What Happens When Teachers Design Educational Technology? The Development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

We introduce Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) as a way of representing what teachers need to know about technology, and argue for the role of authentic design-based activities in the development of this knowledge. We report data from a faculty development design seminar in which faculty members worked together with masters students to develop online courses. We developed and administered a survey that assessed the evolution of student-and faculty-participants' learning and perceptions about the learning environment, theoretical and practical knowledge of technology, course content (the design of online courses), group dynamics, and the growth of TPCK. Analyses focused on observed changes between the beginning and end of the semester. Results indicate that participants perceived that working in design teams to solve authentic problems of practice to be useful, challenging and fun. More importantly, the participants, both as individuals and as a group, appeared to have developed significantly in their knowledge of technology application, as well as in their TPCK. In brief, learning by design appears to be an effective instructional technique to develop deeper understandings of the complex web of relationships between content, pedagogy and technology and the contexts in which they function.

An Examination of the Changes in Science Teaching Orientations and Technology-Enhanced Tools for Student Learning in the Context of Professional Development

“…This is especially true if, like others have proposed (e.g. Crippen, 2012;Koehler & Mishra, 2005;Niess, 2005), technology represents another realm of science teacher knowledge.…”

“…For example, Hey, Tansley, and Tolle (2009) describe these transformations in the context of the recent emergence of new fields such as computational and data-intensive sciences. Given the pervasive influence of technology on society, as well as the potential benefits of leveraging technology to teach science, some education researchers have connected PCK and teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) (Koehler & Mishra, 2005). TPACK is conceptualized as an extension of Shulman's (1986) PCK as it more explicitly considers technology as another type of knowledge that teachers possess and that can shape, and be shaped by, teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge.…”

Understanding decision making in teachers’ curriculum design approaches

“…Content knowledge (in the case of this study, early literacy) includes substantive structures (how ideas, concepts and facts are organized), syntactic structure (rules of evidence that guide inquiry in a discipline), facts, concepts and procedures (Grossman, 1990). Technological knowledge refers to a teachers' knowledge and beliefs about using technology in education (Koehler & Mishra, 2005). Technological knowledge differs from the other knowledge domains and is best described as the ability to recognize the affordance of technology for educational purpose (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).…”

Secondary pre-service teachers’ perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK): What do they really think?

“…The technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) (Koehler & Mishra, 2005a, 2005b) theoretical framework builds on Shulman's (1986) concept of pedagogical content knowledge. TPACK presents seven interrelated knowledge types essential to teachers in today's digital world.…”