"No One Forgets a Good Teacher!" - What do 'Good' Technology Teachers Know?

Abstract

In England and Wales secondary teachers are required to have at least two years of their first degree in the subject they wished to teach. Yet technology is well known for the breadth of subject knowledge it encompasses and the limited way in which degree courses provide for the scope needed for school technology. Is subject knowledge, often the driver of both pre-service and in-service course design for technology teachers, really so crucial? This paper reports on a pilot empirical study conducted with technology initial teacher education students from the Open University and Brunei University in the United Kingdom. A framework for the teacher knowledge possessed by these students in terms of subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and 'school' knowledge is considered and the relative impact of such 'self awareness' of their teaching is discussed.