Question

Define extension, refinement and application. Give an example of content development for an activity of your choice.

Answer 1

One of the truisms in teaching is that you must understand what you teach. Your deep understanding of content leads to deeper content learning by students (Ward, 2013; Ward, Ayvazo, & Lehwald, 2014). In addition, the quality of the tasks is critical, because students acquire better knowledge and perform better if you use high-quality tasks. Your capacity to improve student learning is grounded in the professional knowledge that informs PCK. As discussed in chapter 1, PCK is influenced by your knowledge of students, the curriculum, the context in which you teach, the pedagogical strategies you use, and the content you teach.

• What does it mean to know content deeply? In the following two examples, much of the teachers' decision-making and many of their instructional behaviors, content representations, and task selections depend on the extent of their SCK. In chapter 2, we argued that SCK is meaningful, relational, and progressive.Itis reflective of deeper content knowledge. When you compare the following two examples, you will see that the second teacher shows a deeper and more explicit knowledge of basketball.