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Developing and Enacting

Pedagogical Content Knowledge
for Teaching History: An
Exploration of Two Novice
Teachers' Growth Over Three
Years
a
Chauncey Monte-Sano & Christopher Budano
Department of Educational Studies, University of

Michigan
b
Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy, and

Leadership, University of Maryland
Accepted author version posted online: 31 Oct
2012.Published online: 20 Dec 2012.
To cite this article: Chauncey Monte-Sano & Christopher Budano (2013): Developing
and Enacting Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching History: An Exploration
of Two Novice Teachers' Growth Over Three Years, Journal of the Learning Sciences,
22:2, 171-211
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THE JOURNAL OF THE LEARNING SCIENCES, 22: 171211, 2013

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1050-8406 print / 1532-7809 online
DOI: 10.1080/10508406.2012.742016
Developing and Enacting Pedagogical

Content Knowledge for Teaching History:
An Exploration of Two Novice Teachers
Growth Over Three Years
Chauncey Monte-Sano
Department of Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Christopher Budano
Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy, and Leadership
University of Maryland
Using artifacts of teachers practices, classroom observations, and teacher interviews, we explore the development and enactment of 2 novices pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK) for teaching history. We identify and track 4 components of
PCK that are relevant to teaching history: representing history, transforming history, attending to students ideas about history, and framing history. We find that
these 2 novices demonstrated different aspects of PCK in different settings at different points in the first 3 years of their careers. Their PCK continued to grow
after preservice education, although the pace and substance of this development
varied. In particular, attending to students ideas about history and framing history
were more challenging aspects of PCK for these novices. Specific features of the
teacher education program, the school context, and the individual teachers capacity facilitate growth in PCK, including opportunities to practice, alignment within
the teacher education program and across learning sites, reflection on practice, and
subject matter knowledge.
A very learned man may profoundly understand a subject himself, and yet fail egregiously in elucidating it to others.1861 petition to the California Superintendent
Christopher Budano is now at the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

Correspondence should be addressed to Chauncey Monte-Sano, Department of Educational
Studies, University of Michigan, 610 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259. E-mail:
cmontesa@umich.edu
172
MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO
of Public Instruction by the Committee on State Normal Schools (as quoted in

McDiarmid & Clevenger-Bright, 2008, p. 134)
The range of knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to effectively teach

students has been framed in different ways over time but has only recently been
studied (C. Grant, 2008; Howard & Aleman, 2008; McDiarmid & ClevengerBright, 2008). In this article we focus on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as
one form of knowledge that contributes to teachers success in supporting student
learning (Shulman, 1986). Most researchers and teacher educators agree that PCK
is a core component of teachers knowledge base. More recently, scholars have
argued that the importance of this knowledge is most apparent in its enactment
(Ball & Forzani, 2009; Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009).
Frameworks that characterize the knowledge that teachers draw upon often
include PCK (cf. Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). But only a handful of
history researchers discuss PCK directly in their analyses of teachers or conduct
longitudinal studies of new teacher learning. The field has yet to create a coherent statement of what PCK for teaching history entails, conceptualize how new
teachers develop PCK, or consider what such knowledge development involves.
Here we look across existing research to create a synthesis of the PCK that is
most relevant to teaching history. Then we examine how two novice history teachers developed and enacted these aspects of PCK in their preservice program and
first 2 years of teaching after graduation. Our goal in this article is to create an
integrated statement that outlines key aspects of PCK for teaching history and to
identify salient issues that emerged as two new history teachers developed and
enacted this PCK over 3 years.
BACKGROUND
First we share a sample of literature that has helped us consider the nature and
characteristics of PCK. This is certainly not an exhaustive review of literature,
but it is intended to clarify work that has heavily influenced our thinking. With
this article, we seek to build on this literature by extending these ideas to history
education more specifically.
Shulman (1986) characterized PCK as subject matter knowledge for teaching (p. 9). He explained that PCK involves both the ways of representing and
formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others as well as an
understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult
(p. 9). In practice, PCK helps teachers create lessons that advance students subject
matter understanding, notice students misconceptions, and develop pedagogical
responses that support students learning. Such knowledge enables teachers to
work in the spaces in which teaching, content, and students intersect.
Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008) defined PCK more explicitly as they sought
to measure it. In defining mathematical knowledge for teaching, they included
PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY
173
subject matter knowledge and PCK and broke both down into smaller subsets of
knowledge. Ball and her colleagues built on Shulmans work by defining specific
constructs integral to mathematics teachers PCK and subject matter knowledge.
To Ball et al., PCK in mathematics includes knowledge of content and students, knowledge of content and teaching, and knowledge of curriculum.
Knowledge of content and students refers to teachers understanding of student
thinking about the subject area, whereas knowledge of content and teaching
focuses on teachers instructional choices, such as responding to a students idea.
Teacher knowledge and teacher learning research have not yet been a major
focus of the learning sciences field, but the fields emphasis on situated learning
and domain-specific knowledge and learning positions the learning sciences to
make important contributions in this area (Fishman & Davis, 2006). Although several researchers have focused on the design of learning environments that promote
teacher learning (e.g., Chieu, Herbst, & Weiss, 2011; Cobb, Zhao, & Dean, 2009),
there is still work to be done in order to define and elaborate on the substance and
nature of teachers development of domain-specific knowledge.
Seymour and Lehrer (2006) tracked an experienced teachers efforts to support her students understanding of linear functions over 2 years. The researchers
focused on the teachers recognition of, thinking about, and responses to students
interpretations of math and in doing so tracked one key aspect of PCK. They found
that the teacher initially responded to students in general ways, but her reactions
became more productive and responsive over time in ways that supported students understanding of math. This study highlighted the domain-specific nature
of teacher learning and the capacity of a teacher to learn in and through practice. Related work has emphasized other aspects of the domain-specific teacher
knowledge required for teaching (e.g., Sherin, 2002), but the majority of learning sciences research has emphasized the social and situated aspects of teacher
learning (Fishman & Davis, 2006).
PCK IN THE HISTORY EDUCATION LITERATURE

Using Shulmans definition of PCK and Ball et al.s (2008) math-specific framework as a baseline, here we consider the literature on history education and
synthesize aspects of PCK that are relevant for teaching history. We analyze the
history education literature and organize it into four components of PCK that
emerged from these analyses: representing history, transforming history, attending
to students ideas about history, and framing history. Table 1 presents our delineation of PCK and highlights its basis in the history education literature and how
it maps onto definitions of PCK outside of this domain. First we discuss each
component of PCK as it is shared in the history education literature and then we
examine these components in two novice world history teachers classrooms to
174
Teachers select and arrange topics of study into a coherent story that
conveys causeeffect relationships between and among events as
well as the historical significance of events and people. In so doing
they conceptualize and frame the history curriculum to illustrate
significance, connections, and interrelationships.
Frame history
Note. PCK = pedagogical content knowledge.
Ideally, teachers identify and respond to students thinking about

history in order to build on students incoming ideas and
experiences, address misconceptions, develop students
understanding further, and promote historical ways of thinking.
Attending to student thinking requires teachers to not only notice
students thinking but take up and respond to students thinking in
some way.
The ways in which teachers communicate to students what history

involves and, in particular, the nature of historical knowledge, the
structure of history as a discipline, and historical ways of thinking.
Teachers recognition of students ideas, selection of materials,
organization of content and activities, and daily learning tasks
provide representations of the discipline that convey information
about the nature of knowledge in history and the work of historians.
How teachers transform historical content into lessons and materials
that target the development of students historical understanding
and thinking and give students appropriate opportunities to achieve
these goals.
Definition
Attend to students
ideas about
history
Transform history
Represent history
PCK for Teaching

History
Bain & Harris (2009), Harris & Bain

(2011)
Calder (2006)
Gudmundsdottir & Shulman (1987)
Wilson (1988), Wilson & Wineburg
(1988)
Bain (2005, 2006)

Fehn & Koeppen (1998)
S. G. Grant & Gradwell (2005)
Monte-Sano & Cochran (2009)
Seixas (1998)
VanSledright (2002)
Wilson & Wineburg (1993)
Bain (2005, 2006)
Barton et al. (2004)
Halldn (1998)
Monte-Sano (2011b)
Seixas (1994)
VanSledright (2002)
Gudmundsdottir (1990)
Monte-Sano & Cochran (2009),
Monte-Sano (2011b)
VanSledright (2002)
Wineburg & Wilson (1991), Wilson &
Wineburg (1988, 1993)
Related History Education

Literature
TABLE 1
Key Aspects of PCK for Teaching History and Examples From the Research Literature
Ball et al. (2008) (knowledge

of content and students)
Franke & Kazemi (2001)
Grossman (1990)
Levin, Hammer, & Coffey,
(2009)
Sherin & Han (2004)
Shulman (1986, 1987)
of curriculum)
Shulman (1986, 1987)

of content and students)
Grossman (1990)
Shulman (1986, 1987)

