What professional knowledge do student geography teachers need to know?

Baynham, Joanna Claire (2024) What professional knowledge do student geography teachers need to know? Doctoral thesis (EdD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the professional knowledge needed by student geography teachers in England. The research began in 2017, when there was much discussion about the future of teacher education in England, particularly with regard to required knowledge. In 2019, the Department for Education published the Core Content Framework, which set out what students need to know in England. The rapidly changing landscape of teacher education means that this research is significant to the understanding of how student geography teachers navigate learning to teach. The project relies upon Shulman’s theory of pedagogical content knowledge to look at how student geography teachers make sense of the knowledge needed for teaching geography. It explores their geography subject knowledge and how they develop this, alongside their pedagogical knowledge, to develop their pedagogical content knowledge and to investigate if different types of knowledge are more or less important at pivotal moments. A case series of four students is presented to bring together their lived experiences and to investigate how they navigate their PGCE programme, through a Bakhtinian lens of authoritative and internally persuasive discourses. Qualitative data is developed through semi-structured interviews with students, their subject mentors and university tutors. Identified themes are explored in a detailed cross-case analysis. The conclusions drawn from the data demonstrate that training to teach is a complex process and there is no singular model for success. The case series describes these complexities and explores how the students’ own context and their experience both prior to and whilst on the PGCE programme affect the way in which they learn to teach. Shulman’s domains of knowledge provide a useful structure to the interviews, but the conclusions drawn go beyond the tangible knowledge. Training to teach geography is more than simple knowledge of what and how to teach; it is about how the student teacher views themselves and the context they are working in - their sense of self. It is also about their ability to reflect on what is happening in the classroom and how they can manage that situation. For some geography student teachers, this can be a smooth path and for others it can take much longer and requires different support approaches. The conclusions drawn from this research will be used as preparations for the new PGCE programmes as they are finalised under the DfE reforms for 2024 where there is more prescription of what student teachers need to know.