Knowledge of Content Analysis
Knowledge of Content Analysis: Another level of content-based exper- tise is knowing how to break the content into concepts and sub-concepts, skills, and sub-skills. This is quite different from knowing the content itself. It means that the teacher understands how the concepts and skills are con- nected to one another and how to bring these relationships to the attention of students. Every teacher must understand the network of concepts “that relate to the specific concept to be taught and how that network is con- nected to the content in the year-long curriculum as well as to the curricula of the previous and following years” (West & Staub, 2003, p. 19). Liping Ma (1999) gives clear examples of how this kind of knowledge empowers good lesson and unit planning.
Curriculum materials cannot be relied on to hold these connections, much less make them explicit for students. Curriculum materials are re- sources for teachers to draw on to create the best lessons for their students. Skillful teachers are wary of curricula that prescribe a script that allows only one way of teaching. Such materials are marginally appropriate for para-professionals and provisional teachers who have no pedagogical knowl- edge of their own. But they ensure that a large proportion of students will not learn because their learning style is not matched to that one way of teaching.