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Abstract
This dissertation was designed to investigate how a group of prospective teachers built their knowledge for science teaching and learning as they enrolled in a block of site-based courses leading to secondary science certification. Three manuscripts composed this dissertation. The first manuscript investigated what and how prospective science teachers noticed as they participated in classroom activities associated with their site-based teacher education courses. Results show that prospective teachers noticing is idiosyncratic and not related to the context and that their development of noticing is a slow process. The second manuscript characterized prospective teachers knowledge development as described by the PCK framework. Findings suggest that although the prospective teachers were placed in the same learning context, the outcomes and experiences of their learning are different. A qualitative data analysis of prospective teachers PCK and noticing indicate that their knowledge development is dependent on what and how they notice when they were in their mentor teachers classes. The third manuscript employed the framework of distinctiveness to understand the processes of prospective teachers noticing and knowledge development. This study demonstrated that the distinctiveness framework is a viable way of understanding how teachers identify the stimuli to start their learning process. Through this framework, teachers processing of the differences and similarities among events and incidents is made visible. This dissertation adds to the literature of teacher knowledge acquisition process, connects teacher noticing with teacher knowledge, and indicates the feasibility of using the distinctiveness framework to understanding teacher knowledge development.