of content and teaching)
Borko et al. (1992)
Grossman (1990)
Shulman (1986, 1987)
Wilson et al. (1987)
Related Education Literature
175
illustrate the challenges and particular areas of learning with which new teachers
must contend.
One area of PCK that history education research has explored involves the
ways in which teachers communicate to students what history involves and, in
particular, how one knows in history (the epistemology of history). Teachers
recognition of students incoming ideas, selection of materials, organization of
content and activities, and daily learning tasks provide representations of the discipline that convey information about the nature of knowledge in history and
the work of historians (cf. Gudmundsdottir, 1990; Shulman, 1986). We refer to
this aspect of PCK as representing history. Wineburg and Wilson (1991) showed
how two veteran history teachers used their awareness of students disciplinary
knowledge, subject matter knowledge, and pedagogical expertise to represent the
subject in ways that advanced students understandings. Whereas one teacher
held a student-led debate about the British right to tax the colonies, another
led a whole-class exploration of a time period and conflicting primary sources
from it. Although the teachers styles differed, both lessons represented history as
constructed and the students role as analysts who deliberate and ask questions.
Similarly, Monte-Sano (2008, 2011a) reported on the work of two experienced
teachers whose design of classroom activities and assignments represented the
interpretive, evidentiary nature of history. Whether through whole-class discussions or individual or group work, these teachers put students in the role of
deliberating among conflicting accounts, asking questions, and constructing their
own interpretations. Such representations of history facilitated growth in students
written historical arguments.
In two reports that compared new teachers (Monte-Sano & Cochran, 2009;
Monte-Sano & Harris, 2012), one novice represented history in authentic ways
in his classrooms even while student teaching, and another improved in this area
in her first 2 years of teaching. This study suggests that new teachers are capable of making pedagogical choices that represent history in authentic ways (e.g.,
conducting investigations using primary documents). However, novices subject
matter knowledge, views of students, and local school contexts influence the
extent to which their lessons represent the discipline.
Another area of research into PCK has focused primarily on novices skills in
transforming history content into lessons and materials that target the development
of students historical understanding and thinking (i.e., transforming history). Ball
et al. (2008) might consider this knowledge of content and teaching. Several
studies have looked at novices selection of historical documents and use of
them in lessons (Fehn & Koeppen, 1998; S. G. Grant & Gradwell, 2005; Seixas,
1998; VanSledright, 2002). Seixas (1998) explored the challenges teacher candidates face when trying to design primary sourcebased exercises for students.
Teacher candidates in their first semester selected primary sources and constructed
a sequence of questions in order to teach a particular concept they defined. Of the
176
four candidates Seixas (1998) examined in depth, all selected texts that could lead
to productive historical interpretation, but only two constructed tasks that helped
students use the historical context to understand the text and created questions
that would help students delve into the historical meaning of the texts. Fehn and
Koeppen (1998) found that all 11 student teachers in their study used primary
sources in their teaching to enliven their instruction and to develop students skills
in interpreting texts. Although all participants were enthusiastic about using primary sources, they did not feel that they could use sources as often as they had
expected given the realities and norms of their field placements. S. G. Grant and
Gradwell (2005) found that two third-year teachers both used a wide variety of primary and secondary sources regularly. The teachers selection of texts was largely
influenced by their subject matter knowledge and their perception of students
interests and skills. Although one teacher used the states standardized test in history to guide her selection of documents, the other did not. Together these studies
suggest that novices are capable of teaching with historical sources but attend to
students interests in their selection and use of documents and are influenced by
the contexts in which they teach to varying degrees. New teachers may be able
to find historical sources on a particular topic, but designing lessons around those
documents that support students learning is a more complicated task and relies
on key aspects of PCK.
A handful of history education researchers have also examined novice history
teachers consideration of students thinking, what we refer to as attending to
students ideas about history (i.e., what Ball et al., 2008, referred to as knowledge of content and students). Seixas (1994) shared an interview protocol that
his student teachers used to explore their students prior historical understandings
and how those teachers made sense of students responses. Teacher candidates
noticed three issues in their students thinking: Students think in terms of progress
and decline and connect to issues of social justice in the more recent past, but
they do not discriminate among historical accounts in terms of their reliability or
validity. The interviews gave candidates some understanding of students incoming conceptions of history and experience with questioning and pushing students
thinking. Barton, McCully, and Marks (2004) found that having beginning teachers complete structured investigations with elementary school students not only
gave teachers more insight into students thinking but also helped them think
about proactively playing a role in developing students ideas. Yet Monte-Sano
and Cochran (2009) found that asking teacher candidates to interview secondary
students or analyze students work did not necessarily mean that the candidates
noticed their students disciplinary thinking. And those who do may not respond
to their students thinking with appropriate pedagogical choices in the classroom.
Monte-Sano (2011b) analyzed three student teachers approaches to history education in preservice coursework and classroom practice. Although teachers were
able to learn over time to identify features of their students disciplinary thinking,
responding to that thinking in the classroom was more challenging. Together these
177
studies reveal that new teachers can notice their students disciplinary thinking but
may not do so in the classroom or if not prompted by course assignments.
One final aspect of PCK that we explore is a teachers skill in selecting and
arranging topics of study into a coherent story that conveys the connections and
interrelationships between events as well as the historical significance of events
and people. We call this framing history. Ball et al. (2008) might have included
this in their category knowledge of curriculum. Wilson (1988) analyzed the
subject matter knowledge that supports this kind of pedagogical reasoning in her
dissertation work. She referred to this knowledge as integration, or the ability
to recognize patterns, themes, causal links, and issues of significance in history.
Gudmundsdottir and Shulman (1987) explored this aspect of PCK with two U.S.
history teachers. They reported on an experienced teacher who used his knowledge of U.S. history to select key topics, arrange it in comprehensible chunks, and
structure an overall story that would help students understand key issues in U.S.
history. This teacher also saw that there are multiple ways to segment and organize a U.S. history course, each with its own affordances and limitations. The other
teacher, with weaker subject matter knowledge and no experience, was unable to
discern more or less critical topics that would develop students understanding or
identify alternative ways to organize the curriculum. He did not conceptualize the
course as a whole but rather focused on one unit at a time.
More recent work has investigated the particular challenges of teaching world
history and has brought this aspect of PCK to the forefront once again. Bain and
Harris (2009) explained that the importance of having a big picture to help situate all the details that so define history at any level is particularly challenging in
world history (p. 34). World history teachers grapple with decisions about where
to begin, what to include, which perspectives or regions to represent, which time
periods to cover, and how to link the various topics that could compose a world
history class. Dunn (2008) explained that a big part of the challenge lies in defining and framing world history. Traditionally, world history has often been regarded
as a place to teach about Western heritage and, more recently, multiculturalism.
Yet since 1960, a new approach to world history has taken shape that emphasizes
patterns and comparisons across space and time rather than any one history of a
people or region. The new world history has taken root in the Advanced Placement
world history exam and has had some effect on schools through university-based
professional development, but the more traditional approach to world history has
historically been more influential in the policy arena.
Harris and Bain (2011) sought to identify how teachers arrange world history knowledge for teaching and compared how novice and experienced teachers
arranged a series of cards with different world history events and concepts on
them. They found that the more experienced teachers used the cards to construct a
coherent story of the past, made connections between events and concepts, linked
the cards to students understandings, and organized these ideas into segments
suitable for instruction. Novices were far less able to conceptualize world history
178
in meaningful, complex, and coherent ways for themselves or for instructional

purposes. They were more likely to place events in chronological order and made
very few connections between different events. Participating in professional development or using curriculum that approached world history on a global scale may
have been a contributing factor that enabled more experienced teachers to make
multiple connections. Together these studies show that conceptualizing the subject matter with an eye toward illustrating links, connections, and significance is
a key aspect of PCK that may take time for novices to develop. Based on existing research, we do not know whether history teachers with different areas of
emphasis (e.g., world or U.S.) rely on the same aspects of PCK equally.
The history education literature helps us elaborate on foundational and recent
work in defining PCK for teaching history. Four components of PCK emerged
through the analyses of the literature: representing history, transforming history,
attending to students ideas about history, and framing history. As a research community we do not understand how teachers PCK develops over time and which
aspects of PCK teachers draw on at different points in their development, nor do
we have a sense of new teachers growth beyond the teacher education program
experience.
Using these four components of PCK, we track two novices thinking and
practices to understand how their PCK develops. We look to their coursework,
interviews, and teaching to understand what components of PCK novices struggle
with and how the enactment of their knowledge changes over timeparticularly
in the first 2 years of teaching after preservice education. Specifically, we ask the
following: (a) What do the four components of PCK for teaching history look like
in two novices practice? (b) What components of PCK do these novice history
teachers enact in their teaching or draw on in their thinking about teaching? (c)
Do, or how do, the two novices PCK and enactment of PCK in the classroom
change over time?
METHOD
We use an exploratory multiple case study approach (Yin, 2003) to examine the
PCK of two novice high school history teachers during preservice and the 2 years
following their completion of their teacher education program. Individual case
analysis and comparison of cases used multiple units of analysis: interviews,
classroom observations, and classroom artifacts.
Participants
This article is a part of a longitudinal research project on history and social studies teachers learning. We followed 10 teacher candidates during their 1-year
179
teacher education program and continued with 6 of the 10 graduates (those who
remained in state with social studies teaching positions) during their first 2 years of
teaching. In this article we focus on Talia and Gabrielle because they both demonstrated growth in teaching history, yet their levels of expertise differed across time.
In addition, both Talia and Gabrielle taught world history to high school juniors in
the 2 years following preservice and invited us to observe units on the same topics:
political revolutions and World War I. Keeping the topics and courses constant for
two years allowed us to compare Talias and Gabrielles levels of expertise and
instructional decisions more directly as well as recognize changes in their teaching
over time.
For her preservice field placement, Talia taught one sociology class and two
U.S. history classes in a high school that had little administrative oversight of
the day-to-day operations and a high incidence of student disruptions. Seventyfive percent of the classes at this school were taught by teachers who were
highly qualified, and 85% of the students graduated. Although Talia had a mentor, he was a full-time teacher and typically spoke with her during a free period
instead of observing her teaching. Upon graduation, Talia moved to a better managed high school and taught U.S. and world history to 9th and 11th graders,
respectively; in this school, 89% of the classes were taught by teachers who
were highly qualified and 79% of the students graduated. In her second year
she started teaching a psychology course and continued teaching world history. A total of 53% of the students qualified for free and reduced-price meals.
The first school had a predominantly African American (83%) student population, and the second was an even mix of African American and Hispanic
students.
Gabrielle worked in the school where she did her student teaching in the years
following graduation. Her mentor was a consistent source of support and constructive criticism during and after classes throughout the student teaching year
and her first year of teaching. She taught world history to 11th graders during
her student teaching and in her first 2 years of full-time teaching. The student
population included African American (43%), Hispanic (36%), White, and Asian
American students (10%11% each). Moreover, 42% of students qualified for the
free and reduced-price meals program. Finally, 82% of students at Gabrielles
school graduated, and 92% of the classes were taught by highly qualified
teachers.
Talia and Gabrielle taught in different districts, each with its own history
curriculum. The two districts curricula focused on similar topics, but Talias
focused on content knowledge, organized the content largely by chronology, and
provided limited resources outside of the textbook. At the same time, her district had no required assessments in world history, so Talia was free to design
her own assessments, with the exception of one quarterly exam that she codesigned with her colleagues. She reported looking through the district curriculum
180
regularly to get a sense of what she should be teaching and to check her pacing.
Her assessments were typically quite traditional, including multiple-choice questions focused on factual recall. Gabrielles district curriculum focused on content
knowledge and historical thinking (specifically, a different way of thinking
each quarterperspective recognition and sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and researching questions). Her district organized the content around
larger themes and provided extensive resources, including primary documents and
graphic organizers. Gabrielles district had required unit exams for world history
that included multiple-choice questions, essays, and document analysis questions.
In interviews, she indicated that she used the district curriculum and assessments
in her planning, but she also generally agreed with the focus of the curriculum on
key themes in world history and historical thinking.
Teacher Education Context
Talia and Gabrielle graduated from the same masters certification program at
a state university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Both graduated from the same undergraduate institution in the spring of 2007. Gabrielle
majored in history and minored in Spanish; Talia majored in political science.
Gabrielle entered the program with a deep understanding of history as a discipline as well as world history topics in particular. Her student teaching placement
and first 2 years of teaching all focused on her area of expertise. In contrast,
Talias government major was not mirrored in the various courses she taught in
her first 3 years of classroom work: U.S. history, sociology, world history, and
psychology.
Gabrielle started the teacher education program in the summer of 2007. Talia
pursued an integrated teacher education route, taking four education courses
as an undergraduate and then joining the cohort in the fall of 2007. Together
Talia and Gabrielle took the second and third social studies methods courses
as well the courses Reading & Cognition, Diversity II, Action Research, and
Professionalism throughout the 20072008 academic year. Separately they took
Methods I, Adolescent Development, Content-Area Reading, and Diversity I
either during their undergraduate years (Talia) or during the summer of 2007
(Gabrielle). Talia and Gabrielle both completed a 1-year internship in a local
public school in the 20072008 academic year while taking these classes.
Talias first methods course covered a range of pedagogical methods for
teaching social studies, whereas Gabrielles first methods course focused on
understanding history as an inquiry-oriented, evidence-based discipline as well
as ways of representing history in the classroom. Talia and Gabrielle completed
the same methods courses in the fall and spring. Together these courses emphasized the teaching of historical understanding; specific strategies to teach reading,
discussion, and writing; curriculum development; assessment; and reflection and
181
revision. Assignments included asking a student to think aloud while reading

