundamental part of a teacher’s job. So at that point, I was roughly 100% content knowledge (a B.S. So regardless of what percentages we bring to the table, I think the important thing is that we support each other to strive to be 100% in both areas. I find it as a very useful tool to deliver maths content to students and to practice rote learning in an engaging way. If there is one thing that I have learned from tutoring and teaching math over the years, it is that most students can rest when they understand. The importance of teaching grammar in English language is an ongoing debate. Update: I want to learn more about this, shared by elsdunbar: “Deborah Ball describes a horizontal content knowledge as ‘[A]n awareness of how mathematical topics are related over the span of mathematics included in the curriculum.'”. Awesome food, excellent conversation. If it’s the latter, I would say that it’s pretty important for teachers to remain balanced. The class ended up learning a lot that year about U.S. History, and so did I, but I am pretty sure I grew more as a teacher that year in teaching the content that I was less familiar with. Until I have my own class with my own smart board I don’t think I will be fully able to explore the furthest potentials for this technology but none the less I have had positive experiences incorporating smart board activities across my lessons in a variety of units. If you don’t know math, you can’t teach it. If we first consider just the comparison between the two camps — I hope you can recognize that student learning would be suffering. Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence. In my final placement my fractions/decimal unit needed to be completed reshuffled as student’s skills levels varied vastly. Looking back now, I realize how much that book has shaped my approach to learning and teaching math. Either case — I’m thinking very little student learning of mathematics would be happening. For example, challenging language demands in math include: symbolic notation; visual displays, such as charts and graphs; technical vocabulary; and grammatical features such as complex noun phrases. That could be considered having a deep pedagogical understanding or a deep content understanding. So here’s where I need help — if you really feel pedagogy can be separated from content, that you can have pedagogically understanding absent from content understanding, can you describe to me what pedagogical knowledge is without using content or referencing content? In the second scenario, I think again only those who are already good at math will be helped. If we’re lucky, we can surround ourselves with teachers who can balance out our areas of weakness to become stronger together. Concept checking is finding out if a learner has understood a new item. That analogy is flawed, most visitors to a museum choose to be there, but there IS no good analogy because no one is ready for teaching! Does a first year teacher have the same percentage as a veteran teacher? Graduate Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it. More recently, however, there has been a growing recognition that a teacher’s subject knowledge is vitally important. The Importance of Teaching How to Learn. An example of how to appreciate indigenous culture, practices and knowledge is the ‘Land through the Eyes of the Ngunnawal People’ natural resource management programs for ACT schools. Hopefully we will continue to learn more about the developmental nature of mathematics (deepen our content knowledge) and discuss the pedagogical moves we make as we do so. I’ll share the question here in the selfish hope that I’ll be able to hear a few more opinions, and continue my own pondering (and learning) in the process. My initial thought was they go hand in hand. This type of teaching is definitely more challenging to me, but also much more rewarding. Ignoring the 5 bazillion variables here I’m going to say 50% teaching ability and 50% content knowledge. I’m arguing 25% is enough to establish a rapport with the students who aren’t engaged by the material itself. I think an “an armada of pedagogically sound teachers who know nothing about math” would be just as dangerous to mathematics education and student learning as “an armada of content knowledge experts without pedagogy”, and equally difficult (or easy) to transform. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! We probably can all agree with the importance of content knowledge at some level. I would sum up many of their responses with this one: “It won’t matter how good the content is unless we are ENGAGED in the class.” The students also listened and responded to other students answers. Being confident of content knowledge then frees one up to work on classroom practice, develop relationships with students, etc. I also see the same thing in high school. Practice What You Teach Sure, we all show up to our first classroom experiences with some sort of foundational pedagogical skill set and some content knowledge, but these understandings don’t remain fixed for long. Even MissMathTeacher314 mused “It’s not always easy for teachers who have always been good at the teaching part to accept that they need some help with the content part.” (Granted, she went 65:35.) [17.8KB], Tuesday, 18 June 2013 From the primary grades, students need to know that there are different kinds of texts, each with its own features, purposes, and conventions. She’s really good with Desmos activities and has stronger content knowledge with this particular topic. It is concerned with the tasks involved in teaching and the mathematical demands of these tasks. Are You Teaching Content, Or Teaching Thought? Great question and discussion. I’m guessing that most teachers who are responding on this site are not of this mindset, but I would argue that nationwide a majority of teachers are. One student asked, “Why do these have to be mutually exclusive?” Whoa. I am sure I would be clueless and have great respect for anyone brave enough to enter that arena. Give me an armada of content knowledge experts without pedagogy and I’ll take you to my upper division math classes at UCLA. But one teacher said that he thinks content knowledge must come first. Thinking is troublesome. Maybe we should do better measuring content knowledge by charting how well you can teach it. (this was a question my wife asked). What’s the ideal breakdown? At the middle school level people need to be “highly qualified” in math to teach it, which has many ways of being accomplished, but not necessarily checking that the person has the content area knowledge necessary to present the material in the correct manner, or to see the development of the material to the higher levels of mathematics. The great thing about teaching is that we don’t have to be experts (i.e. Last weekend my wife and I had the privilege of sharing a meal with Scott Miller, David Sladkey, and each of their wives. Of course I now do the 5 practices as often as possible. It helps create confident communicators, imaginative thinkers and informed citizens. The fundamental importance of Literacy and Numeracy are recognised across all significant documents driving Australian schools. This is a really good question, and leaving in “vague” open it up for a lot of discussions. Students are viewed as “empty vessels” External link who passively receive knowledge from their teachers through lectures and direct instruction, with an end goal of positive results from testing and assessment. We could have 50/50 balance between minimal pedagogical knowledge and minimal content knowledge…. It is important for teachers to understand the concepts of the TPACK framework in order to be effective teachers. I think teaching ability far out weighs content simply because content can be learned. I enjoyed history, but hadn’t studied it since I was in high school, and was a chapter ahead of the class the whole year. Tracy. – Thinking Mathematically. The first is knowledge of your subject content and processes; the second is general pedagogical knowledge, which is to say an understanding of teaching. It doesn’t matter, unless the teacher is 100% reflective. I’ll go 100% pedagogy and 0% content knowledge. The discussion is facinating to listen to. 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