Agent skill

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer

by GarethManning in GarethManning/education-agent-skills

Develop pedagogical content knowledge for a topic by surfacing common misconceptions and effective representations.

Custom licenceAuto-check passedEducation

Install Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer

skills CLI
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/professional-learning/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer .claude/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer
GitHub stars
830
Token cost
~11k tokens
SKILL.md length
3,811 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
142
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

Develop pedagogical content knowledge for a topic by surfacing common misconceptions and effective representations.

  • Works in 7 steps: PCK Diagnosis → Content Knowledge Foundations → Student Misconceptions Map → …
  • Preparing to teach unfamiliar content
  • SKILL.md covers What This Skill Does, Evidence Foundation, Input Schema and Prompt, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Develop pedagogical content knowledge for a topic by surfacing common misconceptions and effective representations. Use when preparing to teach unfamiliar content or improving teaching of hard topics.

Its SKILL.md is about 11k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Education. The repository describes itself as: 165 evidence-grounded AI skills for teachers, school leaders and EdTech builders—pedagogy, learning science, curriculum, assessment and regeneration. Claude, Codex and Hermes.

When your agent uses it

  • Preparing to teach unfamiliar content
  • Improving teaching of hard topics

Example prompts

  • “/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer”

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. PCK Diagnosis
  2. Content Knowledge Foundations
  3. Student Misconceptions Map
  4. Pedagogical Representations
  5. Disciplinary Thinking Standards
  6. Dispositional PCK
  7. Developmental Action Plan

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 6bbbce4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer loads about 11k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 60 tokens; SKILL.md has 3,811 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~60
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~11k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 3,811 words (~10,684 tokens).

“Takes a description of what a teacher is about to teach and their background, diagnoses their likely pedagogical content knowledge gaps for that specific topic, and produces a development plan to close those gaps before teaching begins. Shulman's (1986) foundational…”

— opening of SKILL.md by GarethManning, Custom licence
name
pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer
disable-model-invocation
false
user-invocable
true
effort
medium
skill_id
professional-learning/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer
skill_name
Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer
domain
professional-learning
version
1.0
evidence_strength
strong
evidence_sources
Shulman (1986) — Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching — original PCK framework, Shulman (1987) — Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new…
output_schema.type
object

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/professional-learning/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4

Compare with similar skills

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills830—~11kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
DeepTutor CLIHKUDS/DeepTutor41k—~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Zhang Xuefeng Perspectivealchaincyf/zhangxuefeng-skill10k1 repos~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Deep Reading Analystginobefun/deep-reading-analyst-skill3535 repos~3.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
AI Engineering Placement Quizrohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch65k—~2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
OpenMAIC Setup and ExtensionTHU-MAIC/OpenMAIC40k—~1.7kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT

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Categories

Questions about Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer

What does Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer do?

Develop pedagogical content knowledge for a topic by surfacing common misconceptions and effective representations. Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. Develop pedagogical content knowledge for a topic by surfacing common misconceptions and effective representations.

When should I use Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer?

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer fits situations like: preparing to teach unfamiliar content; improving teaching of hard topics.

How do I install Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/professional-learning/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer in Codex?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/professional-learning/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer, .gemini/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer, .github/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer and .opencode/skills/pedagogical-content-knowledge-developer in your project.

What does Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer is instructions for the agent only.

Does Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer use?

Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer has a licence file (the repository's licence) that doesn't match a standard licence. Read it on GitHub before reusing the skill.

How many tokens does Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer use?

About 11k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 43k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer: DeepTutor CLI (HKUDS/DeepTutor, 41k stars), Zhang Xuefeng Perspective (alchaincyf/zhangxuefeng-skill, 10k stars), Deep Reading Analyst (ginobefun/deep-reading-analyst-skill, 353 stars) and AI Engineering Placement Quiz (rohitg00/ai-engineering-from-scratch, 65k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Pedagogical Content Knowledge Developer?

GarethManning (a GitHub user) maintains it in GarethManning/education-agent-skills, which has 830 GitHub stars. The repository holds 142 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 28, 2026.

Source: GarethManning/education-agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.