Source: Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, Volume 11, Number 6, November 2008, pages 499-511
Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the term coined by Shulman (1986, 1987) to address what at that time had become increasingly evident—that content knowledge itself was not sufficient for teachers to be successful. Throughout the past two decades, researchers within the field of mathematics teacher education have been expanding the notion of PCK and developing more fine-grained conceptualizations of this knowledge for teaching mathematics. One such conceptualization that shows promise is mathematical knowledge for teaching—mathematical knowledge that is specifically useful in teaching mathematics.
While mathematical knowledge for teaching has started to gain attention as an important concept in the mathematics teacher education research community, there is limited understanding of what it is, how one might recognize it, and how it might develop in the minds of teachers. In this paper, the authors propose a framework for studying the development of mathematical knowledge for teaching that is grounded in research in both mathematics education and the learning sciences.
References
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Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57 (1), 1-22.