Regardless of how researchers and teachers identify PCK, the importance of
providing students with opportunities to identify that which makes it easy or dif-
ficult to learn is crucial. As noted by Yerrick et al. ( 2011 ) good teachers know that
each student has a story to tell. In research, students’stories are understood to
contain windows of students’culture, prior experiences and genres of discourse that
need to be considered when teaching science.“Such a perspective informs edu-
cators not only about how children learn best but also what children expect from the
teachers why they would allow others to teach them”(p. 33).
As the students noted, in order to promote their learning and engagement, there
is a need to keep the content on a level that anyone can understand but still
challenge those who are knowledgeable. Most importantly, students expressed how
science education connects to their everyday life, which stretched far beyond the
traditional notion that science is merely a subject in school. In using the students’
views to capture that which makes it easy or difficult to understand makes an
important contribution to the researchfield of teachers’PCK as well as to the
practice of science teaching in secondary school. As such, the study presented in
this chapter responds to the urgent call to focus direct attention on the relation
between science teacher knowledge (framed by PCK) and the students’learning of
science.
The varied perspectives on PCK have in many ways, however, strengthened the
value of the construct, in particular for implementation in teacher development
programmes. In the context of teacher education, this might imply that beginning
teachers need to identify aspects in their own teaching that make difference for their
students’ learning of particular content, and consequently, come up with an
approach to challenge students’needs. As indicated in this study, students feel
supported when their teachers listen to them and help them to learn and understand.
Shulman ( 1987 ) described PCK as“the capacity of a teacher to transform the
content knowledge he or she possesses into forms that are pedagogically powerful”
(p. 15). Therefore, as noted by Driel and Berry ( 2012 )“the development of PCK
goes beyond the acquisition of instructional strategies and techniques, per se, to
include an understanding of how students develop insights in specific subject
matter”(p. 27). Thus, one primary challenge for the teacher is to seek commitment
from students’experiences and perceptions about their own learning.
51.8 Conclusion
As indicated in this chapter, students have several ideas about what is effective
concerning teaching and learning of science and thus, they are ready to participate
in developing classroom teaching. Pietarinen ( 2000 ) indicated that students expect
that the teacher’s choice of methods should pay attention to both the former and
future learning environments of the individual student and to the character of the
social community. Students do value the subject matter taught, the teachers’
command of their subject, and the teaching methods they employ. But they are
51 Capturing Science PCK Through Students’Experiences 765