The Lesson Preparation Method: a way of investigating pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge

Abstract

SUMMARY Teacher education should build on the knowledge base that pre-service teachers already have on account of their lifelong learning in and outside of school. An international team of mathematics and science teacher educators developed a method of investigating the pedagogical content knowledge parts of this knowledge base. They asked pre-service teachers to prepare a lesson about a topic, e.g. area, as if they had to teach that lesson the next day. In this article the main aspects of the research environment are described and their effects on the research outcomes are evaluated.