**5. The problem of teaching knowledge in schools**

**4. Research on teaching knowledge and the perspective of those** 

192 New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education

In the research done by [19], which concerns the meanings that students associate to the terms *Good Teachers and Bad Teachers*, using the technique of natural semantic networks, the authors highlight implicitly diverse categories of teaching knowledge contained in the everyday work of good teachers. These categories are synthesized by a distinctive feature expressed by a key word in the natural semantic network: knowledge, preparation, responsibility, intelligence, organization, committed, punctuality, trained, communicator, and emphatic; in the same way, the absence of teaching knowledge is expressed in the categories such as irresponsible, unpunctual, ignorant, lazy, disorganized, arrogant, unprepared, boring, and unjust. It can be established that, in every category belonging to a good teacher, teaching knowledge is constructed in the procedural order and is presented as a "know how" in the teaching of

Along the same lines, [20] present us with a portrait of a good university professor from the point of view of the students in Tunes, using the technique of the focus group; in this "portrait" behind the features of the said profile, some teaching knowledge traits are also delineated. The authors propose a research question: What qualities, both human and technical-professional, should have a university professor? The answers point toward three categories. *Personality features*: sympathetic, honest, patient, tolerant, kind, and flexible; *their relationship with the students*: good communicator, motivational, respectful, widely noting students, adopting a participative style, and accepts different learning rhythms; and *their relationship with their discipline and knowledge*: competent, expert in the language of the discipline,

Again, the point of view of the students is taken into account, this time in a categorization of the teaching knowledge in an investigation about those who are considered to be good university professors; concerning this, [21], using the same technique as [19] of natural networks, finds three groups of answers or categories in their networks. First group: respectful/ responsible; second group: sympathetic, emphatic, punctual, intelligent, and kind; and third group: precise, organized, and motivating. This research from [21] establishes that the teaching knowledge, which is part of the features of a good professor, is not present in clear-cut categories that are perfectly compartmentalized, but on the contrary are all intertwined; for example, the teaching and didactic knowledge from the third group unite with motivational

Also in this topic, [22] researched on the proposals of what is considered a "good professor" at the Universidad de Sevilla, in order to maximize learning by their students; they found motivational strategies, reinforcement of student's progress, monitoring of partial achievements, organization strategies, and systematization of classes to highlight relevant content of orientation toward students. One of the key questions made for this research with an ethnographic approach, was: What do teachers and professors offer to facilitate learning of their discipline? This question linked teaching knowledge to the diverse teaching strategies and proposals of

skills and didactic attitudes, which are proper to the personality of the teacher.

what are considered "good professors," aimed to improving academic performance.

**who learn**

students.

pedagogic strategies, cultivated, disciplined, etc.

According to [26], in school environments, linger unpredictability, multidimensionality, immediacy, uncertainty, and weak institutional frameworks concern what a teacher should know and do in the classroom; this conveys the need to question teaching knowledge and review current strategies so as to undergo a renovation of professional work. Furthermore, the authors state that the complexity and requirements that are currently demanded from teachers by school authorities result in greater workloads, provoking feelings of impossibility and frustration on their part, which make it harder to generate knowledge and school achievements.

On the other hand, as stated by [27], teachers, in relation to their teaching knowledge, are facing difficulties. Every day they face a variety of difficulties, and with the help of this knowledge, they will arrive to possible solutions, not as a result of fast calculations or eliminations, but as the outcome of the analysis and reflection on problems of teaching and the most appropriate ways to solve them. Likewise, [28] adds to the discussion with the idea that teachers face multiple problems related to "how to teach," which arise suddenly and unexpectedly; when facing these situations, teachers possess a so-called practical knowledge, which is constituted of a series of mental images responding to these problems, and from these, teachers choose what they consider the most appropriate manner to respond and apply it to the said problem or unexpected issue. Following this same line of research, [17] proposes what he calls "pedagogical knowledge by default" which is a teaching knowledge "that has problems when facing the current conditions where teaching work is produced" (p. 28) and, adding to this, above all, at the moment when determining the possible alternatives to the difficulties of teaching work.

In [29], the issue of the value of teaching work and the problems and frustrations related to it are addressed. This descriptive taken on this subject is first concerned with the teaching knowledge, as for every conceived problem, there is a corresponding teaching knowledge that deals with the solution; and, hence, the author registers in descending order of importance of the following: problems with the relationship and collaboration between parents and teachers, little interest shown by students, poor or irregular assistance, problems with learning and academic performance, desertion, disobedience from the students, problems when attending children with special needs, etc.

• To explain the teaching knowledge present in those categorizations that has left a mark in

Categorizing Teaching Knowledge from the Perspective of Students: Narratives...

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• To describe teaching knowledge that is implicated in the teaching process of different sub-

• To distinguish those categorizations that are implicitly involved in the performance of bad

The method that was chosen to address the categorizations of teaching knowledge from the perspective of the students is *narrative inquiry*. As has been pointed out by [31], narrative inquiry is increasingly present in educational research; this owes to narratives being both an educational phenomenon and at the same time a research method. Hence, it is possible to do research through the narrative analysis method, and a particular phenomenon can be nar-

As stated by [32], "narrative inquiry has as its core the analysis of human experience" (p. 139), and it is about making those experiences understandable and above all to assign them meaning. Likewise, for [33], "narrative research, based on interpretative hermeneutics and phenomenology, focuses on the meanings that people attribute to their experiences" so that those meanings are integrated in a vision that reconstructs more complex meanings (p. 51).

Within the narrative inquiry framework, this study adopts the biographical narrative approach [34]. Consequently, this is an attempt to retrieve the biographical narratives provided by 28 undergrad students enrolled in the Faculty of Pedagogy at the University of Veracruz in Mexico, about their memorable teachers in order to make categorizations of their teaching knowledge. In addition to reading the narratives and constructing a primary document with them, the next phase involves the systematization of the texts to achieve the rationalization of the biographical narratives, that is, to reorder data and proceed to its coherent integration in

On this subject [36] make a notable contribution in their research about autobiographies of memorable teachers. In their study, the categorization of narratives goes through the process of identifying in vivo *codes*, that is to say, key words that capture a strong meaning in the narrative stories that are a product of several narratives or stories. These codes, with such a strong meaning, can express the name and content of a whole narrative categorization. In the case of this study, 28 narratives of undergrad students from the University of Veracruz, Faculty of Pedagogy, were processed using the software package for the qualitative data analysis ATLAS.ti in its version 7.5. The narratives were integrated into a primary document for

At the end of this process, the description of the categorizations that were found was integrated into a macro-narrative which answers to the questions guiding this research in the

jects and that are specific to the technical and professional realm.

the life of students.

**8. Methodological strategy**

rated from the perspective of narrative inquiry.

a reconstruction or singular narrative of all the texts [35].

its analysis and the creation of several categorizations.

section dedicated to results.

teachers.

This core of problems which points to the backward and marginalized faces proper of a poor and marginalized school environment forces us to consider if the presence of consolidated teaching knowledge on behalf of teachers has a relevant role in attenuating or solving these problems in schools.

The importance in this study of approaching categorizations that give meaning to teaching knowledge of memorable teachers allows us to arrive to the field of good practices [30]. Students remember their good teachers for their excellence in their pedagogical knowledge, and in their practices, good teachers from the generation preceding ours offer us their teaching knowledge from the systematized remembrances of their students, which constitute the main objective of this study; if this research contributes some principle or knowledge that could be incorporated to the state of the discipline, in this case the formation of teachers will have an added value.
