Four newly hired, tenure-track faculty members who were relatively new to college teaching participated in a three-year study of their discipline-specific knowledge of teaching. I used their data: (1) to describe what is distinct about the teaching of Spanish and the teaching of Linguistics and (2) to test the usefulness of Grossman's conceptualization of pedagogical content knowledge for describing college teachers' knowledge of teaching.;Data included interviews, class observations, self-report surveys, student essays, and faculty reflection sheets. Interviews and class visits were transcribed for the four cases. Six levels of analysis were applied to the data in each case.;Results for each case are reported by four components of pedagogical content knowledge: conceptions of the purposes for teaching the subject matter, knowledge of instructional strategies, knowledge of students' understandings of the subject matter, and knowledge of curriculum. Two core concepts emerged from the cases. Spanish teaching for Juanita and Rachael was characterized by emphasis on instructional strategies aimed at getting students to produce the language. Linguistics teaching for Maxene and Margaret was characterized by emphasis on argumentation and on seeing things like a linguist. Focus on one or the other concept influenced the development of faculty members' knowledge of teaching.;Results suggest a need for (1) increased discipline-specific programming in faculty development, (2) enlargement of Grossman's conceptualization to adequately describe the teaching in some disciplines in higher education, and (3) more research on the development of college faculty members' knowledge of teaching.
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