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Teachers' Knowledge
Grossman, P. L. (1995). 'Teachers' knowledge.' In L. W. Anderson (Ed.), International encyclopedia of teaching and teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 20-24). Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon.
In this article, Grossman (1995) considers the domains of teachers' knowledge and how that knowledge informs professional practice. She proposes a typology of six domains of teacher knowledge.
| Knowledge of content | Includes subject matter knowledge and pedagogical (how to teach) content knowledge |
| Knowledge of learners and learning | Includes knowledge of learning theories; the physical, social, psychological and cognitive development of students; motivational theory and practice; and ethnic, gender and socioeconomic diversity |
| Knowledge of general pedagogy | Includes knowledge of classroom organisation and management, and general methods of teaching |
| Knowledge of curriculum | Includes knowledge of processes of curriculum development and of the school curriculum within and across grade levels |
| Knowledge of context | Includes knowledge of multiple and embedded situations and settings of teachers' work - school, district, region and state; also, knowledge of students, families and local communities, historical, philosophical and cultural foundations of education in particular countries |
| Knowledge of self | Includes knowledge of personal values, dispositions, strengths and weaknesses, personal educational philosophies, goals for students and purposes for teaching |
The latter category, knowledge of self, has particular relevance to the Staff Matters website. As Grossman points out, knowledge of self differs from the other domains in the above framework in that it is neither theoretical nor abstract knowledge, but more personal and inevitably abstract knowledge, that is filtered through each teacher's own values, goals and personal philosophies. Grossman raises the importance of individual biography in processes of teaching and learning to teach. She refers to the work of Lampert (1995, cited in Grossman, 1995), who considered how teachers draw upon their personal knowledge to negotiate classroom dilemmas and to reflect upon their own practice; Britzman (1986, cited in Grossman, 1995), who documented the effect of self and identity in the process of learning to teach; Gudmundsdottir (1990, cited in Grossman, 1995), who discussed how personal values underlie other forms of teacher knowledge, such as pedagogical knowledge; and Munby's (1986, cited in Grossman, 1995) work on metaphors that highlighted the importance of teachers' beliefs in understanding how teachers view their own practice.
An interesting line of thinking argues that a teacher's knowledge is inherently personal and organised in terms of idiosyncratic stories drawn from experience, which preserve that teacher's voice and perspective. Some idiosyncratic knowledge is tacit, contained in routines and rituals embedded in local contexts. Another form of personal knowledge is case knowledge, which is formed from exposure to a number of cases of particular pedagogical experiences and from which analogical reasoning can be developed. It can be seen that framing teachers' knowledge as personal and contextual highlights the influence that personal beliefs and values have upon developing a knowledge base for teaching.