Collaborative Teaching: Effects on Science Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Students’ Understanding of Particulate Nature of Matter

Abstract

This study is about an alternative school-based model of professional development for Science teachers and sought to help address the research gap about improving the Science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge to improve science teaching and student learning. It is a qualitative case study that analyzed the changes in the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of Particulate Nature of Matter (PNM) of teachers who underwent Collaborative Teaching (CT), and how these changes affected the conceptual understanding of PNM of their students. The study involved six Grade 8 Science teachers, the Collaborative Teaching group who underwent CT for almost eight weeks and six other Science teachers who were assigned to the Conventional Teaching group. The changes in the PCK of PNM of the teachers and their students' conceptual understanding of PNM were monitored using multiple sources of data: classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, lesson plans, pre-lesson reflection guides, and questionnaires. Analysis of data from these various sources using the constant comparative method shows that the PCK of the six teachers from the Collaborative Teaching group improved. Their knowledge of science content (KSC) about PNM improved as demonstrated by their corrected misconceptions about PNM and ability to explain phase changes using macroscopic, sub-microscopic and symbolic representations. Their knowledge of students' understanding (KSU) improved as they reflected awareness of students' misconceptions and learning difficulties in their lesson plans and adjusted teaching strategies to address these misconceptions and learning difficulties. Their knowledge of teaching strategies (KTS) also improved as they shifted from more lecture-based teaching to using interactive strategies, models and higher order thinking skills (HOTS) questioning. These PCK improvements were supported by data from the PCK-PNM Observation Rubric which showed that the PCK of teachers from the Collaborative Teaching group improved from "Emergent" to "Proficient" whereas that of the Conventional Teaching group remained as "Emergent".