Strengthening Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Science Teachers in Pakistan

A lesson from activities of the APS Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) is that Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of physics teachers worldwide cannot be taken for granted and that enhancement of such knowledge is possible through modest interventions. With this in mind, a group of us, from Pakistan, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US, have embarked on a pilot project to engage teachers from government secondary schools in Karachi that cater mostly to children in underprivileged areas in workshops aimed at strengthening PCK. In this talk I will outline some strategies that we have undertaken to make the project feasible and some of its recent successes. A key element of this approach is emphasis on active learning and peer mentoring, as well as building a chain of individuals whose symbiotic relationship would benefit everyone involved – somewhat like the Learning Assistant paradigm in PhysTEC. While conditions may differ, we believe that the pilot program in Karachi will lead us to identify the ingredients that will make it possible to replicate the effort in other developing countries.