historical documents and interviewing him or her about the documents; creating
an inquiry-oriented lesson plan using historical sources for leading a discussion,
teaching reading, and teaching writing; teaching those lessons, reflecting on them,
and revising them; developing a curriculum unit; designing assessments; studying
an individuals learning during one unit of study; and studying a whole classs
learning during one unit of study.
Sources of Data
Data used in this article include observations of teaching, interviews with teachers, and classroom artifacts from the participants 3 years in the study. During
the preservice program, we observed each teacher three times at the beginning,
middle, and end of the school year. In the last 2 years of the study we observed
each teacher during two units of study each year after asking them to identify
units of study during which they would try to teach historical thinking, reading, or
writing. We define historical thinking broadly as the ways of thinking that often
accompany the interpretive work of historyconsidering cause and effect, recognizing multiple perspectives, situating events in historical context, analyzing
the affordances and constraints of historical sources, constructing evidence-based
arguments, or evaluating the merits of others claims. In the first year we observed
four to six classes per teacher for an average of 5.5 hr per teacher. In Year 2 we
observed three to five classes per teacher for an average of 4.5 hr per teacher.
After Year 1, we found that additional observations did not result in any new
information or data that challenged the patterns we had identified through analysis. Therefore, we observed less often in Year 2. Observations helped us see how
teachers represented the subject for students, how they scaffolded their instruction
and supported the development of students understanding, and how they reacted
to students ideas.
We collected artifacts of each teachers practices from the lessons observed
each year. Artifacts included readings, worksheets, lecture slides, assessments,
graphic organizers, and any other piece of paper or projection that teachers
shared with students during each unit. In addition, we collected students work
in response to assignments that the teacher identified as supporting students historical thinking, reading, or writing. The collection of artifacts aimed to capture
concrete examples of how teachers represented the subject, designed lessons, and
assessed students, as well as the resulting student work products. Artifacts also
helped us see what teachers did on days in the unit that we did not observe, giving
us some sense of how typical the days we observed were.
In the first year we interviewed each teacher six times, once at the beginning
of the year, briefly before each unit we observed, after each unit we observed,
and at the end of the school year. Setting up so many interview times proved
182
to be overly cumbersome to these novice teachers; therefore, in the second year

we interviewed teachers four times but spent longer with them after each unit.
In total, each year we interviewed each teacher for 5 hr. Interviews aimed to
gather evidence of teachers thinking about their pedagogical choices, history,
and their students. Interviews included analyzing students written work; charting a complete calendar of goals, activities, and assessments for each observed
unit; identifying salient influences on teachers practices; and probing teachers
instructional decision making.
Data Analysis
Throughout data collection, we analyzed observations, interviews, and artifacts
across all six participants in the larger study. Every 6 months we wrote comprehensive summaries and analytic memos. These initial analyses led us to identify
themes in novices teaching practice and thinking that highlighted their subject
matter knowledge and PCK for teaching history or government (e.g., theory of
how students learn, teacher thinking about student work or talk, attention to student thinking in the classroom, adjusting instruction to meet students needs,
vision for teaching history, conception of history, conceptualization of particular social studies topics, teaching history as evidence-based argument, teaching
history as information to recall). We applied these themes to interviews and observation notes in order to cluster the data and identify distinguishing patterns in
teachers practices, knowledge, and thinking (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Using
observation notes and artifacts of practice (e.g., readings, assignment sheets),
we created data matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to display texts, activities, teacher questions, teacher talk, and time for each teachers units each year.
We organized these matrices chronologically and tabulated the amount of time
spent on different kinds of activities (Yin, 2003).
Because the topic of each unit remained the same for both teachers after
preservice, we looked specifically for any changes from year to year for each unit
of instruction. In tracking teachers PCK, we used the components of PCK found
in the literature as a framework for looking at the structure of their lessons, the
focus of the materials they gave to students, their thinking about or responsiveness
to students disciplinary thinking, and their conceptualization of the content and
how to make it accessible to students. We compared data displays and the changes
we identified to teachers interviews in order to understand the rationale, if any,
for the changes we noted in teachers practices. Based on these analyses we identified patterns in each teachers knowledge and practice as well as changes over
time. We then verified our conclusions about each teacher by checking for representativeness, triangulating across data sources, and looking for negative evidence
(Miles & Huberman, 1994). Finally, we compared the practices and thinking of
each teacher over time, using both data displays and clustered data, in order to
develop cross-case themes for discussion.
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CASES OF DEVELOPING PCK FOR TEACHING HISTORY
Talia
In order to illustrate changes in her practice, we share lesson plans and thinking
from Talias methods coursework during her preservice year as well as our observations of lessons Talia taught in her first and second year after graduation. Talias
PCK was evident early in her methods coursework but was hidden in her first year
of teaching after her preservice program until it resurfaced, in part, in her second
year of teaching. Table 2 offers a visual summary of the PCK Talia demonstrated
over time.
Preservice Year. A government major, Talia taught U.S. history and sociology during her student teaching. Instead of a typical student teaching placement,
Talia was a paid intern at a local high school. This meant that before university
classes began in the fall, she was the teacher of record for three classes and had
to plan and teach every day without support or reprieve. In addition she had to
complete coursework for three university classes each semester. Although she had
a mentor teacher, Talia saw him primarily during her planning period because he
taught at the same time she did. In interviews she regularly reported feeling overwhelmed in the first semester of the preservice year and almost quit the program
because she did not feel she could do a good job in her coursework and her student teaching at the same time. Part of the challenge was the chaotic nature of
her school and her lack of experience with classroom management. We focus on
her lesson plans and thinking from her methods coursework and U.S. history field
placement.
TABLE 2
Where Talia Exhibited Particular Aspects of Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching
History Over Time
Talia
Preservice Program
Coursework
Interview
Representing history
Transforming history
Attending to students
ideas about history
Framing history
None observed
Classroom teaching
None observed
Year 1
Year 2
Not applicable
Not applicable
ideas about history
None observed
None observed
ideas about history
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Representing history. Talia constructed lessons for her methods course that
represented history in authentic ways, pairing analytical questions with relevant
documentary evidence. This interpretive approach to history came through in
a lesson on the causes of U.S. involvement in the Korean War that contrasted
speeches by President Truman with a textbook excerpt on the topic. In another
lesson, Talia compared a 1965 State Department paper with a 1971 John Kerry
speech (on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War) to highlight the influence
of authors experiences and beliefs on their opinions about the Vietnam War. Her
lesson modeled the process of sourcing documents and the concept of perspective.
We never saw her teach either of these lessons; instead, the U.S. history classes we
observed included a lecture about the causes of imperialism and McCarthyism and
an analysis of a single document in each lesson to illustrate the ideas in the lecture.
Thus, the U.S. history classes we observed her teach during her preservice year
offered one way of interpreting these topics; in contrast, her methods coursework
offered multiple perspectives and opportunities for student inquiry.
Transforming history. Talia skillfully transformed history for students in her
methods coursework, and this knowledge became evident again during her second
year of full-time teaching. For her methods lesson plan on the causes of the Korean
War, Talia included a graphic organizer with prompts for students to consider
the author and date, causes suggested by the author, and specific evidence of the
causes in each document. She also shortened each document, adapted some of
the complex language, and added a head note to introduce each document. When
she practiced this lesson in her methods class, she did not model what to do with
the documents, but her reflection and revision included modeling how to use the
graphic organizer to guide students through the documents and to consider key
aspects of the documents. In her revision she also added a short background video
and map because she realized during the practice session that students might not
have the necessary background knowledge to make sense of the documents.
Attention to students ideas. Similarly, when prompted, Talia attended to
her students ideas, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and how she might
assist them. Talia explained that her students struggled with reading and analyzing documents. She told us, When they are looking at documents . . . they dont
understand who wrote it and why they wrote it and just take it for what it is.
They take it for fact. To assist her students, Talia told us that she developed a
rhythm for looking at documents. Always look at who wrote it and stop and
think how could that influence the document. Always look at the date. When was
that? Talia explained that she began to incorporate this type of guided practice
in her preservice year and felt that it improved students analysis of historical
documents. Despite demonstrating this ability to attend to student thinking in
interviews, Talia struggled with this in the classroom, where she regularly used
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whole-class instruction. Classroom interactions often involved Talia presenting

