Case Study On The Development Of High School English Teachers’ PCK From The Perspective Of Reflective Practice

The curriculum reform in our country has entered a new phase of comprehensive deepening.Implementing the fundamental task of moral education and cultivating students’ core literacy not only brought profound changes to the way ordinary high schools educate people,but also raised higher demands for the professional development of teachers and the optimization of their knowledge structure.Against this backdrop,teachers need to examine and develop their own teaching literacy and professional abilities to actively adapt to and meet the needs of the new curriculum reform.Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK)is the integration of a teacher’s teaching knowledge and abilities in a specific subject area,including a deep understanding of the subject content,cognition of student learning characteristics,and the application of teaching strategies and assessment methods.PCK is at the heart of a teacher’s knowledge base and an important focal point in discussions about optimizing a teacher’s knowledge structure.Researching how to develop a teacher’s PCK is of great significance for improving a teacher’s teaching abilities and students’ academic achievements.Reflective practice is an important means to improve a teacher’s PCK,and the way of reflective practice is closely related to the development of a teacher’s PCK.In the process of reflective practice,teachers can not only summarize and reflect on existing teaching experiences,but also build new teaching knowledge and skills through reflection,thereby continuously enriching and expanding their PCK.Therefore,this study aims to deeply analyze the current status of teachers’ PCK,existing problems,and strategies to promote PCK development from the perspective of reflective practice,providing beneficial insights and guidance for teacher professional development.In order to respond to the new requirements of the curriculum reform for subject teachers,based on the existing PCK models and the requirements put forward by the new curriculum and teaching materials,this paper constructs a PCK model for high school English teachers and defines the four elements and their connotations under this model: knowledge of English subject themes,knowledge of students,knowledge of teaching strategies,and knowledge of assessment.In order to answer what manifestations each element of PCK has in reflective practice,this paper constructs a“Reflective Practice-PCK” model,which draws on Schon’s division of reflective stages and Taggert and Wilson’s pyramid model for the division of reflective practice levels(technical level,contextual level,and dialectical level).By analyzing the manifestations of each element of PCK at each level of reflective practice,we can further see the characteristics and connotations of high school English teachers’ PCK presented through reflective practice.In order to observe the development process of teachers’ PCK in more detail,this study uses the indicators constructed by Shulman’s “A Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action” as observation points,and rebuilds the “Teacher PCK Formation and Development Process Classroom Observation Table" and the “Student Learning Behavior Classroom Observation Table”.The classroom observations,interviews,and collected text materials are encoded using the “Content Representation”(Co Re)tool,and the collected data is associated with each component of PCK.This helps systematically organize and analyze high school English teachers’ PCK in the study,and deeply explore the composition and development of teachers’ professional knowledge.From the individual level of reflective practice,the reflection of teachers presents a lack of systematic and comprehensive characteristics.The triggering mechanism of reflection is relatively singular,generally triggered by heterogeneous comparisons,showing a certain degree of fragmentation.Furthermore,from the stages of reflection,teachers’ predictive and on-the-spot reflections are rare,usually dominated by retrospective reflections.The PCK demonstrated by teachers at different career stages also differs: novice teachers face insurmountable pressures from examinations,which leads to issues such as an excessive focus on language knowledge,neglecting students’ individual differences and needs,over-reliance on traditional teaching strategies,and limited application of evaluation knowledge in their PCK.Experienced teachers face the difficulty of interpreting educational philosophies,while veteran teachers possess profound,often inexpressible,teaching wisdom.In addition,the promotion of reflective practice on PCK development for teachers at different professional stages has been emphasized: novice teachers escape misconceptions through reflective practice,experienced teachers enrich their own theoretical teaching system,and veteran teachers summarize and disseminate their own teaching wisdom.From the collective level of reflective practice,the apprenticeship system and the reflective practice of the teacher research group also positively contribute to the development of teachers’ PCK.This article details how the reflective levels of novice teachers develop under the apprenticeship system,the path and logic of their PCK development,and how collective reflection in the teacher research group promotes the development of teacher PCK,with the aim of providing more support for the development of novice teachers’ PCK.The insights of reflective practice on the development of PCK are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: firstly,from a personal growth perspective,teachers need to interpret their own educational philosophy,enhance their understanding of their own PCK,and develop the habit of multidimensional and multilevel reflection throughout the teaching practice;secondly,from the perspective of external support,we need to leverage reflective tools to promote the development of teachers’ PCK,and assist novice teachers in balancing and enhancing the multiple stages of reflection in action.Finally,this paper summarizes the implications and significance of reflective practice for PCK development,and constructs a “High School English Teacher PCK Development-Reflection and Action Plan”,aiming to enhance the transformative and promoting role of reflective practice on teachers’ PCK.