The Development of Preservice Agriculture Teachers’Pedagogical Content Knowledge through a Greenhousefor Teachers Course

摘要

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explain the development of preserviceagriculture teachers’ PCK for the concept of plant fertilizers within a content-focused methodscourse. The emergent central phenomenon was an overall lack of PCK development for plantfertilizers, highlighted by five main themes that impeded the development. Preservice teachers feltless self- efficacious in horticulture content knowledge and possessed a greater desire forhorticulture content knowledge over pedagogical knowledge. Additionally, the preservice teachersexhibited development of horticulture content knowledge and mathematics content knowledgethrough the unit. Finally, the lack of a content knowledge foundation inhibited the development ofPCK in preservice teachers, despite the purpose of the course and vision of the instructor.Recommendations include more purposeful integration of PCK at the preservice level, utilizationof tools like the CoRe rubric (Loughran, Mulhall, & Berry, 2004) during lesson planning, increasedfield experience imbedded in the teacher preparation program, and a more careful examination ofthe preservice teachers’ pre-existing content knowledge base prior to enrollment in the contentfocusedmethods course.