A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

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Teaching in the disciplines
Case study 2 provides an illustration of the DPK model by showing how various
components come together to form a university teacher’s discipline-specific pedagogical
knowledge, their DPK. The case study shows that the richness of a teacher’s DPK is particularly
dependent upon the quality of the relationships between its various components.
Interrogating practice
If you have completed the previous two IPs, you will have a good idea of which
dimensions are present in each component of your DPK. Now consider the
relationships that might exist between the various components of your DPK.
• Which relationships seem to be most important for you when thinking
and/or making decisions about your teaching? Why are these relationships
so important?
• How does your institutional or departmental context, or the level of course
you might be considering, affect them?
OVERVIEW
This chapter has aimed to introduce the notion of ‘discipline-specific pedagogical
knowledge’ (DPK) in order to help you build bridges between the first and second part
of this book and your own, perhaps currently separated, fields of knowledge. In order to
do so, a model for linking your generic knowledge of learning and teaching with the
specific characteristics of your discipline was presented. This was done in order to provide
you with tools to relate what you have learnt about learning and teaching in general with
the requirements of your discipline with regard to learning and teaching. One way to
ensure that you grow as a disciplinary specialist who knows how to teach and foster
learning in your disciplinary area could be to set aside a certain amount of time, regularly,
to reflect upon the various dimensions and relationships of your DPK; a point to bear in
mind if you are wishing to demonstrate and develop your teaching expertise, as touched
on in Part 3. The chapter in Part 2 of this book that most relates to your discipline should
be helpful in assisting you with this process.
REFERENCES
Baxter-Magolda, M B (2002) ‘Epistemological reflection: the evolution of epistemological
assumptions from age 18 to 30’, in B K Hofer and P R Pintrich (eds), Personal Epistemology:
The Psychology of Beliefs about Knowledge and Knowing (pp. 89–102), Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Becher, T (1989) Academic Tribes and Territories, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher
Education and Open University Press.