A Study Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge In The Activities Of Science Education Of Kindergarten’ Expert Teachers

Science is an important area of preschool education, but preschool teachers are fear to organize the activities of science education in educational practices. What kind of scientific knowledge should preschool teachers have? How to "transform" teacher’s knowledge into children’s knowledge and which way is more suitable for children to learn science? All these problems are worthy of being discussed. As the core of the teacher knowledge’s base, Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is a kind of knowledge which can distinguish discipline experts from general teachers, highly effective teachers from lowly effective teachers. Therefore, the study on teachers’PCK has become one of the ways people used to find answers.By using qualitative and quantitative research methods, this paper has studied and analyzed12preschool expert teachers’ PCK in the activities of science education. All these activities belong to operation class’activities of science education and the videos of activities come from the public exhibitions of Zhejiang province’s super-teachers and the preschool teachers of the national training program. The contents of the activities involve power and movement, light and shadow, sound, electricity, etc., the relying material including sand, water, air, and so on. Firstly, teachers and children’s words and deeds were observed and recorded with12videos, and by using non-participant method, the whole process of activities was transcribed into a data which is about80000words. Secondly, the Research Framework of the Teachers’Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Activities of Science Education of Kindergarten was used as the basis to analyze the teachers’PCK in the activities.The Research Framework of the Teachers’Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Activities of Science Education of Kindergarten is consists of16dimensions and38sub-projects, including the knowledge of scientific discipline orientation, the knowledge of the contents of science education, the knowledge about children, teaching methods, strategies, representations, and the evaluation of science. It mainly contains:the goals of science education (children’s attitude and spirit of science and so on.); the area of science and other areas of education; the subjects or contents of specific science (the phenomena and laws in the contents of science, etc.); the goals of activities (cover, proper etc.); the contents of activities (based on children’s interests etc.); the materials of activities (familiar and common in life, based on children’s interests etc.); the implements of activities (interests, scene setting etc.); the support of the characteristics and methods of children’s scientific study (children’s sensory learning, children’s scientific methods and abilities etc.); the organization of activities (activities’time etc.); the methods of teaching; the strategy of activities (activities’import etc.); representations of related concepts or experiences of science; the support of environment (the atmosphere of activities etc.); the evaluation of the subject; the mode of evaluation; the direction of evaluation (object, content).This paper has described and analyzed the individual subprojects of the12activities of science education of operation class by using the Research Framework of the Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Activities of Science Education of Kindergarten, and summarized the characteristics of expert teachers’PCK in the activities:1) Clearing the goal of science education and locating the science education’s value accurately.2) Understanding science education’s characteristics of contents in kindergarten, but the highlight of children’s key experiences is not enough.3) Having rich knowledge of children, but there are some shortcomings in practice.4) Using multiple methods, strategies and representations of teaching flexibly, paying attention to perfect environments.5) Evaluating children positively and fully. Based on combs of characteristics of the expert teachers’PCK, the author trying to put forward suggestions to improve the kindergarten teachers’PCK and develop scientific education activities effectively:1) Update the science education idea and deepen the understanding of scientific meaning.2) Strengthen the learning of the knowledge of science education’s contents and "transform" it properly.3) Rich the knowledge about children in the practice of scientific activities.4) Explore the effective methods, strategies and representations of teaching, and create relaxing atmosphere of activities.5) Use positive and comprehensive evaluation to promote children’s learning of science.