Digitalisering av skolan har pågått under en lång tid men integreringen av digitala verktyg i matematikundervisning har inte visat sig följa den önskade pedagogisk utvecklingen för att lärande skulle främjas. Nyligen genomförda studier har funnit att en avgörande faktor för effektiv integrering av teknologin i undervisning är lärarna kunskap kring digitala verktyg. Denna studie söker undersöka lärarnas kunskap kring Technology, Content, Pedagogy och deras kombinationer med syftet att öka förståelsen om lärarnas integrering av digitala verktyg i matematikundervisning. Ämnen diskuteras ur det TPACK teoretiska ramverket. För att samla in data fick 47 matematiklärare verksamma på gymnasieskolor i Stockholm, Sverige besvara en enkät. Resultatet visar att lärarna själva upplever att de har goda kunskaper i Pedagogy, Content and Pedagogical Content men är inte så säkra när Technology berördes. Vidare visade resultatet att kunskap om teknologi per se inte influerar manliga lärares kunskap i TPACK lika mycket som det gör för kvinnliga kollegor samt att det inte finns ett samband mellan undervisningserfarenhet och kunskap i TPACK. Skillnader mellan olika studier genomförda i olika platser tyder på att det behövs en djupare förståelse om mekanismerna som ligger bakom avskaffning av kunskapen för effektiv integrering av digitala verktyg i undervisning och att det behövs ta hänsyn till bakgrundsfrågor vid undersökningar av lärares kunskap. Emellertid behövs det fortsätta studera och utveckla det teoretiska TPACK ramverket och de instrument som används för att undersöka kunskaperna inom detta ramverk.

This study investigated the teaching experiences of six elementary preservice teachers (EPTs), three with high mathematics anxiety and three with low mathematics anxiety, during their student teaching semester. The EPTs were selected from an initial pool of 121 EPTs who took the Abbreviated Mathematics Anxiety Scale. The cases were compared in a cross case analysis to highlight mathematics teaching experiences among EPTs. Data sources included EPT and researcher journal entries, interview transcripts, pre-lesson surveys, field notes, lesson plans, and artifacts of observed lessons. Data were coded using Shulman’s content knowledge, Graeber’s mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, and mathematics anxiety characteristics. Findings revealed both similarities and differences across EPTs as related to four major categories: (a) planning and resources used, (b) role of the cooperating teacher, (c) content knowledge, and (d) pedagogical content knowledge. All EPTs used mostly direct instruction and relied on the course textbook and their respective cooperating teacher as their primary resources for planning. Additionally, across participants, the cooperating teacher influenced EPTs’ perceptions of students and teaching. Also, EPTs with high mathematics anxiety were weaker with respect to content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Findings suggest a need to re-design methods courses to address improving the pedagogical content knowledge of EPTs with mathematics anxiety. Findings also suggest a need to develop content specific mathematics courses for EPTs to improve their content knowledge. Future studies could include a longitudinal study to follow highly anxious EPTs who take content specific elementary mathematics courses to observe their content knowledge and mathematics anxiety.

This study is concerned with the development of subject knowledge in pre-service teachers of secondary physical education (PE) during their one year Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) course. It investigates the knowledge bases for teaching which pre-service teachers recognised, developed and prioritised, as well as the key influences that impacted on their subject knowledge development. Adopting an interpretive methodology informed by constructivist grounded theory, the study employed interviews, lesson observations and post-lesson reflections as principal research methods. Pre-service teachers were seen to make wide-ranging progress in their subject knowledge, including the development of content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of curriculum and knowledge of pupils. Through this they advanced their view of the nature of PE and how they wanted to teach it. The research highlights, that the process of knowledge development in PETE is socially constructed and complex. Much of the pre-service teachers development was influenced by various communities of practice, particularly their school placements PE departments, but also their University-based learning community. Of these, the legitimised practices within the PE departments were found to be especially important to pre-service teachers development. University-based learning was credited by pre-service teachers with enhancing their holistic understanding of the learning process, developing those aspects of critical pedagogy that were under-developed in schools. The impact of different subject knowledge profiles and the consequences of knowledge deficits are identified. This raises questions about the role and development of subject knowledge within PETE and calls for a re-vitalised debate on the nature of the knowledge in PE. Framed within an ever-changing policy landscape is the need for enhanced and stable partnerships that promote shared visions of PETE, an essential part of which is the need to collaboratively design and evaluate explicit knowledge development pathways which allow pre-service teachers to fulfil their potential and genuinely decide how they want to teach PE.

