An Authentic Appraoch to Facilitating Transfer of Teacher's Pedagogical Knowledge

Abstract

The pedagogical knowledge learned by pre-service teachers often fails to transfer to teaching practice. Instead, new teachers revert to instructional strategies they observed as children. This chapter describes design research conducted over four years, where pre-service teachers were immersed in an authentic learning environment using multimedia to learn mathematics assessment strategies. The first study was conducted with pre-service teachers in the second year of their degree, and then the second study followed up with the same people in their second year as practising teachers. The first study revealed several constraints for the participants on professional practice, including limited time and the influence of the supervising teacher. Later, as practising teachers, they faced cultural and practical constraints within the school environment that prevented them from fully operationalising the pedagogical principles they learned as pre-service teachers.