Abstract
- The TPACK framework is described in detail, as a complex interaction among three bodies of knowledge: Content, pedagogy, and technology.
The Challenges of Teaching With Technology
- Newer digital technologies, which are protean, unstable, and opaque, present new challenges to teachers struggling to use more technology in their teaching
- Social and contextual factors also complicate the relationships between teaching and technology
- Teachers often have inadequate (or inappropriate) experience with using digital technologies for teaching and learning
An Approach to Thinking About Technology Integration
- How can teachers integrate technology into their teaching?
- At the heart of good teaching with technology are three core components: content, pedagogy, and technology, plus the relationships among and between them
The TPACK Framework
- In this model (see Figure 1), three main components of teachers’ knowledge are content, pedagogy, and technology.
- Interactions between and among these bodies of knowledge, represented as PCK, TCK (technological content knowledge), TPK (technological pedagogical knowledge), and TPACK are equally important
Content Knowledge
- Content knowledge (CK) is teachers’ knowledge about the subject matter to be learned or taught
- e.g. In the case of science, this would include knowledge of scientific facts and theories, the scientific method, and evidence-based reasoning
- e.g. In the case of art appreciation, such knowledge would include knowledge of art history, famous paintings, sculptures, artists and their historical contexts, as well as knowledge of aesthetic and psychological theories for evaluating art
Pedagogical Knowledge
- Pedagogical knowledge (PK) is teachers’ deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning
- e.g. educational purposes, values, and aims
- It requires an understanding of cognitive, social, and developmental theories of learning and how they apply to students in the classroom
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)
- It is a knowledge of pedagogy applicable to the teaching of specific content (similar to Shulman’s idea)
- Central to PCK is the notion of transforming the subject matter for teaching
- e.g. This transformation occurs as the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge
Technology Knowledge (TK)
- Understanding information technology broadly enough to apply it productively at work and in their everyday lives, to recognize when information technology can assist or impede the achievement of a goal, and to continually adapt to changes in information technology
Technological Content Knowledge (TCK)
- Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa
- e.g. Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays or the technique of carbon-14 dating and the influence of these technologies in the fields of medicine and archeology
Technological Pedagogical Knowlege (TPK)
- How teaching and learning can change when particular technologies are used in particular ways
- e.g. how whiteboards may be used in classrooms
Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPCK)
- understanding that emerges from interactions among content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge
- requires an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones
Implications of the TPACK Framework
- The current work on the TPACK framework seeks to extend this tradition of research and scholarship by bringing technology integration into the kinds of knowledge that teachers need to consider when teaching