information to students, asking questions about factual information, expecting
specific answers, and providing additional information and explanation. In these
cases, Talia typically did not probe students responses or ask follow-up questions.
Framing history. Talia also had difficulty applying her knowledge of how to
frame history, even though she framed history well for her methods coursework.
For her unit plan, Talia narrowed down a big topicthe civil rights movement of
the 1950s and 1960s in the United Statesto focus on why the movement was
successful. She organized days of instruction around four major concepts, all of
which led to the movements successes: organization, tactics, resources, and leaders. Each day of instruction focused on specific examples of one of these concepts,
and therefore each day linked to the overarching focus on why the movement
was successful. In planning this unit, Talia thought about how each day and topic
related to one another and excluded topics that did not fit with her framework
for the unit. In all, Talia demonstrated the four aspects of PCK we outline in her
methods coursework but had more difficulty putting this knowledge into practice
while student teaching.
Year 1 Teaching. Talia worked at a different school after graduation and
shifted to teaching U.S. and world history. She regularly reported feeling uncertain
and insecure this year, as in this interview excerpt: Honestly, I feel like I dont
know enough, Im still learning. I like to learn, but as Im learning, I dont know
if Im fit to teach all this stuff. In another interview she confessed, Im not very
animated and I dont seem too excited about it, because Im not that excited about
it . . . Im still trying to figure out what Im supposed to be doing in my life.
Here and in her second year we focus on lessons on the French Revolution
from her world history course, as this gave us a consistent focus in Years 1 and
2 (Talia stopped teaching U.S. history after Year 1). In her first year teaching full
time, we saw minimal evidence of the PCK she had demonstrated in her methods coursework. Her teaching that year mirrored her student teaching more than
her coursework. In her first year teaching, Talias students primarily experienced
lecture and textbook reading with questions.
Representing history. Talia represented history as fixed information and
presented the textbook, teachers notes, and primary documents as authoritative sources of the story students were to learn. For example, Talia opened the
first lesson on the French Revolution with a warm-up question that asked for
specific factual information (i.e., What are the three Estates?), followed by a
lecture focused on specific events leading up to the French Revolution. Talia used
PowerPoint for the lectures we observed in her first year and typed up the notes
as she shared them. Afterward students individually answered comprehension
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questions about a political cartoon in the textbook and then listed causes of the
French Revolution using the textbook.
Transforming history. On the second day, Talia continued to represent history as fixed information and did not demonstrate the same level of skill in
transforming history. The lesson included a lecture about events during the French
Revolution, a primary account of the execution of Louis XVI, and a matching
exercise that paired terms with their appropriate descriptions. In introducing the
primary document, Talia reminded students to look at the source and date first,
but she never returned to this information as key to assessing the document as a
whole. Instead, the document was used at face value. After looking at the source
information, Talia asked her students to underline any reactions to the execution.
The reading (which focused on one persons reaction to Louis XVIs execution)
was more an enrichment activity that gave depth to the story they studied than an
activity that was centrally tied to the goals of the lesson or used for analysis. This
reading was a part of the ancillary material for the textbook, covered one entire
page with two columns of text, and included three questions focused on gathering
factual information (e.g., How did Louis XVI respond as he faced execution?).
Talia used historical documents sparingly during her first year of full-time teaching, and when she did, she offered little support for students to read successfully
or learn the skills of historical analysis.
Talias practices were consistent with her goals for this unit. At the end of this
unit, she shared the following:
I definitely wanted them to think about why the French Revolution could have
started. Mainly the causes and then analyze Napoleons role in that, his impact and
a lot of the ideas of the French Revolution like fraternity and liberty and all those
ideas that have to do with the Enlightenment so thats the major theme . . . But I
didnt think about I want them to be able to be better sourcers or contextualizers.
My main goal was to keep on using primary sources and have [students] be able to
break them down and understand them.
When asked why she valued primary sources, she said, Because the textbook
can be very dry and not offer students multiple perspectives. But she did not do
very much to support students analysis of primary sources because, she reported,
this unit was a little more makeshift. At the end of the first year she explained
that when she had used primary sources she had used them more like a textbook
than as an opportunity for analysis: I kind of deferred to using primary sources
for reading but not for researching or to take a step back and do the historical
thinking. We used it like a textbook reading, even though it was a primary source.
She cited a lack of planning time as the main cause and deplored her inability to
plan ahead and think through a unit of study before teaching it.
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Attention to students ideas. Although Talia did not attend to students

ideas about history during our observations, she began to do so at the end of her
first year of teaching during interviews. In one lesson, Talia missed the opportunity to probe one students thinking and prior knowledge about King Louis
XVI and use it to get her students to think about Louis and the revolution more
deeply. As students were copying notes from a PowerPoint presentation and Talia
explained the information on the slides, one student said, I was reading his biography and he did try to help the people but he was a weak leader. Talia did not
respond to the student but moved to the next slide. However, when we asked Talia
to share her thinking about her students performance on an assessment, she noted
several weaknesses and said,
I dont understand because it seems so easy, but I guess its because its a rote memorization thing and they dont have a connection . . . If they read about the political,
social, and economic causes in the textbook they just have to memorize that, but if
they are figuring it out by looking at three primary sources, then they will learn it
more . . . I definitely would change a lot of things if I did it again.
In reflecting on student work she connected the kinds of activities they had
been engaged in to students performance and suggested an alternative that might
better support students learning. Talia began to connect student performance to
her teaching and thought about future changes she could make to improve their
work.
Framing history. Talia did not have an overarching goal or understanding
that she wanted students to learn in studying the French Revolution. Instead, as
each day focused on a different aspect of the French Revolution without clearly
connecting one day to another or connecting each day to an overarching idea.
Year 2 Teaching. Talia made a conscious decision during the summer after
Year 1 to develop her teaching and put in the effort she felt was required to teach
well. In the fall she said,
I made a decision earlier in the summer that I need to try to put more effort into
what Im doing and not just get like bogged down by the daily grind of things. If I
make time I can make it. It wont be perfect this year, I think it will take a few more
years to make it really nice. I wanted to try harder. I had to just sit down and make
that decision to be a teacher that works hard. . . . I think the whole [preservice and
first-year] experience was a whirlwind. I didnt value a lot of what we learned in
school because I was just trying to make it. . . . now that I was over all my issues
about insecurities in the classroom . . . I decided Im over that now and Im going to
tackle the strategies and focus on instruction, making it better, more coherent.
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Although Talia felt that she had further to go in teaching history effectively, a
more positive attitude replaced the persistent doubts she had felt in her preservice
and first year. Talia reported fewer obstacles to teaching history and several
times remarked how motivating it was to have a student teacher that year. Talias
teaching was also more reminiscent of her methods coursework.
Representing and transforming history. The lessons we observed consistently represented history as an interpretive discipline rooted in analysis of
historical artifacts. In these lessons, Talia effectively transformed history by crafting materials and lessons that supported students as they learned the skills of
analysis. We observed the same French Revolution unit in Year 2 and report
comparisons here.
After asking students what might cause the French to overthrow an unjust government, Talia opened the French Revolution unit by saying, Were going to
try to figure out whats going on in France. She projected a picture of Marie
Antoinettes and Louis XVIs heads cut off and the warm-up question: Why
would people want to cut off their heads? She then gave a brief background
lecture about social class differences in pre-revolutionary France and analyzed a
political cartoon that characterized these differences together with the class (i.e., a
man labeled Third Estate carries men labeled First Estate and Second Estate
on his back). This was the same cartoon she used in the first year, but this time
instead of using textbook questions and individual work, Talia guided the class
to connect the cartoon to the background information on social class that she just
shared. She asked, Why is this old person who is representing the Third Estate
carrying A and B on his back? (A and B were the labels for the two other men
in the picture.) The majority of the lesson focused on understanding the causes of
the French Revolution using six documents and a graphic organizer. Talia modeled how to read and analyze one document together with students. She said, Ill
go through my thinking with you and you pay attention so you can do it on your
own. Then students worked in pairs, and finally they discussed their findings as a
class. The texts included two primary documents, one historians monograph, one
excerpt from the PBS website, and two textbook excerpts. The second day was
similar.
In her second year, Talia compiled primarily non-textbook readings in sets that
were thematically linked by an inquiry question (e.g., What caused the French to
overthrow their government?). She appeared to be less dependent on the textbook. Documents conveyed different perspectives or causes in response to an
inquiry question. Document analysis was more focused on historical concepts
such as causation or perspective than on mastering specific information. Students
spent the majority of their time on these activities in the first 2 days, and these document analysis activities appeared to address the main goals of each lesson. Talia
facilitated document analysis by modeling what she wanted students to do with
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the documents and then guiding their analysis with specific prompts or questions.
The readings were all edited for length (i.e., each was one third to one fourth of
a page each) and for readability (i.e., Talia defined terms in parentheses such as
maxim [motto]). Talias warm-ups also focused more on ideas as well as on getting students thinking and interested (why . . . ) rather than asking informational
questions (what was . . . ).
Talia connected the idea of multiple documents with helping her students recognize historys interpretive nature and divergent perspectives on the past. In her
shift to teaching about perspectives and using multiple documents, she noted,
I think the documents, when I have more than one document, helps them see that I
can make an opinion out of this, oh there are different perspectives, its not just the
textbook. I can look at different perspectives and make a conclusion about it. Its not
set in stone. When I use the different documents they understand that.
She went on to connect why looking at the authorship of documents might help
her students understand the multiple causes of the French Revolution. She also
reflected on her work with documents as she looked at the artifacts from her Year
1 lessons and noted,
Im noticing also that usually in [Year 1] we only used one primary source document
for each day, so I actually remember thisthe execution of Louis and one primary
source. They arent really comparing anything and looking at different accounts of
what happened and reasons, they are just looking at one reason. And then it skips to
something else like a map analysis.
Not only could she see flaws in her teaching after Year 1, but she also had a clearer
vision for teaching history in Year 2.
Comparing Talias use of class time in Years 1 and 2 highlights the changes
in her representations and transformations of history. We found that of the days
we observed in Year 1, Talia spent 70 min on lecture, 62 min on reading, 77 min
on writing short answers or textbook-based worksheet responses, and 10 min on
warm-ups. In Year 2, however, Talia spent 20 min on lecture, 80 min on reading,
0 min on short answers or textbook-based worksheets, 15 min on writing extended
responses, 55 min on simulation, and 35 min on warm-ups. In other words, students spent more time actively working to make sense of the content with support
in Year 2 and less time passively receiving knowledge.
Attention to students ideas. Talia also demonstrated greater attention to
students ideas than in the first year. This type of responsiveness coincided with
her increased focus on historical thinking. On the last day of our observations,
Talia focused on Europe after Napoleon by giving groups time to prepare and
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role-play one country in the process of creating a peace plan in a simulation about
the Congress of Vienna. Each group represented the perspective of one of the
countries at the Congress of Vienna, and as she walked from group to group,
we heard Talia say things like, But you are Prussia. What did Napoleon and
France do to you? Thats what you should think about and What would happen if you punished France too severely? She continued to encourage them to
think about the perspective of the country they represented and how what happened to them might influence what they wanted to happen as a result of the
Congress of Vienna. Instead of relying on students summaries of what happened
as she had in Year 1, she listened to students thinking and prompted them with
questions.
Framing history. Lastly, in Year 2 Talia framed the history presented within
each lesson more coherently, but she still did not frame history coherently across
lessons. Talia searched for documents from a wide range of sources and selected
documents that fit with her purposes on any given day. She had demonstrated this
skill in her preservice year but not in Year 1. This meant that in her second year,
each individual lesson was more coherent and centered on a specific goal, even if
the individual lessons taken together did not build to an overarching understanding. At the end of her preservice year she created a year-long plan for a U.S.
history course that focused on overarching objectives, including understanding
social change and recognizing multiple perspectives. By the end of her second
year, she had not developed similar overarching goals for world history.
Gabrielle
Gabrielles PCK grew in a more linear fashion. When we consider the context
of her learningincluding having a field placement that was aligned with the
focus of university coursework, having background knowledge in and teaching
world history only in her first 3 years, and remaining at the same school after
graduationthe consistent growth in her trajectory makes sense. Because aspects
of her PCK emerged in her preservice year and continued to be evident in subsequent years, we focus this section on establishing the PCK evident in her
preservice year and Year 1 and then sharing changes we noted in Year 2. Table 3
presents a visual summary of the PCK Gabrielle demonstrated over time.
Preservice Year. Gabrielle majored in European history and taught world
history throughout the time we observed her. Her student teaching was characterized by observation and periodic teaching in the fall followed by daily teaching in
the winter and spring. Her mentor encouraged her to use ideas from her methods
course in her student teaching and observed and gave feedback when Gabrielle
taught. Sometimes the mentor coached Gabrielle during the lesson, and other
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TABLE 3
Where Gabrielle Exhibited Particular Aspects of Pedagogical Content Knowledge for
Teaching History Over Time
Gabrielle
Coursework
Interview
Classroom teaching
Preservice Program
Year 1
Year 2
ideas about history
Framing history
None observed
Not applicable
Not applicable
ideas about history
ideas about history
ideas about history
ideas about history
Framing history
ideas about history
Framing history
times they debriefed after the lesson. There was a great deal of overlap between
Gabrielles field experience as a student teacher and her methods coursework.
Gabrielle used most of the assignments she created for her methods course.
Representing history. Gabrielle demonstrated her knowledge of content
and teaching from early in her preservice year and continued to do so through
her second year of teaching. For her first methods course lesson plan, Gabrielle
constructed a lesson using two primary sources to teach her students to contextualize evidence. She paired Martin Luthers 95 Theses with a report from an observer
of Johann Tetzel to get into the contemporary issue of selling indulgences (pardons for sins) as a motivation for Luthers protest. A central questionWhy did
Luther write the 95 Theses?anchored the lesson, which she used with her students. She crafted similar lessons for the remainder of her methods coursework
and continued to put many of them into practice.
Transforming history. Gabrielle modeled expert thinking with documents
during her preservice year. For example, she used the Luther text to help students
understand the widespread Church practice of selling indulgences that Luther so
vehemently opposed. While Gabrielle modeled sourcing as a reading strategy by
thinking aloud, she noted the authors word selection when she said, Eternally
damnedthat sounds seriouswhat does he mean? A student responded by
saying, He wants to be taken seriously. Gabrielle responded by reinforcing the
notion of understanding the authors interests when reading a text. She said, We
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want to keep asking why, why, why is he saying this. Then she explicitly modeled
contextualization and guided students as they practiced with a second document.
Attention to students ideas. Although Gabrielle identified important
aspects of students thinking in course assignments, she inconsistently responded
to students thinking during the classes we observed. In one methods assignment,
Gabrielle asked a student to think aloud while reading two contrasting texts about
the Montgomery bus boycott. She noticed that her student did not understand that
the two documents presented two interpretations of the same event, nor did he
see that two different authors wrote these documents. In response to his reading,
Gabrielle devised an instructional plan to improve his historical analysis. During
one observation, Gabrielle discussed Martin Luthers 95 Theses with her students
and explained that Luthers language hints at his feelings about the Pope. She
pointed out his use of words and phrases like damned and burnt to ashes. Yet when
one of her students asked, So basically he was threatening the Pope? Gabrielle
moved on to the next part of her lesson without responding. During other lessons,
we observed Gabrielle respond to students ideas, but she tended to use stock
phrases such as How do you know? instead of responding more directly to the
content in students ideas.
Framing history. When Gabrielle wrote a unit plan on World War II for her
spring methods class, she struggled to adapt the districts curriculum to fit with
her goals and maintain a focus on developing students understanding of key ideas.
Her first draft included several lectures in a row without opportunities to process or
link information. She reported feeling that she needed to include so many lectures
because there would be no other way to cover the information specified in the
standards in such a short time. After some discussion and feedback, Gabrielle
found a way to organize the unit around key conceptual understandings such as
the roles of nationalism, economic crisis, and foreign policy in allowing Germany
to advance as far as it did. She began the unit with the Holocaust because she knew
her students were interested in the topic and had some background knowledge.
Then she organized the remainder of the unit around a series of inquiry activities
to help students develop an understanding of how such death and destruction came
to pass.
Year 1 Teaching. Gabrielle was fortunate to continue teaching the same
courses at the same school after she graduated. Her mentor, someone Gabrielle
valued and respected, also continued to work at the same school, and Gabrielle
regularly checked in with her for advice. In Years 1 and 2 we observed Gabrielle
teach a unit that included the French Revolution as well as other Atlantic
Revolutions. We report here on her approach to this unit in Year 1 and later
compare this to her approach to the same unit in Year 2.
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Representing history. Gabrielles general approach to teaching history as

