New book examines subject knowledge in teacher education

The book brings together authors from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK to explore how to open up 'powerful knowledge' - understood as the knowledge that is most valuable for young people to learn, but not available from their everyday life experiences. The book also reflects on this in the context of designing and implementing teacher education.

In one chapter, Dr Alex Standish and Dr David Mitchell examine geography teacher education to make the connection between the academic discipline and a particular pedagogy used in training geography teachers. They argue that student teachers must integrate conceptual, contextual and procedural knowledge so that their pupils learn to think like a geographer. They illustrate how student teachers integrate different knowledge types into their planning and teaching, leading to geography lessons full of high-quality subject-related knowledge.

Alexis Stones and Dr Jo Fraser-Pearce contribute a chapter arguing that Religious Education is a school subject with roots in several academic disciplines. Therefore, teachers need to understand how these different perspectives come about and are understood, as well as an individual’s biases. By doing this they can interrogate different people’s understandings, which is crucial for teacher education.

Dr Cosette Crisan’s chapter looks at one kind of maths knowledge that teachers need for teaching school mathematics. She asks how teachers can be supported to tap into such knowledge in ways that empower them pedagogically, with the aim of understanding and supporting their students’ thinking and learning of mathematics.

‘International Perspectives on Knowledge and Quality: Implications for Innovation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice’ is published by Bloomsbury. It is currently available as an e-book and will be available in hard copy from 24 February 2022.

Links

• ‘International Perspectives on Knowledge and Quality: Implications for Innovation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice’
• Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
• Subject Specialism Research Group (SSRG)
• View Dr Alex Standish's research profile
• View Dr David Mitchell's research profile
• View Dr Jo Fraser-Pearce's research profile
• View Alexis Stones's research profile
• View Dr Cosette Crisan’s research profile