Background: Mind-body dualisms create particular difficulties for researching and justifying learning and knowledge within PE practices. These issues are compounded in the UK by prevailing cognitivistic ideas of education, knowledge and learning. Crum (1993) suggests reconceptualising PE as movement culture as a potential solution to the limitations created by dualistic positions within education. How knowledge and learning within movement culture is positioned, however, was left underdeveloped by Crum. The aim of this thesis is to explore an embodied, action position on knowledge and learning, as a potential solution to this issue. Purpose: This thesis is driven by two purposes. The first; to examine and discuss how John Dewey’s theorising of knowledge and learning within experience provides a theoretical position on knowledge and learning within movement culture. The second; to utilise this position to explore how pupils’ and teachers’ actions within primary PE lessons constitute and negotiate the movement cultures within their school. Findings: In adopting a position which dissolves mind-body dualisms, movement culture allows the practical work of PE lessons to be considered as contexts of knowledge production. This opens up our understanding of different ways of knowing in PE through pupils’ epistemological ‘action-in-PE-settings’. Rather than creating another hybrid of educational ideology by objectifying what to ‘do’ or ‘know’, movement culture keeps the ‘who’ of participation in PE practice in view. Such a position is achieved because pupils are seen as ‘coming to know’ through their immediate and continuous experiences of sports and physical activities both in PE and beyond the school gates. By dissolving traditional dualisms within educational ideology, movement culture allows ideologies and assumptions about learning in PE to be decoded and managed. It also provides a framework to explore subject-matter for learning and analyses some of the disconnections which exist within PE practice. Conclusions: Reconceptualising PE as movement culture is not intended to create a logic of practice to which I claim PE should ascribe. In this thesis, movement culture offers a position from which to consider the continuity between PE and pupils’ lives within and outside of the school gates. Such a standpoint can challenge our ideas as to what subject-matter could be within PE and the possibilities of learning outcomes other than those that focus on performance sport or bodily training for fitness. From a research perspective questions arise in relation to understanding very young pupils’ experiences of knowing within PE and how learning and knowledge are embodied across other subject areas. Addressing such questions may help to support new understandings of learning and knowledge within schools that are concurrent with developing new methodologies and research tools. These may in turn support the continuing development of pedagogical practices.

abstract: This study explores the impact of a professional development (PD) activity conducted for teachers of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) at 15 American-curriculum international schools. The intervention involved teachers utilizing the 3D-PAST screening tool to systematically evaluate the alignment of teacher-designed assessments with the constructs of the NGSS and best practices in science instruction. Data about the way the intervention enhanced or challenged teachers’ understanding of the NGSS were collected via a multiple methods approach. The New Framework of Science Education Survey of Teacher Understanding (NFSE-STU) was used in a retrospective pretest-posttest fashion to assess changes in teachers’ understanding of NGSS constructs. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with participants which provided data that expanded upon the NFSE-STU findings. The Refined Consensus Model of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (RCM-PCK) was used to interpret the findings and situate the study within the extant literature on teacher PCK. The intervention was found to have a statistically significant effect on teachers’ understanding of the NGSS in all areas measured by the NFSE-STU. Additionally, data suggest that the intervention elicited changes in teachers’ classroom practices and improved collaborative professional practices. Also highlighted in the analysis was the significance of the relationship between the intervention moderator and the participants as a strong predictor of the way the intervention was perceived by teachers. The findings strongly support the suggestion that international school administrators seeking to maximize the impact of science teacher professional development should consider PD activities that train teachers in the use of aids to align NGSS assessments, because doing so simultaneously enhances teacher understanding of the NGSS while encouraging meaningful changes to professional practice. The study contributes to the nascent body of literature utilizing the RCM-PCK to situate understanding of science-teacher PCK, and fills a void in literature examining PD in American curriculum international schools, and highlights issues with potential to serve as foci for additional cycles of action research in the areas of international schools, science teacher and NGSS-related professional development, and the use of tools similar to 3D-PAST within other teaching disciplines. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2020

The overall aim of this study is to analyse history teachers’ understanding of the school subject history. The aim have also been to uncover what factors the history teachers say have affected their understanding of the school subject. Based on survey and interview methods, the question that this study deals with is: in the light of which general understanding of the school subject history, do the teachers make didactic choices on a daily basis? The first theme is biographical. The teachers’ life-history is taken into consideration and several factors in the teachers’ background and the school environment have been identified. It also seems as if the teachers’ understanding of the school subject goes from an elementary and searching approach to one that is more complex and convinced. The second theme is a more structural approach. The results shows three major orientations among the teachers’ general understanding namely, educational (bildung) orientation, critical orientation and identity orientation. Even though a main orientation can be seen among the teachers, an important result is also that the orientation is overall complex. At the most general level some patterns can be seen. First the connection between the teachers’ biography and their general understanding of the school subject. In the understanding of the school subject, it is also notable that teachers relate in different ways to history as science, history as identity and history from an ideological viewpoint. It is also possible to note some signs of change in the school subject history that follows a lager historiographical context.

