Introducción de organismos patógenos microbianos

While it is well known that many proponents of PCK have focused on the integration between content and pedagogy as teachers and teacher-educators work in classrooms, careful examination of their relationship is equally important. In this regard, issues of what content and pedagogy entail; how they interact on/with/against each other; to provide meaning and experience should also be of focus. Segall’s (2004) argument is that pedagogy should not be seen as external to content as many authors have indicated. For example, Adler & Davis (2006) say that there is always the one in relation to the other and depending on what the practice is, the one would be foregrounded while the other is backgrounded and vice versa.

Moreover, Segall (2004) argues that knowledge is already pedagogical in nature in that it is always by someone and for someone, always positioned and positioning. Furthermore, that what teachers “pedagogize” is already pedagogically pre-inscribed. To elaborate: Segall (op cit) states that texts brought into the classroom are of themselves pedagogical invitations for learning and should not be considered as finished works of content awaiting pedagogical transformation. In other words, content always has pedagogy in its text form and pedagogy always has content, and what the teacher does is to add to what already exists. Therefore, the

50

teacher and the text are considered pedagogical devices in that what a teacher says and does or what or how a text utters are both invitations to inquiry. Segall (op cit) asserts that it is thus important, in exploring a text, that aspects of ‘what it says’, ‘how it says it’, ‘for what that saying does’ i.e. how it invites readers to know, think and imagine, should be taken into consideration. This eventually influences the reader’s production of meaning. In referring to Masterman (1985), Segall (2004, p. 497) states that:

Texts offer readers positions from which they are invited to see experience (and to see and experience) in particular ways.

In explaining the relationship that exists between content and pedagogy, Segall (2004) states that teacher education should continue making content instructional as well as include ways of examining how content is already instructional and instructing. Thus prospective teachers should not only be taught how to manage ideas and theories in the classroom, as pointed out by Shulman (1987) but should also explore how the use of these ideas and theories in classrooms shapes those who attempt to engage them (Segall, 2004). With this view, Segall has questioned the rationale of having prospective teachers acquire content area knowledge in departments specialised in that discipline while receiving courses on pedagogy in the department of education. Neither should the argument be based on how well they perform in the subject courses, but on how pedagogy relates to content.

From this debate, it is clear that Segall (2004) is pointing to the notion that mathematics for teaching is different from the mathematics the specialised mathematician has to learn because the contexts in which this mathematics is going to be used are different. On the one hand teachers use the mathematics in the classroom for the purposes of enabling others to learn mathematics. Mathematicians/engineers on the other hand, use it in industry, or others use it in different work places, including the academy where purposes are to build the knowledge of mathematics itself. This suggests that mathematics requires different foci on how it is construed.

From the aforesaid, something important to be reflexive about for my study is on how student-teachers’ responded to interview questions based on the scenarios designed around selected common learner errors in school algebra, and described and explained in Chapters 8 and 9 of this thesis. The reflection also includes the relationship between how distinct the

51

tasks in form of scenarios are. I raise the following questions to guide the reflection process: How do the tasks that student-teachers engage with in this study influence their responses? I ask this because the tasks in which ever form they are presented, communicate to student- teachers in particular ways and hence would influence their responses. Moreover, the questions I ask or the instructions I give to student-teachers in the process of engaging with tasks could also have influence on their responses. In short, the tasks and I as a researcher are pedagogical devices inviting student-teachers to engage in this study in particular ways.

In Bernstein’s (2000) terms, this reminds us that the relay is never neutral - the thing we are doing in of itself is never a neutral carrier, it carries a whole range of things. For example, Adler & Patahuddin (2012) problematise the boundary between content and pedagogy. In using a selection of Hill et al.’s (2007) test items, meant to measure teachers’ SCK, in the interview setting to read teachers’ professional knowledge, Adler & Patahuddin (2012) found that the teachers responded differently. For example, a task that was meant to measure teachers’ SMK in the Learning Mathematics for Teaching project resulted in establishing teachers’ PCK when used in the interview context. The teachers justified their responses and ideas by reference to the learner and/or instruction – they did not provide mathematics as rationale in their responses. Therefore, Adler & Patahuddin (op cit) argue that teacher knowledge in the test is a function of the test items, and similarly, teacher knowledge in the interview is a function of the interview. This suggests that teacher knowledge in whatever context, including the test or interview, cannot be referred to as their fixed knowledge but that it is dependent on what the teachers do in relation to the test or the interview, hence leading to a situative perspective. For my study, ‘what’ and ‘how’ in terms of teacher knowledge about the discourse of engaging with LMT is dependent on the teacher-educators’ and student-teachers’ talk in relation to the context of varied interview settings they are involved in.