Types of Knowledge

Over the centuries many attempts have been made to classify knowledge, and different fields have focused on different dimensions. This has resulted in numerous classifications and distinctions based on different factors. Nowadays, types of knowledge are classified to four wide categories in order to result in professional teachers with the best knowledge. Teachers must have the knowledge of content, pedagogical knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, and the knowledge of learners and learning.

Till that end, and to study the application of these types by teachers in schools, an observation was done in a biology class of garde eleven science section in an official high school in Bekaa Valey.

From the beginning of the class which was the first of that day, teacher entered actively, handling his coffee cup, asked the students if they are ready for him and started to check the home works quickly. The home work that he previously asked for it was to prepare the lesson that he was going to explain in that class in addition to draw two figures that he chose before. For that purpose he checked the note book of each student, he found different ways of solving and even different ways of drawing. Some students had a neat and complete home work. Others have done their home works in a way that he did not like it, and others did not make any of what he asked for. He ordered those students to stand up and go ahead to the board, and he finished he went to his desk and started to blame them for their work without asking them for reasons or discussing their faults, while one of them was trying to tell him that she was very sick and the other was trying to say that he did not know how to solve the lesson's exercises. Then, he was done from talking and asked them to go back to their seats after threatening them of not making the home work again as it should be and subtracting two  marks from their average, knowing that he gave them no standards before for his home works and each student is applying the way he knows from previous years.

After that he started to ask questions and students were answering and participating in a very good manner, where the questions were related to the lesson they already prepared and open ended. He used praise very well for students that answered and involved most of the students in the discussion. Even some of them were answering relatively far answers from the main point but he started relating them to the general topic he asked for and wrote these answers on the side of the board. That way made students able to participate in the discussion even if they were not sure about their answers, and made the teacher able to show them his wide knowledge in the field where he was able to relate the student answers to the points of the lesson. Then he continued to explain beside writing and drawing on the board with various colors to make it more easy for the students to understand.

When half of the time passed away the explanation was almost done. He asked the students to stay calm until he bring a model of DNA that he was explaining about and came back with a built model and a bag full of small pieces that when built properly will be similar to the built one he brought. So, he gave each two students on a desk some of these pieces, and asked them to collect them properly in order to reach the right model and started to help each two of them till they got the model built in the right way.

At last, he asked each student to read loudly an exercise from the book to start solving it after listening for the students answers where they were able to solve it alone but, he was verbalizing the proper wards for them to write on their books and memorize at home. That’s why solving problems did not take much time; he had time to emphasize the main points of the lesson and ask them to prepare the next one.

The observations that were done in this class were very efficient in studying the types of knowledge, where the teacher reached some of them in a good way. It was obvious that he know very well about the content that he is teaching from the way he was relating the students answers to the points of the lesson. He also showed a good pedagogical knowledge were he used drawings, writing main points and showed models to insure that students understand. Also, he showed a little general pedagogical knowledge, where he was not able to communicate well with students that did not make their home works, and students that did not participate in giving answers. In addition to that, he showed a little knowledge about knowledge of learners and learnings by not giving his students the instructions that he wants to solve the home work in the appropriate way, forgetting about the different abilities to draw and solve and ignoring the different English levels that was obvious in his class.

At the end of these observations, the importance of the types of knowledge should become clear for teachers by training them to apply them and be aware of their mistakes, in order to be more careful for their students and career also.