Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Industrial Design Education

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been embraced by many of the recent educational reform documents as a way of describing the knowledge possessed by expert teachers. These reform documents have also served as guides for educators to develop models of teacher development. However, in the United States, few if any of the current models accurately address the role of PCK in the development of industrial design educators. This article introduces the concept of PCK and how a taxonomy of essential industrial design subject matter can be organized to serve as a content guide. The PCK model presented could serve as a catalyst for the field of industrial design education to produce a conceptual framework and taxonomy for the teaching of industrial design upon which future PCK studies in industrial design education can be based. These conceptual frameworks (or taxonomies) help within a field to articulate the core knowledge, skills, and dispositions that define practice. The interaction of teacher content knowledge in industrial design, pedagogical knowledge, and context of industrial design is framed within a PCK taxonomy.