I denna studie har vi varit intresserade av att undersöka frågan om den digitaliserade läs- och skrivundervisningen utifrån ett lärarperspektiv. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka olika faktorer som kan påverka lärares inställning till ASL-metoden. Vi har särskilt intresserat oss för frågan om lärares digitala kompetens som en betydande faktor. Vi har valt att genomföra en enkätundersökning riktad till lärare som använder ASL-metoden i sin undervisning, för att försöka besvara frågan om vilka faktorer som kan tyckas ha påverkan på deras inställning till ASL-metoden. Det var 22 lärare som svarade på vår enkät och vi har sammanställt och analyserat enkätsvaren både med hjälp av kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod. Vi har även använt TPACK-modellen i vissa delar av vår analys. Med hjälp av TPACK-modellen har vi kunnat synliggöra olika komponenter, vilka tillsammans utgör de kunskaper som anses viktiga för att lärare ska kunna integrera digitala verktyg i sin undervisning, på ett sätt som främjar elevernas lärande. I vår analys kunde vi se att för de lärare som besvarat vår enkät så verkade inte digital kompetens ha en särskilt betydande roll i förhållande till deras inställning till ASL-metoden. Vi såg även att lärarna överlag hade en positiv inställning till metoden och att de såg betydligt fler möjligheter än hinder i arbetet med metoden. De vanligaste hindren som de såg var av teknisk karaktär till exempel nätverksproblem, men även att eleverna inte fick öva sin motorik och handstil. De slutsatser som vi presenterar är bland annat att en faktor som verkar vara av särskild betydelse för lärarnas positiva inställning till ASL-metoden är deras tilltro till de fördelar som kommer med att använda digitala verktyg i undervisningen.

The aim of this qualitative study is to examine how teachers comprehend and interpret the subject of Religious Studies in Sweden; and how these interpretations manifest themselves practically in their teachings. The theoretical framework of the subject Religious Studies can be perceived and interpreted in different ways. This interpretation, as well as its practical implementation, is a process that is largely determined by a teacher’s knowledge of: pedagogical content knowledge, subject matter knowledge and curricular knowledge. The examination is based on eight semi-struc-tured interviews with Religious Studies teachers. Perceptions and methods were explored with each of them, the output of which has been analysed and themed. The result of the study clearly demonstrated that the main purpose of Religious Studies teaching was to increase the acceptance and tolerance of its students. It also revealed that due to the breadth and complexity of subject matter, the practical implementation of their teaching approaches varied significantly. Furthermore, its effectiveness is not only influence by the teaching approach itself, but also by individual’s own personal development.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Libya, as one of the third world countries, is struggling to address the issue of transformation and various institutional reforms (including the education system). For example, it has been observed that many biology teachers are faced with challenges relating to both subject matter knowledge (SMK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) yet the expectation of the new curriculum is that biology teachers demonstrate professional efficacy in their work regardless of the challenges they face. In light of this, a group of Libyan secondary school biology teachers was investigated in Tripoli through a participatory action research process. The study was underpinned by the Shulman theory of PCK using a mixed-methods design to generate an understanding of the theory of basic knowledge of teaching.

South Africa is the first country in the world to offer Mathematical Literacy as a school subject. This subject was introduced in 2006 as an alternative to Mathematics in the Further Education and Training band. The purpose of this subject is to provide learners with an awareness and understanding of the role that mathematics plays in the modern world, but also with opportunities to engage in real-life problems in different contexts. A problem is the beliefs some people in and outside the classroom have regarding this subject such as teachers believing ML is the dumping ground for mathematics underperformers (Mbekwa, 2007). Another problem is the belief of some principals that any nonmathematics teacher can teach ML. In practice there is Mathematics teachers who teach ML in the same way that they teach Mathematics; non-Mathematics teachers who in many cases lack the necessary mathematical content knowledge and skills to teach ML competently; and Mathematics teachers who adapted their practices to teach ML using different approaches than those required for teaching Mathematics. Limited in-depth research has been done on the ML teachers, what they believe and what knowledge is required to teach this subject effectively and proficiently. The purpose of this study is to investigate the way in which ML is taught in a limited number of classrooms with the view to exploring the relationship between ML teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their instructional practices. According to Artzt, Armour-Thomas and Curcio (2008) the instructional practice of the teacher plays out in the classroom where teachers’ goals, knowledge and beliefs serve as the driving force behind their instructional efforts to guide and mentor learners in their search for knowledge. To accomplish this aim, an in-depth case study was conducted to explore the nature of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about ML as manifested in their instructional practices. A qualitative research approach was used in which observations and interviews served as data collection techniques enabling me to interpret the reality as I became part of the lives of the teachers. My study revealed that there is a dynamic but complex relationship between ML teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their instructional practices. The teachers’ knowledge, but not their stated beliefs were reflected in their instructional practices. Conversely, in one case, the teacher’s instructional practice also had a positive influence on her knowledge and beliefs. It was further revealed that mathematics teacher training and teaching experience played a significant role in the productivity of the teachers’ practices. The findings suggest that although mathematical content knowledge is required to develop PCK, it is teaching experience that plays a crucial role in the development of teachers’ PCK. Although the study’s results cannot be generalised due to the small sample, I believe that the findings concerning the value of teachers’ knowledge and the contradictions between their stated beliefs and practices could possibly contribute to teacher training. Curriculum decision-makers should realise that the teaching of ML requires specially trained, competent, dedicated teachers who value the subject. This exploratory study concludes with recommendations for further research. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted