ABSTRACT
The significance of teacher and, thereby, trainee teacher subject knowledge is currently under scrutiny with a commitment to subject-knowledge development and subject-specific pedagogy emerging from the government through various policy documents (e.g. the Carter Review; Carter, 2015). This is supported by academic discourse across subject communities; for example, Brooks (2017) argues a need for trainees to be supported to develop a subject-specific approach to pedagogy. However, many trainee teachers remain insufficiently supported to understand the complex relationship between subject and pedagogy and, therefore, are unable to articulate the relationship between the two through either lesson observations or their own teaching practice. In response, this chapter explores how 360-degree video, particularly what we term 360-degree immersive experiences, can be used to support trainee teachers to develop a clearer understanding of subject and pedagogical knowledge for teaching. In particular, it focuses on use of these experiences for scaffolding trainee teachers’ lesson observation as a precursor to exploring pedagogical content knowledge (PCK; Shulman, 1986) in geography initial teacher education.