interpretation based on analysis of documentary evidence continued throughout
her first and second years as a full-time teacher. To kick off a lesson on absolutism in her first year, Gabrielle discussed a portrait of Louis XIV of France
and then walked through a speech by King James I to Parliament written in
1610. The ensuing discussion included the fact that the views of Parliament, as
well as the citizens of England, were missing, making the document limited as
a source for understanding the nature of absolutism. To compensate for this limitation, Gabrielle gave her students four other documents, each with additional
perspectives on absolutism. She then told her students that it was their turn to read
and annotate the documents. Then she asked students to compare this speech to
other documents from the time period that represented different perspectives on
absolutism. Students worked on documents in groups, and then they debriefed as
a whole class. Gabrielle brought the discussion to a close by explaining to the
students, What I want you to think about is that there might be some different
perspectives based on who you are. This lesson set the stage for an exploration
of the causes of the French Revolution.
Transforming history. During this lesson, Gabrielle modeled how to source
and recognize perspectives using the speech from King James I. She modeled
how to notice the author, audience, purpose, and missing perspectives evident in
the speech by asking questions aloud. Gabrielle directed her students attention to
the speech and asked, Who is this speech for? She then pointed to the source
attribution on the board, highlighted the word Parliament, and wrote audience
next to it. Gabrielle asked, What is the purpose of this document? Is it public or
private? Students responded that it would be public because it was delivered to
Parliament. She then proceeded to read the document aloud, stopping frequently
to highlight, underline, and circle words and phrases. She told students that they
should also identify words or ideas in the document that they found interesting,
that they had questions about, or that would help them understand the idea of an
absolute ruler. After the James I speech, Gabrielle gave her students repeated practice in recognizing perspectives, as that was a major focus for the unit. Gabrielles
documents were always shortened and sometimes modified to address students
literacy needs. She also regularly used guiding questions or graphic organizers to
direct students attention while reading. Gabrielle often asked students to work
in pairs and groups so that students had opportunities to share ideas and support
one anothers reading, but she did not always manage the groups or structure their
time together so that students could work productively together.
Attention to students ideas. In her first year of teaching, Gabrielle continued to recognize students thinking in their assignments and grew in her ability to
respond to their thinking in class. Gabrielle told us that one of her goals was for
her students to be able to recognize perspective and understand how an authors
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perspective might influence his or her thinking. She explained that students were
still struggling with getting beyond identifying the author, and she shared an
example from a recent assessment. Students were given a document by Simon
Bolivar explaining his views about Spanish laws and were asked to explain how
his background may have influenced those views. The document included a head
note with information about Bolivar and his background. Gabrielle explained to
us that although most of her students were able to identify the author (Bolivar),
they had a difficult time explaining how his background may have played a part
in his assessment of Spanish laws. She noted that most students missed the fact
that he was an Enlightenment thinker and therefore would have viewed Spanish
laws through the lens of Enlightenment thinking. Some students did note, however, that he was of Creole descent and that this aspect of his background might
have influenced how he thought about Spanish laws. Gabrielle acknowledged that
these students were thinking in the right ways and that she could build upon that
type of thinking in order to help them understand perspective.
During class we observed Gabrielle challenge and explore students thinking most often when students analyzed historical documents in groups. When
Gabrielles students worked in groups to analyze documents, which occurred
almost every time we observed her class, she walked around the room and discussed students responses with them. She often asked questions like How do you
know? or What is your evidence for that? Because Gabrielle organized most
of her classes in pairs or small groups, she spent a lot of time circulating among
students. She typically listened to what students were saying and then responded
with general prompts to push students thinking or to redirect off-task behavior.
Framing history. Although perspective recognition was one piece of the
district-mandated assessment at the end of this unit, the final assessment also
focused on how global interaction changed the early modern world. As a result,
students were only partially prepared for the final unit assessment. Beyond
perspective recognition, little else bound this unit together. The first day on absolutism clearly linked to the next day on the causes of the French Revolution.
However, subsequent days each focused on a different event within the French
Revolution without clarifying the relationships between events. Chronological
sequence was the underlying logic of the units organization, but each lesson was
distinct and did not explain why, for example, King Louiss rule preceded the
Reign of Terror or why Napoleons rule followed the Reign of Terror. Instead,
Gabrielle presented seemingly disparate events with no clear connections to
each other beyond their association as part of the French Revolution. Although
individual lessons offered opportunities for inquiry and practicing perspective
recognition, there were no visible links between the events covered in each lesson, and the aggregate of the lessons did not portray a clear picture of the French
Revolution or point to an overarching concept.
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Finally, the students only investigated the French Revolution. Gabrielle told us
that she had originally planned to teach the French Revolution and revolutions in
Latin America because she thought the Glorious Revolution was too complicated
and she did not know enough about the Haitian Revolution to teach it well. She
acknowledged that the French Revolution was also complicated, but she felt the
students would find it interesting, especially the use of the guillotine. The revolutions in Latin America, in contrast, offered a more straightforward discussion
of how people rose up and got their freedom. In the end, time became a factor,
so she decided to look more in depth at one revolution rather than only pieces
of multiple revolutions. Although the curriculum allowed teachers the freedom
to discuss as many or as few revolutions as they wished, the main focus was
intended to be on the influence the Enlightenment had on the revolutions and
the different outcomes. Gabrielle explained to us before she began teaching the
unit that the big idea goal is the Enlightenment influenced the revolutions and
the revolutions ousted these absolute rulers. Thats really what you want them to
get at the end. Thats like my big idea. However, Gabrielle only referred to the
Enlightenment or to Enlightenment thinkers in passing on the first 2 days, leading
us to question whether students would be able to make the connection between
the Enlightenment and the revolution. In an interview after the unit, she too questioned her approach to this unit. She reported that students did not understand
the bigger picture of the Enlightenment and general ideas about revolutions; she
resolved to change her approach for the following year.
Year 2 Teaching
In her second year, Gabrielles lessons continued to consistently call for analysis
and historical thinking (e.g., perspective recognition, sourcing, contextualizing)
and provided students with the materials to engage in such thinking. Students
investigated questions using sources relevant to those questions with support to
pay attention to particular aspects of the sources. These lessons represented history as an interpretive discipline that rests on questions and evidence, and these
lessons transformed history so that this work was accessible to students. In many
ways, then, our portrait of Gabrielle in Year 2 is stable; however, her practice and
thinking grew tremendously in two areas of PCK: her attention to students ideas
and her framing of history. To illustrate these changes we return to the unit on the
French and Atlantic Revolutions.
Gabrielle began the unit on revolutions in much the same way as she had the
previous year. The main focus was on absolutism and analyzing documents for
perspective. In fact, she used the same picture of Louis XIV and the same speech
by James I along with modeling and practice in close analysis of historical sources.
She also asked the students to read and analyze additional documents from other
perspectives to get a more complete picture of absolutism. However, at that point,
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her lessons went in a very different direction from the previous year. Instead of
looking at documents explaining the causes of the French Revolution and remaining focused on different events in the French Revolution, Gabrielle asked her class
to think about the Enlightenment, the major philosophers associated with it, and
how Enlightenment ideas might influence those who lived in an absolute monarchy. After that, she gave students opportunities to learn about and compare the
influence of Enlightenment thought in various Atlantic Revolutions.
Attention to students ideas. We saw growth in attending to students
thinking when Gabrielle worked with students on their writing in her second
year. Gabrielle extended the modeling of skills to writing arguments in history
and provided students with tools to develop their own interpretations. After students completed their analysis of the revolutions, Gabrielle prepared them to write
an essay about the extent to which Enlightenment ideas influenced the revolutions.
She discussed making generalizations about the revolutions and their results and
the need to use evidence to support them, as well as how to turn them into thesis
statements. She distributed the essay prompt (from the district curriculum), which
asked, Why did global interaction change the early modern world? and gave
students a rubric, a checklist of what makes a strong thesis, and a series of questions to help them write the body paragraphs of their essay. In her instruction and
modeling she highlighted the process of drawing conclusions based on evidence,
writing a strong thesis, and writing body paragraphs. Students then had an opportunity to practice with her guidance. She circulated among students, noticed when
they struggled, and provided the class with the additional scaffold of a sentence
starter while also meeting individually with students.
After students drafted a thesis, individuals shared their conclusions and
Gabrielle gave direct feedback in a whole-class setting. These back-and-forth
exchanges focused on students thesis statements, the thinking behind them, and
students written expression. Gabrielle encouraged students to look at all the evidence you have and try to categorize it. Youre looking for patterns; youre looking
for categories and themes. In this feedback, Gabrielle tried to help students organize their essays around ideas and concepts rather than reporting information
chronologically. With each student she offered feedback that was specific to his
or her thesis. In reflecting on this lesson, Gabrielle shared that students struggled
with writing a thesis statement. She thought that little exposure to thesis writing
might have been a problem, saying, Maybe they dont do it as much as I think.
She said she tried to help students think about it in terms of writing an argument.
She thought that students knew the information but needed help with putting their
ideas into coherent sentences and paragraphs.
Framing history. With the help of her districts curriculum, Gabrielle completely reframed the revolutions unit so that it gave students a broader view of
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political revolutions of this era and aligned more directly with her assessment.
After starting the unit by focusing on absolutism as she had in Year 1, Gabrielle
shifted to focus on the Atlantic Revolutions instead of only the French Revolution.
On the second day of this unit in Year 2, Gabrielle divided the students into
groups and gave each group a series of documents pertaining to one of the
Atlantic Revolutions, including the Glorious Revolution, the French Revolution,
the American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution, and
revolutions in South America. She told students that they were to determine the
causes of the revolutions; the common complaints against the ruling government;
and what influence, if any, the Enlightenment had on the revolution. As with previous group activities, Gabrielle walked around the room as students worked,
prompting them with questions such as Did we see a lot of Enlightenment
thought in your document? and Was revolution inevitable? What could have
stopped these revolutions from happening? The class concluded with a discussion of citizens complaints in the various revolutions. During the next two
classes, students worked in groups to read and analyze sources related to one of
the revolutions and then shared what they had learned with the entire class.
On the fifth day of the unit, Gabrielle prompted her students by saying, I want
you to start thinking about what makes a revolution revolutionary. How much
change would have to take place for you to consider it very revolutionary? After
a brief discussion about the definition of revolutionary, Gabrielle passed out packets, which she identified as Enlighten-o-meters. For each revolution, students
were to identify who complained about the government, identify what their complaints were, and link the causes to Enlightenment ideals by rating how much
influence the Enlightenment had on the causes of the revolutions. Students made
similar ratings for the results of the revolutions in concert with reading the constitutions that resulted from the various revolutions, evaluating the results on a scale
from No Enlightenment to Partial Enlightenment to Full Enlightenment.
Students read the constitutions that were to determine who benefitted most from
the revolution and who was left out of the new government. Gabrielle posted several large pieces of chart paper around the room, each with the name of one of
the revolutions on it as well as a line across the paper. On one end of the line was
Not Much Changed and on the other end was Very Revolutionary! At each
paper there were packets of documents and stickers. Students then voted on the
revolutionary nature of each revolution by placing a sticker along the line on the
chart paper.
In her second year, Gabrielle successfully worked with her district curriculum
and assessment to teach a unit of study on the Atlantic Revolutions that reflected
one big idea. The overarching purpose of understanding the influence of the
Enlightenment on the Atlantic Revolutions came across clearly each day, and each
day was clearly linked to the next. After looking at the weaknesses of absolutism,
students analyzed different revolutions and looked for evidence of Enlightenment
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thought in initial protests and the final product (i.e., new constitutions). Although
Gabrielle continued to focus on perspective and the analysis of historical sources,
she emphasized the links between the revolutions and the Enlightenment much
more this year. She also concentrated on the causes and the results of the revolutions, focusing far less on the events that made up any one revolution. Students
learned about one revolution in some detail, but they also learned about the aspects
that were common across revolutions. This focus was aligned with the final assessment, and Gabrielle felt that the unit went much better the second year based on
students performance on the assessment.
When asked why she made the changes, Gabrielle explained, This year I
wanted to teach it more holistically . . . I didnt really care if they knew the
details. She wanted to focus on continuing with using documents, using evidence to support their opinions, while in terms of content her focus was on
leaders and causes . . . were they influenced by other revolutions or ideas. She
hoped that if she taught the revolutions more holistically, the students would better
be able to achieve the goal of learning how and to what degree the Enlightenment
influenced the revolutions. Furthermore, Gabrielle cited time as a factor in her
ability to make changes. She pointed out that the previous year she had not
received the new curriculum until a few days before school began. This year,
however, she was able to plan over the summer, and she realized that what she
had done with the French Revolution didnt really get at the content objectives,
which is getting at the big picture. She continued,
With [Year 1] they learned the French Revolution really well and they knew a lot
about it at the end . . . but at the end it just ended up having to be me telling them
what the generalizations were rather than them being able to see for themselves.
I like [Year 2] better.
From Year 1 to Year 2, then, we saw a shift in Gabrielles practice from indepth activities on multiple document sets, often with little connection from day
to day, to a more coherent approach using documents to build understanding of an
overarching concept.
DISCUSSION
Our description of each teachers practices and our organization of their practices
according to PCK component in the findings address our first research question
(i.e., what do the components of PCK look like in these novices practice?).
In Table 4 we also summarize the kinds of pedagogical practices that we associated with the enactment of each component of PCKboth general practices
that we derived from the literature in Table 1 and specific examples from each
novices teaching. We now turn to our remaining research questions.
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Use an activity or task structure that allows for inquiry or

