The Faculty of Psychology and Education Science

Primary and Pre-School Education Section

Student Grasu Corina -Elena

Teacher Knowledge
Teacher knowledge is a set of earned skills which combine the knowledge and experience with
determination in acquiring involvement for pupils and students into the background of education.

school
knowledge

pedagogic teacher
knowledge experience

Teacher
knowledge

subject
personal
matter
construct
knowledge

technological
pedagogical
content
knowledge

In the last 20 years there has been a significant and developing research focus on the teacher
knowledge, showing that the teacher effectiveness consists of a series of leading factors such as teacher
experience, the knowledge and preparation of teaching and learning, subject matter knowledge and a
combined set of qualifications measured by the teacher licensure. An important fact of whether the
children are properly educated or not, is the role of teacher preparation as a key to teacher
effectiveness, because it helps candidates to develop the knowledge and skill that they need. Following
this idea, a teacher should understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the
disciplines which are taught, as well as how students' conceptual frameworks and their misconceptions
for an area of knowledge can influence their learning.
A very suggestive technique used to graphically represent the concepts of teaching and their internal
relationships is called "concept mapping". Concept mapping is a suitable tool for student teachers who
access mentors' practical knowledge without having to attend intensive training, and it can be applied
either in a structured and non-structured way. The practical knowledge is an inherent set of skills and
abilities of the teacher training program which contain experiential knowledge that is mainly
undocumented but of immediate importance and it reflects the complexity of teaching and its
contextual character.

Research shows that there are two elements in teacher preparation which are critically important: first,
a teacher has to attain the knowledge of the subject to be taught and there is also the skill and the
technique, the method used for teaching the subject. Teacher effectiveness involves understanding and
applying the knowledge of child and adolescent development in order to bring motivation and engage
students in generating knowledge and testing hypotheses according to the methods of inquiry and
standards of evidence used in the discipline, by creating a positive climate in the classroom and
stimulating the learning environment. The content knowledge is absolutely necessary but it cannot
determine by itself whether the teacher has the required skills to teach so that the students can learn in
an effective manner, and thus, the professional teacher preparation accrediting body helps for the
parallel development of teaching knowledge that is specific to the content being taught, as well as
general pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of child and adolescent development.
However, much of the research on teacher knowledge has been applied away from the classroom
which is undoubtedly the main place in which teachers use their knowledge. Although the information
about teacher activities, skills and knowledge may be obtained from surveys, interviews or
examinations, and what actually happens in classrooms may be considered of greater importance
because it reflects the practical result and productivity on a long-term impact. It has also been
suggested that through interractions that occur in the classroom, teachers can themselves learn and gain
experience. The development of teacher knowledge is considered to be dynamic rather then static as it
continues to grow while they are teaching, according to Sherin's research involving data collected from
interviews with teachers, videotaping of lessons and observation notes from those lessons and teacher
"video club meetings" where the teacher and the researcher watched and discussed excerpts of lessons.
This research is focused mainly on teachers' content knowledge (both subject knowledge and
pedagogical content knowledge). From the analysis, in some cases, the teachers' content knowledge
changed during the course of the lessons. According to data from national and international tests,
studies from the National Assessment of Educational Progress point to the importance of teacher's
levels of content preparation. The 1996 data show a statistically significant correlation coefficient of
0.26 between the percentage of students whose teachers have a college major in mathematics and the
average mathematics scores of those students (Hawkins et al., 1998). Hence, there is some evidence to
suggest the position that the more well versed a teacher is in the subject, the better his/ her students do
on this type of standardized examination. Hawkins et al. (1998) concluded that, “At the eighth-grade
level, students who were taught by teachers with teaching certificates in mathematics outperformed
students.”

A teacher's performance is highly reflected in how they effectively use multiple representations and
explanations of disciplinary concepts that capture key ideas and link them to student's prior
understandings, in how they represent and use differing viewpoints, theories and methods of inquiry.
A teacher must develop and use curricula that encourage students to see, question, and interpret ideas
from different points of view and also must create interdisciplinary learning experiences that allow
students to assimilate skills, methods of inquiry and knowledge from several subject areas.
Teachers also must spend a lot of time and have enough patience in order to acquire and transfer to
the classroom the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively and completely infuse technology into
their curricular areas. Education is more and more improved by the facilities that technology provide,
although the transition to digital instructional material is happening slowly, for reasons that range from
the financial to the technical. Although within rural areas in Romania, the possibilities of education
development are very few, in the great cities fast changes have emerged through the link of
educational system with technology. For example, I studied in a Bucharest highschool which ensured a
computer for each classroom and teachers often used it for interactive teaching. Also, the highschool
had a classroom equipped with computers designed for computer science. Thus, I efficiently learned
how to use the MS Office pack. Moreover I now study at a low frequency faculty and communication
with teachers, the study process, the project assignment and student assessment is made exclusively
through an online platform (learning management system). Although I believe that the study process
has become more simplified for my achievements and I can also work during the scholar year, there is
limited evidence to show that online learning, for example, reflects the positive outcomes for most
students. However, having a technology resource teacher brings benefit to novice users who are more
likely to integrate technology through the curriculum when they have somebody who can offer them
support for knowledge about computers as well as emotional support. The technological training must
guide teachers to think first about their curriculum and then help them integrate technology into the
curriculum. If teachers engage in ongoing reflection about the instructional use of technology, they are
more likely to critically evaluate their own pedagogical practice and redesign their instruction.

Bibliography:

- A. Zanting (2001), Teaching and teacher education (2001)

- Darling-Hammond L. and Bransford, J. (Eds.) (2005), Preparing Teachers for a Changing

World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do

- Allen Michael (2003), Eight Questions on Teacher Preparation: What Does the Research Say?
A Summary of the Findings

- https://www.nap.edu/read/9832/chapter/5#58

- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223806384_Teacher_knowledge_and_the_knowledge
_base_of_teaching

- http://www.slideshare.net/hullpgce/teachers-standards-50529742

- http://wikieducator.org/images/4/4b/What_Research_Says_-_Training_Teachers.pdf