Espacio barrial y los procesos de territorialización

The term KLA content knowledge crosses the boundaries of pedagogy and professional ethical practice, but most commonly it describes teachers’ content/subject knowledge. In this dimension, pre-service teachers have to learn content in a number of KLAs or disciplines. They need to learn current theories about how best to teach each KLA (also described as pedagogy), understand the aims and purposes for teaching

KLAs, how to select and organise content in cohesive and developmentally appropriate sequences and how to make their expectations known to students. Pre-service teachers also need to learn how to assess and evaluate students using evidence-based tasks (AITSL, 2011; Commonwealth of Australia, 2007; DEWA, 2001; MCEETYA, 2003; Zammit et al., 2007).

The main concern expressed by research studies about pre-service teachers’ knowledge of KLA content is that it is limited—more so in primary degree courses— and this has been an issue for a number of decades (Carter, 1990; Tambyah, 2008; Thornton, 2010; Wilson et al., 2001). Tambyah’s (2008) study focussed on Australian pre-service teachers’ knowledge base for Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) in the primary curriculum. She used a case study approach to collect data from four tutors who taught SOSE to the cohort group. The data was based on the tutors’ evaluation of their pre-service teachers’ understanding about teaching SOSE after completing two assignments. Tutors were interviewed about the pre-service teacher’s topic choice and source of content and teaching, to develop social science skills and use of inquiry learning. Findings imply that pre-service teachers’ KLA content knowledge appeared to develop from secondary experiences (Ball & McDiarmid, 1990; Tambyah, 2008). Additionally, Tambyah found that pre-service teachers tended to rely on topics they knew, lacked deep conceptual understanding of the sciences but rather experiential conceptions of that knowledge and believed their general and personal understanding was sufficient to not require more in-depth research. Further, Tambyah expressed concern that the lack of expertise in SOSE may cause pre-service teachers to emphasise ‘technical knowledge interest at the expense of a critical and emancipatory approach to social science’ (p. 56). Despite the lack of expertise in subject knowledge, she found that pre-service teachers readily embraced constructivist, inquiry-based teaching approaches.

Martin (2005) expressed a similar concern over what primary pre-service teachers said they knew about geography as opposed to what they actually understood. Catling (2006) raised major concerns about the teaching time allocated to geography in pre-service teacher education programs in the UK, and pre-service teachers’ lack of knowledge and understanding about how to teach it. Cutter-McKenzie and Smith (2003) go further, asserting that Australian primary pre-service teachers’ environmental

education were ‘likely to be operating at a level of ecological illiteracy and nominal ecological literacy’ (p. 497). Studies of the key learning content knowledge in science (Kind, 2014) and mathematics (Ball, Thomas, & Phelps, 2008; Hill & Ball, 2009) discovered similar results, in that novice teachers had misconceptions about the content, which would likely constrain the way they represented concepts to students. Kind’s study showed that having an academic degree in science did not mean a graduate had the high quality content knowledge and appropriate language to be able to teach

students effectively, and there was even less chance of content knowledge being taught effectively if graduates also had misconceptions about the subject (another finding in Kind’s study). She also attributed the source of misconceptions ‘to intuition, life-world, language and teaching’ (p. 1337), and argued that the misconceptions may be attributed to the sorts of textbooks and testing that discouraged questioning and inquiry.

Therefore, she believed that the teaching pre-service teachers received could have been from teachers who also held misconceptions.

Calderhead and Sharrock (1997) investigated teachers’ practices, finding that where a teacher was less familiar or confident with KLA content, they tended to adhere to textbooks more rigidly, asked shallow or closed questions, were unable to extend students’ answers and used overly prescriptive, routine-orientated methods of teaching. Carter (1990) similarly concluded that teachers’ KLA content knowledge base,

represented ‘the substance of the curriculum’ (p. 306). Shulman (1986a) contended that many pre-service teachers spent considerable time relearning KLA content early in their careers. A way of learning KLA content was through the experience of having to teach it. Teaching content involved students’ questioning, debating and discussing conceptual knowledge that they may not have anticipated initially, but with experience and

reflection could utilise to improve teaching (Aydeniz & Kiebulut, 2014).

Regarding preparation for teaching KLA content knowledge, Kildan et al., (2013) surveyed 58 newly appointed Turkish teachers about their preparation or readiness for teaching. In Turkey, the Ministry of Education Board (MEB, 2006) described teacher competencies according to six core performance indicators. Kildan et al. used the six performance indicators to design their survey, and asked the pre-service teachers to rank the core competencies from least (one) to most (five) adequately prepared. Although Turkish teacher education programs are quite different to the Australian context, this was the only study at the time of print, that was similar to my study in that it asked pre-service teachers to self-evaluate their readiness to teach using the six core competencies. In light of the potentially different cultural influences of the Turkish study, I have attempted to describe their understanding of their dimensions. Knowledge of curriculum and content in their study was considered similar to KLA competency in my study. The pre-service teachers in the study done by Kildan et al. rated knowledge of the curriculum as their least prepared competency. Although the study done by Kildan et al. was quantitative by nature it does allow me to compare my pre-service teachers with theirs and describe differences. My study also wanted to gauge pre-service teachers’ levels of confidence in KLA content, hence, in my study pre- service teachers also rated KLA but they were also asked about their rating, source of KLA content and what contributed to this level of confidence.

Together with the research from the UK, USA and Australia, and the concerns expressed by newly appointed teachers, KLA knowledge appears to be an area that does not develop, or develops very little, during the pre-service teacher education period. The significance of KLA content to my study indicates that it is important to examine pre- service teachers’ content knowledge in the form of sources of content and their perceived level of confidence about having sufficient KLA knowledge. It will also be useful to examine dispositions to teaching in the various KLAs. Finally, and perhaps more related to the next dimension, is the need to investigate pre-service teacher’s understanding of how best to teach various KLAs, how subjects or topics are developed.