What do social studies methods instructors know and do? Teacher educators’ PCK for facilitating historical discussions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has been a guiding framework for the development of novice teachers for decades, less attention has been paid to the PCK of teacher educators. This comparative case study analyzes the PCK of two social studies methods instructors as they teach the practice of facilitating historical discussions and examines how two pairs of novices take up that instruction. Findings reveal that relatively small differences in teacher educators’ pedagogy conveyed divergent perspectives on social studies, and the novices’ teaching and reflection came to express elements of their instructors’ PCK. The coherence between novices and instructors revolved around the instructors’ enactment, not the perspectives they expressed in interviews, and emerged in relationship to novices’ incoming PCK. If novices are more influenced by what teacher educators do than what they believe, a more nuanced language of practice is required to understand how instructors develop and enact their PCK.