Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (TPACK)

Using technology in the classroom can be a fine line for many educators because the technology use needs to be meaningful for the students as well as for the educators.  There are many things to consider when using technology and among those are making sure that the educators has technological knowledge and can integrate that with pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge.  This is called the Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model.  A perfect technology lesson will combine all three of these aspects.  All three aspects should overlap but there are times where only two will overlap.  The perfect concoction should contain all three.

When two of these areas overlap, they could work together but they would be missing a key component.  Technological pedagogical knowledge lacks the content knowledge; that means that the students are not learning the content they are supposed to be learning while at school during this lesson.  That makes the lesson less worthwhile for both the educator and the students.  Pedagogical content knowledge means the students are learning the content they are supposed to in a way that is conducive to learning but they are not getting the technology knowledge they are expected to learn.  Technology can enhance many lessons for the better.  The last one is technological content knowledge; this one would work the most effectively except if you have a student who is not motivated or if the classroom is crazy due to lack of classroom management.  That is why pedagogy is so important to the process.  All three go hand-in-hand to make the most meaningful lesson.

To implement this in the classroom, each technology-based lesson needs to be planned and well thought out beforehand.  To make sure each lesson is meaningful in every way, the lesson should contain content knowledge that lines up directly with the state standards as well as a lesson that can be controlled by the educator.  Sometimes it is hard to make sure that the technology enhances the lesson instead of just using the technology for the sake of using technology.  There are so many ways to make a lesson more meaningful for the students by adding technology but it will not always be the right way for all the students.

In Instructional Planning Activities Types as Vehicles for Curriculum-Based TPACK Development (Harris & Hoffer, 2009), there is a table of sample activities that encompass all three areas.  One of these activities was answering a question and they suggested using a blog, chat or discussion board to do this.  It is technological, it is easily monitored by an educator using a password and monitoring, and can be tailored to many different state standards.  This is an example that contains the entire Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge model.

References

Harris and Hoffer. (2009). Retrieved from http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net/file/view/HarrisHofer-TPACKActivityTypes.pdf

Koehler and Mishra. (2013). Retrieved from http://cemca.org.in/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ICT%20teacher%20education%20Module%201%20Final_May%2020.pdf