Coteaching chemical bonding with Upper secondary senior students : A way to refine teachers PCK

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate how an experienced chemistry teacher gains and refines her pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by cooperating with two grade 12 students (age 18) as coteachers while teaching chemical bonding in a grade 10 Upper secondary class. The study has been conducted from a sociocultural perspective, especially Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). Other theoretical concepts and models that has framed this study are Shulman´s Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and Pedagogical reasoning and action model (Shulman, 1986, 1987). When analysing the data, Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko´s (1999) model of PCK and the 2017 Refined consensus model of PCK (Carlson, Daehler, et al., in press) was used. Empirical data was collected by video- and audio recorded lessons, coreflection sessions, coplanning sessions and interviews. During 10 weeks, about 28 hours of video and audio recordings was collected. Selected parts of the material were transcribed and analysed in order to answer two questions: (1) How can chemistry teachers refine their PCK when coteaching together with senior students in an Upper secondary science class? (2) How do Upper secondary senior student coteachers´ conceptual knowledge of representations and chemical bonding shape a teacher’s foundation of personal PCK (pPCK) when teaching chemical bonding in an Upper secondary science class?The results relating to research question one indicates that the coteachers contributed with their own learning experiences to help the teacher understand how students perceive difficult concepts. The coteachers were mediating between the teacher and the students, thus bridging the gap between the teacher and the students’ frames of references. The experienced chemistry teacher improved her understanding of students´ thinking about themselves as learners of chemical bonding. Regarding the second research question, the findings showed that the creative process of reconstructing concepts of chemical bonding in the coplanning sessions meant that these were a useful tool for developing new teaching strategies and to further develop representations such as drama to illustrate chemical bonding. Together, the teacher and student coteachers, constructed a new representation that better illustrated polar covalent bonding.Taken together, these results provide important insights into how the chemistry teacher´s pPCK was refined and how the coteachers contributed to improve instructional strategies.