Implicit Knowledge – a New Phenomenon in Teacher Education

This paper draws attention to the significance of implicit pedagogical knowledge in the educational process of future teaching staff. Implicit pedagogical knowledge is here understood to be the “hidden” knowledge of students of teaching, which originates on the basis of their prior experience, is derived from a student’s implicit theories of learning and teaching, is interlinked with their explicit knowledge – and which influences the behaviour of the student in a pedagogical situation. In the process of creating and developing implicit pedagogical knowledge, the author considers the following to be key elements: self-reflection and the publicising and sharing of pedagogical experience. He indicates that it is absolutely essential that the traditional understanding (such as has been handed down to-date in the literature) be enriched by a new dimension – and especially by the dimension of one’s personality. He offers a newly-coined term “pedagogical condition”, which is understood to describe the ability and flexibility of a student to behave proactively under a variety of pedagogical situations.