Editorials

Mathematics Education

Mathematics Teacher TPACK Standards and Development Model

by Margaret L. Niess, Robert N. Ronau, Kathryn G. Shafer, Shannon O. Driskell, Suzanne R. Harper, Christopher Johnston, Christine Browning, S. Asli Özgün-Koca & Gladis Kersaint
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What knowledge is needed to teach mathematics with digital technologies? The overarching construct, called technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK), has been proposed as the interconnection and intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Mathematics Teacher TPACK Standards offer guidelines for thinking about this construct. A Mathematics Teacher Development Model describes the development of TPACK toward meeting these standards. The standards and model provide structured detail to further the work of various groups. The proposals may guide teachers, researchers, teacher educators, professional development consultants, and school administrators in the development and evaluation of professional development activities, mathematics education programs, and school mathematics programs.

Science Education

Teaching Science with Technology: Case Studies of Science Teachers’Development of Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge

by S. Selcen Guzey & Gillian H. Roehrig
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This study examines the development of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) in four in-service secondary science teachers as they participated in a professional development program focusing on technology integration into K-12 classrooms to support science as inquiry teaching. In the program, probeware, mind-mapping tools (CMaps), and Internet applications ― computer simulations, digital images, and movies — were introduced to the science teachers. A descriptive multicase study design was employed to track teachers’ development over the yearlong program. Data included interviews, surveys, classroom observations, teachers’ technology integration plans, and action research study reports. The program was found to have positive impacts to varying degrees on teachers’ development of TPACK. Contextual factors and teachers’ pedagogical reasoning affected teachers’ ability to enact in their classrooms what they learned in the program. Suggestions for designing effective professional development programs to improve science teachers’ TPACK are discussed.

Social Studies Education

Strategies for Preparing Preservice Social Studies Teachers to Integrate Technology Effectively: Models and Practices

by Thomas Brush & John W. Saye
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This paper describes strategies used by the authors to assist preservice social studies teachers with understanding and applying models and practices for effectively integrating technology into their future classrooms—thus, strengthening the link between technology and pedagogy (or technological pedagogical content knowledge). Efforts with preservice teachers described here have been informed by the authors’ successes assisting in-service teachers with understanding how technology can empower inquiry-based teaching practices in social studies classrooms, as well as efforts to more fully integrate technology into the overall teacher education programs at the authors’ institutions.

General

What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge?

by Matthew J. Koehler & Punya Mishra
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This paper describes a framework for teacher knowledge for technology integration called technological pedagogical content knowledge (originally TPCK, now known as TPACK, or technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge). This framework builds on Lee Shulman’s construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to include technology knowledge. The development of TPACK by teachers is critical to effective teaching with technology. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the complex, ill-structured nature of teaching. The nature of technologies (both analog and digital) is considered, as well as how the inclusion of technology in pedagogy further complicates teaching. The TPACK framework for teacher knowledge is described in detail, as a complex interaction among three bodies of knowledge: Content, pedagogy, and technology. The interaction of these bodies of knowledge, both theoretically and in practice, produces the types of flexible knowledge needed to successfully integrate technology use into teaching.

Examining TPACK Among K-12 Online Distance Educators in the United States

by Leanna Archambault & Kent Crippen
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With the increasing popularity and accessibility of the Internet and Internet-based technologies, along with the need for a diverse group of students to have alternative means to complete their education, there is a major push for K-12 schools to offer online courses, resulting in a growing number of online teachers. Using the Tailored Design survey methodology (Dillman, 2007), this study examines a national sample of 596 K-12 online teachers and measures their knowledge with respect to three key domains as described by the TPACK framework: technology, pedagogy, content, and the combination of each of these areas. Findings indicate that knowledge ratings are highest among the domains of pedagogy, content, and pedagogical content, indicating that responding online teachers felt very good about their knowledge related to these domains and were less confident when it comes to technology. Correlations among each of the domains within the TPACK framework revealed a small relationship between the domains of technology and pedagogy, as well as technology and content (.289 and .323, respectively). However, there was a large correlation between pedagogy and content (.690), calling into question the distinctiveness of these domains. This study presents a beginning approach to measuring and defining TPACK among an ever-increasing number of K-12 online teachers.