Introduction+to+Content+Representations

**This page introduces the idea of the Content Representation, or CoRe. This is a way of mapping out what expert and experienced teachers know about a topic before and while they teach it.** The overall structure of a CoRe is shown in document on this page. The following description is taken from Loughran et al (2006; Chap 3). A CoRe (Content Representation) provides an overview of how teachers conceptualize the content of particular subject matter or topic. A CoRe is developed by thinking about what you consider to be the ‘Big Ideas’ associated with teaching a given topic for a particular grade level(s) based on your experience of teaching that topic. These big ideas become the horizontal axis of a CoRe (see the sample CoRe for an example).

The big ideas are then probed and quizzed in different ways through the prompts that are listed on the left hand side vertical axis of the CoRe so that specific information about the big ideas that impact on the manner in which the content is taught can be made explicit. Through this process, the CoRe becomes a generalisable form of the participant teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge as it links the how, why and what of the content to be taught with what they agree to be important in shaping students’ learning and teachers’ teaching. The horizontal axis of a CoRe contains the ‘Big Ideas’, which refers to the science ideas that the teacher(s) see as crucial for students to develop their understanding of the topic. In some cases a big science teaching idea may be the same as a big science idea but the two are not necessarily synonymous as the interaction between content and teaching impacts how teachers conceptualize these big science teaching ideas. There is no defined number of big ideas, but typically, in a given topic, we have found that teachers generally settle on between 5 – 8 big ideas. Too few big ideas suggests that too much may be encompassed in a single big idea whilst too many big ideas suggests the topic may be being ‘broken down’ into ‘chunks’ of information that appear unconnected. Therefore, developing the big ideas can be quite a time consuming task and requires considerable thought and debate.

This a sample CoRe from //Understanding and Developing Science Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge// by John Loughran, Amanda Berry & Pamela Mulhall (2006; Chapter 4).

Blank templates for developing new CoRes are provided on a separate page.