In-service teachers’ expressions of TSPCK: Professional knowledge regarding teaching autotrophy and heterotrophy

Jessica Sundman; Ann-Sofi Röj-Lindberg; Pia Sjöblom

doi:10.31129/LUMAT.14.2.3264

Authors

Jessica Sundman Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Åbo Akademi, Finland https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1737-2083
Ann-Sofi Röj-Lindberg Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Åbo Akademi, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9539-8020
Pia Sjöblom Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Åbo Akademi, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3863-698X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31129/LUMAT.14.2.3264

Keywords:

Topic-specific pedagogical content knowledgel, CoRe, in-service teachers, autotrophy, heterotrophy

Abstract

This study addresses the question of how teachers reason about teaching autotrophy and heterotrophy, and contributes to TSPCK research in biology. Topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) is a knowledge base in the framework of PCK and is found both on a personal level and a collective level in the teaching community. TSPCK is practice-based and comes to the fore in everyday teaching and lesson planning. Knowledge on how to teach specific topics directly impacts learning, and examples of TSPCK are therefore valuable both in the context of teacher education and professional development. The aim of this study was to examine in-service teachers’ TSPCK concerning the teaching of autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms. Seven Finnish biology teachers participated in the study. Content representation (CoRe) was used as an instrument to document teacher knowledge in written responses and in semi-structured interviews. Five components of TSPCK (curricular saliency, learner prior knowledge, representations, what is difficult to teach and conceptual teaching strategies) were used analytically to find what kind of TSPCK teachers expressed. The components curricular saliency and what is difficult to teach were most represented in the empirical material, while representations and learner prior knowledge were less frequent. Conceptual teaching strategies is an integrative knowledge component building on and incorporating other TSPCK components, and examples of this component were expressed by nearly all teachers. All teachers discussed the challenge and need to take two inherent aspects into consideration when teaching about autotrophy and heterotrophy: the abstract concepts and the interactions of abstract concepts on both a subcellular level and an ecosystem level. The written answers and the interview complemented each other, the prompts of the CoRe tool giving a certain structure to the reflection, and the semi-structured interview allowing for reasoning on a deeper level. The teachers found the CoRe instrument useful for reflection and presented suggestions for its use and adaptations in didactical courses.

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