According to Harris, Mishra, & Koehler’s (2009) article “Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity Types: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed,” bringing technology into the classroom is only one small step. To teach technology successfully, you need to consider not only the technology but the students you are teaching. The authors promote a teaching program cleverly called TPACK, which stands for Technological Pedagogy and Content Knowledge. The idea of the program is to combine technology knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge–insinuating that without its two complements, technological knowledge (and thus technological instruction) will not be effective. “Underlying truly effective and highly skilled teaching with technology, we argue, is technological pedagogical content knowledge” (p 401).
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To be honest, I found some of the information in this article to be self-evident…if not obvious. But I do see the value in reminding us of the importance of balance in the classroom. With all the push for more technology in the classroom, it could be easy to lose track of the actual content being taught or the pedagogy for teaching. For example, I might become so engrossed in having students use voting pods that I’ll use them for the sake of using them, without emphasis on the content or the value of the lesson, or how to properly teach voting pods to Junior High students.
I think Lisa did well to point out the charts toward the end of the article. She makes a good point that teachers sometimes need only a small idea to jumpstart their own plans of implementation–I know that’s sometimes the case with me.
Harris, J., Mishra, P. & Koehler’s, M. (2009) Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-based technology integration reframed. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. 41(4), 393-416.
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Tags: content knowledge, Curriculum-based technology integration, EDTC6536, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogy, technological knowledge, technology in the classroom, TPACK
December 1, 2009 at 7:25 pm |
Grant, I like that you point out that the concept of implementing content knowledge and pedagogy while providing technology instruction is obvious to most of us as teachers. I guess what I took away from the article was the fact that I could teach my content with my pedagogy and integrate the technology. Too often the technology seems to be added on top of my regular content. At my elementary school, I teach computer lab on top of math, reading, science, social studies, and so forth. It is helpful to remember that I can use my lab time to further the teaching of the content I have already provided my students instead of making computer lab completely seperate.
December 7, 2009 at 2:32 am |
I agree with you and Lisa that we teachers need more examples to help nudge us along. While I do not believe we need to necessarily be given everything on a silver platter, we definitely need to have an idea of where to start – that is more than half the battle of implementing technology. I was hoping that there would be examples of how to use TPACK in math and science. The history examples were nice but not immediately applicable to me.