Effectiveness of Teaching Pedagogical Content Knowledge Through Summer Geography Institutes

Research presented in this paper addresses two fundamental questions: how effective have state geographic alliance summer geography institutes (ASGIs) been in changing the classroom teaching behaviors of participants, and to what extent do the institutes reflect characteristics of effective inservice training? Both questions are grounded in Shulman's concept of pedagogical content knowledge-the notion that effective teaching requires knowledge of how specific ideas and procedures in a particular content domain can best be taught. On-site evaluations and four follow-up evaluations provided data regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the institutes as well as evidence regarding the institutes' long-term effectiveness in promoting change in geography instruction. Results of the study indicate that ASGI graduates not only make substantive changes in how they teach geography, but also conduct high-quality inservices that lead to changes in the teaching practices of their colleagues.