Teachers In-Depth Content Knowledge: Definition & Checklist template

"Pedagogical content knowledge identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction. Pedagogical content knowledge is the category most likely to distinguish the understanding of the content specialist from that of the pedagogue"

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Comprehension: To teach is to understand.

Subject-matter structures

Ideas within and outside the discipline

2. Transformation: Comprehended ideas must be transformed in some manner if they are to be taught. 

Preparation (of the given text material)

Representation of the ideas in the form of analogies, metaphors

Instructional selections from among an array of teaching methods and models

Adaptation to the characteristics of the students

Tailoring the adaptations to the specific students in the classroom

Discovery and inquiry instruction

This process ensures that the teacher checks for understanding and misunderstanding during interactive teaching. As a result, the teacher evaluates his or her own performance and makes adjustments for experience.

This process includes a series of steps, including reviewing, reconstructing, reenacting, and critically analyzing one’s teaching to improve.

6. New comprehensions

The expectation is that through acts of teaching the teacher achieves a new understanding of purposes, subject matter, students, teaching, and self.

Shulman, L. ( 1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22.