interpretive thinking
Select documents that are generative and suited to the goals and
topic of the lesson
Craft inquiry questions to guide historical analysis of
documents
Identify multiple documents that work together and with the
inquiry
Ask questions that call for analysis and historical thinking
Model the analysis of documents to make expert thinking

visible
Guide students analysis using questions, graphic organizers,
feedback, etc.
Model and guide the overall process of writing as well as
particular skills associated with writing history
Use organizational structures that give students opportunities to
rely on one another for support as they investigate
Shorten and edit documents so that they are manageable for
students
Transform history
Examples of Pedagogical Practices Associated With Each

Aspect of PCK for Teaching History (Derived From the
Literature Cited in Table 1)
Represent history
PCK for Teaching

History
(Continued)
Talia projected an image of Marie Antoinettes and Louis

XVIs heads cut off and asked the question Why would
people want to cut off their heads? Then students
examined a document set she compiled that illustrated
different perspectives about the causes of the French
Revolution. (Year 2)
Gabrielle selected two documents and crafted the central
inquiry question Why did Luther write the 95 Theses?
The documents were significant historically and generative,
given the focus of the inquiry. She also excerpted the
documents so that they were appropriate for students
reading levels. (Preservice)
Talia guided students analysis of a political cartoon with
questions such as Why is this old person, who is
representing the Third Estate, carrying A and B on his
back? Then she guided students analysis of a document
set with a graphic organizer focused on gathering evidence
of different causes of the French Revolution. (Year 2)
Gabrielle modeled sourcing and contextualizing with Martin
Luthers 95 Theses and then guided students as they
practiced with a companion document. (Preservice)
Practices From Talias and Gabrielles Teaching That

Indicate Each Aspect of PCK for Teaching History
TABLE 4
Aspects of PCK for Teaching History and the Pedagogical Practices That Indicate Them
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Select topics to include in lessons that are historically

significant and thematically related
Select topics for instruction and explicitly link them, making
causeeffect relationships apparent
Link individual days of instruction so that each day builds
toward an overarching conceptual understanding
Link individual days of instruction to unit goals and assessment
Select and adapt the given curriculum, making choices about
how to organize, present, and modify it
Frame history
Note. PCK = pedagogical content knowledge.
Notice students disciplinary thinking

