Teacher Subject Knowledge

It is probably fair to say that the idea that a good teacher can pick up almost any material and deliver it successfully to a class is heading out of fashion, but it does linger in the idea that teaching methods are more important than the teacher’s knowledge and understanding of the content.

Let me give an example, somewhat based in fact: a science teacher, whose specialism is biology, is teaching an introduction to forces. A toy car is on the desk, stationary. The teacher asks, ‘How will I get it to move?’ seeking and succeeding in getting the answer ‘Apply a force.’ Sounds fine, doesn’t it?

Well, right from the start, the teacher has sown the seed of the most common misconception about forces: that one must constantly be applied to maintain motion. When they get stuck into this topic, and teach about Newton’s laws, attempting to show how they apply to motion, this teacher will be wishing they had asked instead: ‘How can I get its speed to change?’ This isn’t a push-the-glasses-up-the-nose-I-think-you’ll-find… moment. It betrays the lack of subject knowledge in the teacher. Even asking ‘How will I get it to start to move?’ would be better.

I don’t want to argue that children’s understanding of the world is so fragile that apparently tiny errors in classroom talk cannot be overcome, but there’s no need to add to the challenge. Students need, and deserve, to be sitting in front of experts in their subject, as well as experts in pedagogy. Unfortunately, the majority of CPD tends to focus on pedagogy, with subject knowledge either being given a diminished priority, or essentially being left up to teachers to go away and fix themselves.

This is why the Nova Science Faculty is committing the majority of our fortnightly meetings to subject knowledge. The ‘tough’ topics that are approaching us in the scheme of work will be addressed – ‘tough’ being decided by popular choice, rather than defaulting to topics like electricity! This will involve actual teaching of the teachers by an assigned expert in the topic, a discussion of the pitfalls or misconceptions that are likely to crop up, a chance to practice delivering the difficult explanations or modelling before doing it in the classroom, and a chance to plan how we are going to get students to practice in this topic. Obviously it is vital that we set up a culture where teachers don’t feel somehow ashamed for needing some help in their subject knowledge – the more important thing is to recognise our own weak spots in our knowledge and share them, so they don’t get passed on to our students. For it is them who lose out if we don’t know our stuff.