The Pedagogical Content Knowledge Exploration from the Thai Expert Physics Teacher's Class

Nowadays, many science educational researchers in Thailand focus their attentions on improving teachers’ classroom knowledge. Pedagogical Content Knowledge is one of particularly interesting methods. The aim of this study is to improve the understanding of the PCK elements used by an expert physics teacher. The research question is: What are the elements of PCK which can be revealed from interactions between this expert teacher and his students in the context of a 5E stages approach to teaching? The topic of the teaching was “Ohm's law” and the lessons were planned in accordance with the 5E teaching model. The lessons were conducted with 32 students over four hours. Semi-structured interviews were developed based on a Loughran, Berry and Mullhall's (2006) Content Representations (CoRes). The framework of CoRes allowed in-depth information of the teacher's ideas for planning, designing, and presenting his lesson plans to be examined. Moreover, classroom observations were collected and analysed for events that demonstrated PCK. Exemplary excerpts were selected and reviewed with the teacher. Interpreting through semi-structured interviews, lesson plan analyses, and classroom observations enabled an identification of the teacher's PCK.