Identify and build on students prior experiences to facilitate
new learning
Recognize strengths and weaknesses in students thinking,
particularly what is easy and what is difficult for them in
learning a topic or skill related to their discipline
Revise or redirect teaching to support students learning of
disciplinary concepts and ways of thinking
Examples of Pedagogical Practices Associated With Each

Aspect of PCK for Teaching History (Derived From the
Literature Cited in Table 1)
Attend to
students ideas
about history
PCK for Teaching

History
TABLE 4
(Continued)
In an interview, Talia noticed that her students struggled with

analyzing documents, particularly recognizing authorship,
and tended to see documents as factual. She talked about
using a protocol to prompt students to look at the author
and date of documents and to use this information when
interpreting sources. (Preservice)
In the classroom, Gabrielle listened to her students share
drafts of their theses, gave individual feedback on how to
improve specific thesis statements, gave whole-class
feedback about how to create an argumentative thesis, and
provided a strategy (sentence starters) to help students do
this. (Year 2)
In coursework, Talia selected and organized content for a unit
on the civil rights movement so that each day built upon the
next and contributed to an understanding of the movements
success. (Preservice)
In teaching, Gabrielle focused the revolutions unit on
understanding the influence of Enlightenment thought on
Atlantic Revolutions. Each day of the unit worked toward
an understanding of that overarching concept. (Year 2)
Practices From Talias and Gabrielles Teaching That

Indicate Each Aspect of PCK for Teaching History
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Enacting Components of PCK

These case studies illustrate the particular aspects of PCK that Talia and Gabrielle
drew on as they learned to teach history: representing history, transforming history, attending to students ideas about history, and framing history. These aspects
of PCK are germane to the teaching of history and reflect major aspects of PCK
framed by Shulman (1986) and Ball et al. (2008).
Of the four components, attending to students ideas about history and framing history were the most challenging for Talia and Gabrielle in the classroom.
This could have resulted as much from the nature of the methods course as anything else; however, further research is necessary to define trajectories in teachers
development and enactment of PCK as well as to identify which aspects of PCK
are most crucial for new teachers. For now, we can use the data from this study to
explore further these two more challenging aspects of PCK.
Both Talia and Gabrielle demonstrated many aspects of PCK during their
preservice coursework. For example, for her last methods course, Talia developed a unit of study on the civil rights movement in U.S. history that linked
days together so that they built toward a coherent set of understandings; crafted
individual lessons that represented history as inquiry; selected, edited, and scaffolded documents so that they were accessible to students; and offered cognitive
modeling of how to read historical documents. Gabrielle developed a unit on
World War II with many of the same features for this course.
By year 2, Gabrielle attended to her students ideas when she listened to or read
students draft theses and offered specific ideas in response to help students further
shape their theses. She not only gave individualized feedback focused on particular issues in any one students thesis but she also gave whole-class feedback that
highlighted solutions to common problems students had in constructing theses.
Furthermore, she shared a strategy with the whole classa sentence starterto
address the common challenge in writing argumentative theses. At its core, attending to students ideas about history is about formative assessment, feedback, and
other pedagogical responses to the information gathered about students. In her
preservice and first year, we observed Gabrielle use stock phrases such as How
do you know? to respond to students thinking. We included this as an example
of attending to students ideas about history because Gabrielle took up a students
idea and responded to it, what Nystrand and Gamoran (1991) called uptake.
Ideally, however, a teachers response would be more specific to the substance or
topic of the comment rather than generic and therefore, presumably, more supportive of a students growth. Noticing the substance of what a student says or does
in retrospect (e.g., in an interview or reflective assignment) is one part of attending to students ideas about history. Both Talia and Gabrielle were able to notice
key qualities of their students thinking in structured assignments or in settings in
which they had the space to reflect during their preservice year. However, attending to students ideas well involves crafting a pedagogical response to follow up
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on that thinking. And this may be precisely what makes this aspect of PCK so
challenging. Whereas representing and transforming history can be enacted in
the materials a teacher prepares ahead of time, attending to students ideas well
requires a teacher to enact this knowledge in the classroom while simultaneously
making numerous other decisions.
Framing history, in contrast, could be enacted as a teacher plans and prepares
a unit of study; however, teachers may necessarily struggle with framing because
of the very nature of history. History allows one to explain the past differently and
to justify a range of interpretations. Each way of organizing a unit or course of
study implicates a different interpretation of the past. And teachers must navigate
among standards, assessments, and historical scholarship to identify an approach
to framing history that works for them and their students. Chronology is one classic frame for survey courses, one that both Talia and Gabrielle used when they
focused on the French Revolution. When Gabrielle shifted to looking across the
Atlantic Revolutions for evidence of Enlightenment ideals in Year 2, she used a
thematic frame for organizing her unit. Neither approach to framing history is
necessarily better. What makes a teachers framing of history good is when the
organization of a unit (or year) of study includes explicit links between lessons
and topics and drives toward a coherent conceptual understanding. One could
argue with the way in which Gabrielle decided to frame her revolutions unit in her
second yearessentially, she sacrificed in-depth content knowledge of one topic,
the French Revolution, for investigation into an overarching idea, Enlightenment
influence on Atlantic Revolutionsbut she made a conscious choice to develop
students understanding of this overarching idea and structured her unit to build
toward that understanding. If Gabrielle or Talia had continued to teach the French
Revolution chronologically but settled on a clear underlying concept as well as
links to indicate the relationships between days of instruction or topics, they would
have framed history much more successfully. Even though Gabrielles district
gave her many of the materials she needed to frame the unit this way, she did not
use them in the first year because she reported that she did not understand how to
use their materials and approach history using this theme. Her experience suggests
that helping teachers learn to frame history is not simply about giving them materials; teachers need to understand different ways of framing history and learn how to
use materials to support different frames. And framing world history may be even
more complex than framing U.S. history, given the several possible approaches to
surveying the multiple, varied regions and developments in the world across time.
Change Over Time
Both teachers demonstrated PCK for teaching history during their preservice program. Gabrielle taught in a way consistent with her unit plan in her first year of
teaching, whereas Talia did not. Talia did not put this knowledge into practice
during her first year after preservice but drew on her PCK in her second year.
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In contrast, Gabrielle demonstrated aspects of PCK in practice in her first year

