Reflections on Pedagogical content knowledge
Lee Schulman described pedagogical content knowledge as a special blend of
content knowledge and pedagogical strategies that a teacher uses in the
teaching of a particular content area.
Researches on the nature of pedagogical content knowledge have described it
as a highly content, context and person specific knowledge. It is a knowledge
that results from years of practice and reflection on practice and it involves
taking a right pedagogical decision at a right time and for the right purpose.
Thus pedagogical content knowledge does not only involve the in depth
knowledge of the content area but it also involves a correct use of reasoning
as to the selection of a proper strategy to teach that content to the student
while keeping in view the specific students requirements in terms of their
learning needs .
This way of describing pedagogical content knowledge makes it so specific
that it is believed that it cannot be delivered to the teachers through
instruction alone. Some of the researches suggested that owing to its specific nature,
PCK can only develop through practice.
Although this way of characterizing PCK identifies it as a strictly
specific type of knowledge, yet to be a type of knowledge there must be some
kind of universal element in it. For the knowledge of a specific situation in
which there is no element of generality cannot be called knowledge proper.
Knowledge basically is an interaction between subject and object and hence
bears the characteristics of both.
The situation can be viewed in the light of Aristotle's distinction between
a man of experience and the artist. Art lies in knowing the reason for one's
prticular choice in a particular situation, where as
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