The Fairy-Tale Forest: Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge for teaching Primary School Mathematics in The Scottish Storyline Approach

Abstract

Chapter 8. This study focuses on the development of mathematical pedagogical content knowl-edge when implementing Storyline as a narrative approach to organising cross-curricu-lar learning for student teachers to become teachers in mathematics for grades 1–7. InStoryline, teachers according to Omand (2014) carefully plan “a ‘line’ of episodes, each of which has carefully designed key questions that encourage and support the learner to contextualise and create the ‘story’, promoting exciting learning” (p. 3). The study uses six semi-structured focus group interviews with a total of 24 first year student teachers. A qualitative analysis, based on the framework of Creswell and Creswell (2018), structures the process of coding. The results contribute to pedagogical content knowledge (cf. Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008) for teaching primary school mathematics in the following three domains: i) Playing out the Fairy-tale story; ii) Preparing, exploring and performing the tasks; and iii) Learning through a Meta-Storyline. The results show that the students encountered a completely new way of learning mathematics when using Storyline. In summary, although the student teachers report awkwardness when joining the fictional in-role activities, they see the potential for facilitating playful and explorative learning experiences for pupils in primary school.