and grew in her ability to conceptualize the curriculum and topics in the second year. Over time, Talias teaching became more consistent with her preservice
work, but there was a disconnect between what she had done in coursework and
teaching. Both teachers PCK developed in their first 2 years of full-time teaching, but their starting and ending points differed. This suggests that teachers can
continue to develop PCK and learn to put this knowledge into practice in the years
after preservice. Furthermore, PCK has multiple components, and these teachers
were able to develop or enact particular components of PCK at different times.
In looking at Talias and Gabrielles work, we find that these teachers could
express PCK in different kinds of settingsin rehearsal in a university classroom,
in interviews or discussions, in enactment in a secondary classroombut they
may not have expressed PCK across all settings. In Talias case, we observed
aspects of PCK in her teaching practice in her second year that she had demonstrated in coursework and interviews earlier. It would not be surprising if PCK
were more difficult to enact in a classroom, with all of its demands and complexity. Yet this does not mean that PCK is binary (i.e., either you have it or you dont).
Rather, the extent to which a candidate develops and draws on PCK is likely mediated by other influences, and some settings (e.g., a course assignment) may make
it easier for candidates to demonstrate their PCK than other settings (e.g., teaching in ones own classroom). The PCK Talia demonstrated in constructing her first
lesson for her methods course probably did not vanish into thin air; however, she
may not have developed PCK on a deep enough level to implement it in a classroom. Both a teachers setting and the depth of his or her learning appear to be
relevant to detecting and enacting PCK.
Grossman and her colleagues (2000) suggested that novices may return to the
lessons learned in teacher education after their first year and that learning from
teacher education may not be visible in novices practice in their first year of
teaching, as they are managing a new setting and new responsibilities. More recent
work has highlighted professional preparation strategies, such as using representations of practice, decompositions of practice, and approximations of practice
to strengthen the impact of teacher education on novices enactment of ideas
and tools from teacher education (Grossman, Compton, et al., 2009). In the case
of these two teachers, preparation experiences (or lack thereof) coincided with
Gabrielles steady enactment of pedagogy that targeted disciplinary learning and
Talias intermittent enactment. Although Gabrielle and Talia had two common
methods courses, their learning experiences beyond these courses varied widely.
In particular, all of their remaining coursework was in different sections; although
the titles of the courses were the same, the focus of each section differed. Perhaps
more important, their field placements varied. Whereas Talia was the teacher of
record in a challenging, unstable school setting with a mentor who was unable
to observe her teaching, Gabrielle was in a more supportive environment with a
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mentor whose approach to teaching history was consistent with that of the university program. The opportunities to enact ideas from teacher education, alignment
between the preservice program and the field, capacity for reflection and revision,
and subject matter knowledge differed for both novices and were more supportive
of Gabrielles development of PCK for teaching history.
Opportunities to Bridge Teaching in Rehearsal to Teaching in Authentic
Settings. Talias experiences as a student teacher offered far fewer opportunities to approximate practice (Grossman, Compton, et al., 2009) and bridge
teaching in rehearsal (e.g., practicing a lesson she wrote with peers in a methods class) to teaching in authentic classroom settings (e.g., trying these ideas out
in a high school classroom). The chaotic, unsupportive environment of her student teaching placement and the intense pressure of being a teacher of record
(responsible for teaching daily) from before the start of the preservice program
took their toll on Talia. The result was that Talias preservice teaching was more
geared toward getting by, as she did not feel that she had the time to plan thoughtful lessons and try them out in a supportive environment. Although she wrote
and rehearsed strong lessons for her methods course, she chose topics that she
would teach in the spring. Her opportunities to enact these ideas in an authentic
classroom setting were limited.
In contrast, with less pressure to plan for and teach multiple classes every day
in the fall, a more engaged mentor, and a more nurturing environment, Gabrielle
had regular opportunities to approximate practice (cf. Grossman, Compton, et al.,
2009) in increasingly authentic settings. After practicing with modeling a historical reading strategy in her methods class, Gabrielle could enact this practice the
same week with a classroom full of high school students. Yet she also knew that
her mentor was there to step in to guide or help her, if needed. In both settings,
Gabrielle gained immediate feedback on how to improve and use the strategies
learned in methods with efficacy. For example, her explicit teaching of contextualizing with the Martin Luther documents right after she planned the lesson built
her understanding of how to teach particular ways of historical reading and analysis. Modeling how to read for historical meaning is a practical tool (cf. Grossman,
Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999) we saw Gabrielle use each year with different
aspects of historical reading (e.g., sourcing with the James I document). Multiple
opportunities to enact practical strategies in increasingly authentic but supportive
environments may have helped Gabrielle develop deeper knowledge and facility
with these strategies.
Comparing Gabrielles and Talias learning and use of tools from the preservice
program leads us to think that teaching in rehearsal is not the same as teaching
in authentic settings in terms of its impact on teachers learning to implement
teaching tools. However, we also believe that approximations of practice could be
built into the teacher education program more skillfully. For example, candidates
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could be required to enact a lesson with peers and then with a class of secondary
students soon afterward in order to build facility with specific tools. Likewise,
participating mentors could be prepared to coach interns on the use of the teaching
strategies emphasized by the program. In these ways the program could provide
layers of support for a candidates enactment of practical tools that go beyond
now you have support; now you dont. Such scaffolding could avoid the stark
differences between rehearsal in protected settings and enactment in authentic
settings that Talia experienced.
Alignment and Reinforcement Between the University and Field. In
addition to having regular opportunities to practice in supportive and increasingly
authentic settings, Gabrielle had teacher learning experiences that were strongly
aligned with a common approach to teaching history and thinking about students.
That is, her methods courses, field placement, and first teaching job (in the same
school) had a similar emphasis on teaching history as an interpretive discipline,
engaging in discussion and analysis, and helping students develop their historical thinking and literacy skills. And in each site Gabrielle had support from an
instructor, mentor, or colleague to develop as an educator who took this approach
to teaching history. Furthermore, in her first year of full-time teaching, Gabrielles
district published a new set of standards and curriculum for world history that
embraced historical thinking at its very core and provided extensive resources to
support this approach. Although historical thinking was not the dominant focus
among social studies colleagues at her school, Gabrielle learned to teach surrounded by a few individuals and standards that emphasized historical thinking.
Even though it was small, Gabrielle had a community that supported and guided
her learning (cf. Wenger, 1998).
Talias learning experiences were much more scattered and isolated. Her methods course stood in contrast to her field placement, the site of her first 2 years of
teaching after the preservice program, and her district standards. On the few occasions that she sat in her mentors class, Talia observed lectures. Although Talias
mentor was encouraging and supportive of her, he did not approach history as an
interpretive discipline. The standards and curriculum documents for Talias district presented history as a set of information to be covered and did not present
conceptual ties between the various pieces of information or focus on thinking
and analytical skills. Although these documents broke down what information to
cover in each lesson, the district provided few resources that teachers could use to
develop lessons on these topics. By the end of the year, Talia reported in an interview that she had tried to teach historical thinking twice during the yearboth
were parts of units she had created for her university coursework. She remarked
that she was not required to teach historical thinking in her field placement, and
her schedule gave her little time to plan. Without significant planning time she did
not feel she could teach historical thinking.
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In her first job after the preservice program, Talia and her fellow social studies
colleagues met four times per year to develop a common quarterly assessmenta
requirement of the principal. This assessment typically included a set of multiplechoice questions. Otherwise Talia was free to do what she wanted, and she worked
independently. In her second year at the same school, Talia took on a student
teacher from the same preservice program she had attended. This experience was
the only one in the field that reinforced the ideas she had learned in her methods
coursework. According to interviews, Talia enjoyed having a student teacher and
noted his positive influence on her practice: [Im] more accountable to setting a
good example. She reported having more time to plan because there was another
adult in the classroom and expressed her interest in modeling best practice. In this
same year, Talia enacted more of the ideas she learned in her preservice program.
With the exception of having a student teacher from the same program, Talias
field experiences were not aligned with the university approach to teaching history.
When she hosted a student teacher we saw significant growth in her teaching of
history.
Although Talia eventually returned to ideas from teacher education, Gabrielles
student teaching and first-year experience were more consistent with her learning from her preservice program than Talias initial experiences. This disjuncture
between student teaching, initial teaching experience, and preservice program
has been a persistent challenge in the field (cf. Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon,
1998). As Grossman, Hammerness, and colleagues (2009) have argued, this division between the field and the university in teacher education undermines teacher
learning. If universities have only 1 year in which to prepare teachers, they must
set up each learning opportunity carefully so that every opportunity builds toward
a common set of goals.
Individual Factors: Reflection and Subject Matter Knowledge. In addition to programmatic features that may have influenced these teachers development and enactment of PCK, individual factors played a role as well. Both Talia
and Gabrielle reflected on their students learning in preservice coursework and
interviews. Gabrielles field placement and teaching site created space to regularly reflect. When she was a student teacher, Gabrielles daily conversations with
her mentor focused largely on students needs, and she continued to have such
conversations with this mentor after preservice because she remained at the same
school. Talia reflected on her students learning and shared ideas about improving her instruction through guided experiences such as a course assignment or
interview, but her daily work did not have structured opportunities for reflection,
and her stress level during the preservice and first year may have precluded regular reflection. However, at the end of her first year, Talia shared that her students
were either bored or not successful. She saw working with documents as a more
engaging activity and an activity that would help students connect to the material
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and, in constructing understanding, remember it. Noticing and responding to her

students learning appeared to motivate her growth. Even though Talias field
experiences were not aligned with the universitys approach to teaching history,
her own capacity for reflection and her attention to students learning prompted
her to revisit the ideas from her teacher education program.
The capacity for reflection worked in Talias favor, but her lack of subject matter knowledge may have undermined her teaching of history. Recall that Talia was
a government major, taught a range of topics across her first 3 years in schools
(U.S. history, world history, psychology, and sociology), and always taught more
than one type of social studies course at a time. Gabrielles subject matter knowledge, developed prior to her preservice program, may have enabled her to focus
more on pedagogy while Talia focused on learning the subject. Gabrielles emphasis on European and world history was well aligned with the first 3 years of her
work in classrooms. Although she taught different levels of this course, the content focus remained stable. Gabrielles student teaching and teaching experiences
drew on and deepened her subject matter knowledge, whereas Talias teaching
experiences did not give her a chance to deepen her subject matter knowledge
in any one area. Before teacher education, figuring out the distinct subject matter understandings that facilitate teaching disciplinary thinking could help teacher
educators identify what undergraduates should accomplish in their major. During
preservice and induction, providing opportunities to deepen subject matter knowledge (rather than giving novices a new course to teach each year) may support the
development and enactment of PCK.
CONCLUSION
Thus far, research in history education focused on teacher knowledge has been
scattered. Researchers have addressed PCK periodically but without building on
one anothers work toward a coherent or integrated framework for PCK. With
this article, we try to move this conversation forward. We have specified what
PCK for teaching history might entail, synthesizing and applying past work to
these two case studies to further define PCK for this domain. Four aspects of
PCK have particular relevance for teaching history: representing history, transforming history, attending to students ideas about history, and framing history.
These cases begin to identify what PCK for teaching history involves and the specific instructional practices that illustrate the enactment of such knowledge. Talia
and Gabrielle demonstrate how two novices draw on these aspects of PCK as they
teach and show how PCK is evident in their practice.
Most history education research focuses on teachers knowledge or practices at
distinct moments in time. Instead, we tracked two novices for 3 years in order to
gain insight into new teachers development over time. These case studies suggest
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that there is a continuum of PCK for teaching history and that some aspects of
PCK are more challenging to develop than others. In particular, attending to students ideas about history and framing history were more challenging aspects of
PCK for these novices. Talia and Gabrielle demonstrated particular aspects of
this knowledge and made different improvements over 2 years; both reflected
distinct kinds of growth in their PCK. Finally, we have considered how teacher
education experiences may contribute to these learning trajectories. Specifically,
opportunities for approximating practice in increasingly authentic environments
and the alignment between university and field placement goals may contribute to
the depth of candidates development and enactment of PCK.
Although we have discussed key aspects of PCK for teaching history, these
aspects derive from thinking about PCK broadly (i.e., Shulman, 1987) and therefore likely relate directly to PCK in other domains. If we compare history to
mathematics, for example, what we call transforming history and attending
to students ideas may be associated with knowledge of students and content
(Ball et al., 2008). At the same time, expressions of PCK happen while reflecting on, planning, or teaching a particular subject; therefore, instances of observed
PCK may often be domain specific. We are left with a remaining question: Where
there are differences in PCK across domains, are these conceptual differences
or differences in manifestations of PCKthat is, is PCK fundamentally different in each domain, or does PCK just look different in practice across domains?
If researchers are to continue to learn more about how novices develop PCK,
they will have to observe PCK enacted in a variety of settings and work across
subject domains so that they can define PCK with greater precision and identify
trajectories of learning that could support the work of teacher education.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by Grant No. 200900123 from The Spencer
Foundation. The views expressed herein are our own.
We wish to thank Ann Ryu Edwards, Barry Fishman, Alex Monte-Sano,
Avishag Reisman, Rebecca Silverman, Stephanie Van Hover, and Sam Wineburg
for their feedback on drafts of this article; Melissa Cochran and Kristen Harris
for their work in collecting and organizing data for this project; and Talia and
Gabrielle for welcoming us into their classrooms and sharing their thinking as
they learned to teach history.
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Journal of the Learning

Developing and Enacting

Chauncey Monte-Sano & Christopher Budano

Department of Educational Studies, University of

Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy, and

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THE JOURNAL OF THE LEARNING SCIENCES, 22: 171211, 2013

Developing and Enacting Pedagogical

Christopher Budano is now at the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

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of Public Instruction by the Committee on State Normal Schools (as quoted in

The range of knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to effectively teach

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PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

PCK IN THE HISTORY EDUCATION LITERATURE

Note. PCK = pedagogical content knowledge.

Ideally, teachers identify and respond to students thinking about

The ways in which teachers communicate to students what history

PCK for Teaching

Bain & Harris (2009), Harris & Bain

Bain (2005, 2006)

Related History Education

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Ball et al. (2008) (knowledge

Ball et al. (2008) (knowledge

Ball et al. (2008) (knowledge

Related Education Literature

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PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

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MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

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PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

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MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

in meaningful, complex, and coherent ways for themselves or for instructional

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PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

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MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

revision. Assignments included asking a student to think aloud while reading

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MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

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to be overly cumbersome to these novice teachers; therefore, in the second year

PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING HISTORY

CASES OF DEVELOPING PCK FOR TEACHING HISTORY

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whole-class instruction. Classroom interactions often involved Talia presenting

MONTE-SANO AND BUDANO

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