A person who knows and is aware that he knows, is wise, follow him; A person who knows but is not aware that he knows, remind him; A person who doesn't know and is aware that he doesn't know, teach him; A person who doesn't know and pretends to know, is fool, leave him


Bless me in my undertakings Dear God, grant me victory and I shall shout your blessings for all to hear of your power!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Concept of TPACK

The idea of TPACK was developed from the idea of Shulman (1986) who considered that teacher competent should be measured by considering the ability in content and pedagogy knowledge (PCK) Figure 1.

Figure 1: Content and Pedagogical Knowledge (Shulman, 1986)



Shulman, did not discuss technology and its relationship to pedagogy and content. Its Kohler and Mishra (2009) who added technology in the PCK to have TPCK. Thus the interaction in the TPACK model goes beyond PCK to have TPK and TCK. Which they further integrate to form TPACK which is technological, pedagogical and content knoweldge. A teachers is supposed to have the necessary competencies in TK, CK, PK as well as in the combinations of TPK, TCK and CPK . The core component of the TPACK is knowledge of the teacher on each item (content, pedagogy and technology). Thus, TPACK can be described as interplay between knowledge about technology (TK), knowledge about content (CK) and Knowledge about the pedagogy (PK) which further integrates into TPK, TCK and PCK Figure 2.

Figure 2: Interaction between TK, CK and PK (Koehler & Mishra, 2009)

A teacher is expected to develop the capability of negotiating these relationships to have good knowledge of the content which he teaches (say Chemistry), conversant with varieties of pedagogies available for a given topic or content (collaborative, task oriented etc) and has the ability to use various technologies (iPod, computer etc) in relation to the nature of the content or topic he want to teach and the pedagogical approach he has chosen.

Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.

4 comments:

Larissa said...

Hi Ayoub,

wow, that is a very short explenation of TPACK. I think it is clear but what you wrote in the end about that when a teacher can intergrate the three elements they are considered to have good knowledge. I think it is the other way around. I think it is a stipulation that a teacher has a lot of content knowledge and must know the different pedagogical approaches in order to intergrate the elements.

Ayoub C Kafyulilo said...

Thank you Larissa,
I think you are right about the last part. But at this particular point I was refering to a teacher who are already able to integrate all the three component of TPACK. Thus I considered they might be having a good knowledge of all components.
However I appreciate your comment i will read more about it.

Unknown said...

Hi Ayoub and Larissa!

Very interesting discussion! I agree with Larissa, teachers do not necessarily have knowledge about (all) instructional strategies or pedagogical approaches nor about how technologies can be used to enhance teaching and learning...May be here is where support from educational scientists is needed...The question then is, how can we provide such support so that teachers can reach TPACK?

Greetings,

Natalie

Ayoub C Kafyulilo said...

Nice question Natalie,
In my discussion about the combination of TPACK and other post I concluded by asking educators to find out how they can address the challenge you have just posed. However, I have an opinion that pre-service teachers training should incorporate the three elements of TPACK.