Patterns of content representation.

Abstract

This study was conducted to track content as representations in the experienced curriculum of a secondary environmental science class. The qualitative analyses involved both the identification and the tracking of pieces of content within and across curriculum occasions. Curriculum and instructional features were found to exist as patterns as content was represented in curriculum occasions. The patterns included an evolution from one or few representations to multiple representations. This evolution was commonly facilitated by the teacher during discourse episodes in which students' comments and questions were utilized in order to introduce alternative or different representations of pieces of content. Patterns also existed in the ways in which the teacher's knowledge of the students, the content, and the curriculum were related to representations of content. The findings suggest that content, embedded in the curriculum occasions in which it is represented, can be studied in an ecologically valid manner. Also, the close association found to exist between teacher knowledge and content representation suggests that arbitrary separations of the two in classroom inquiries may be inappropriate.