‘CoRes and PaP-eRs as a strategy for helping beginning primary teachers develop their pedagogical content knowledge

Resumo

While it is widely accepted that beginning teachers have little PCK, this paper attempts to explorewhether two instruments, CoRes (Content Representations) and PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional-experience Repertoires), might offer a means for articulating and portraying aspects of a beginningprimary science teacher’s developing PCK and how this might assist in developing his PCK.This has implications for all teachers of science including those of chemistry. Over a two year longitudinalstudy, a beginning primary science teacher developed his own CoRe and PaP-eR, accompaniedby an analysis of his thinking behind his practice. On analyses, the study concluded that CoResand PaP-eRs can portray explicit instances of PCK for a beginning science teacher but more importantlythey help to highlight, build and scaffold knowledge of teaching and learning about science innew ways that extends beyond normal beginning teacher thinking. Therefore CoRes and PaP-eRsmight be of potential interest to beginning science teachers in all disciplines (including chemistry).