Subject Specific Pedagogy

Subject specific pedagogies are the specific methods or instructional practices which are used to teach a certain subject or discipline. 

Subject specific pedagogy is closely associated with the ideas of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (the particularly bodies of knowledge a teacher needs to teach a specific discipline) and Signature Pedagogies (a type of subject specific pedagogy that is common in the preparation of practitioners of a profession or discipline that is specifically intended to develop the habits of mind of that profession or discipline).

In the UVEI Teacher Intern Program subject-specific pedagogy is represented in the TCAP through the foci for the learning segment...  The foci for the learning segment and the clips are selected to represent critical teaching and learning tasks in the endorsement area that occur with great frequency and that are core to teaching the discipline.

The subject specific pedagogy assessed in the TCAP for each subject are...

Math: designed to develop students’ mathematical knowledge by developing a balance of procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and mathematical reasoning. It should also foster positive student dispositions toward mathematics. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

Science: centered around key scientific concepts and scientific inquiry skills that underlie specific student academic content standards. The learning segment should also develop students’ scientific knowledge by helping them use scientific concepts to make sense of one or more real world phenomena. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

English: designed to support students in developing an understanding and interpretation of complex text and in creating a written product responding to text. (The complexity of a text is defined in relationship to the level of skill that your students bring to it.) The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

Social Studies: designed to help students use facts, concepts, and interpretations to make and explain judgments about a significant historical event or social science phenomenon. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

Elementary Literacy: designed to develop students’ abilities to comprehend and/or compose text, including foundational literacy skills. The learning segment should develop literacy skills and strategies and include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

Elementary Math: designed to support students in building conceptual understanding, computational/procedural fluency, and mathematical reasoning skills. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.

Visual Arts: designed to foster students’ visual literacy, including their ability to create, respond, analyze, and apply critical knowledge and skills for visual art.

World Languages: designed to make the target language accessible to students, and support students in reading, writing, using, and understanding the target language in cultural context. The learning segment will focus on introducing one or more language functions and text types to your students in cultural context; and promoting communication between students in the target language. Specifically, the objectives should seek to develop automaticity, fluency, and accuracy in language functions and familiarity with cultures that use that language, taking into account your students’ prior language development and the language demands of the language tasks and assessments.

Family and Consumer Science: designed to develop students’ abilities to organize and structure work and draw upon technical skills to describe observations of an investigation, recount procedures (e.g., for making a dish or sewing a garment), interpret directions for recipes or sewing patterns or nutritional explain or justify choices or decisions, define concepts and relate them to their everyday application, or evaluate or construct arguments. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.