An explanation of the TPACK-model

For this week, we are looking at building our TPACK. Below is my brief description of TPACK.

Due to increased use of technology in our society and world, the use of technology in education cannot be ignored. The use of technology in lessons requires teachers to have knowledge and skills about technology. Koehler and Mishra (2005) state that teachers who want to use technology in an effective way need to be skilled in and integrate the three domains, which are technology, pedagogy and content. Their model is called TPACK, which stands for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

TPACK Model

The model consists of three domains. They are:

• Technological Knowledge (TK)

This is the knowledge about the technology. It includes how technology can be used, which includes the possibilities it offers and its meaning for education.

• Content Knowledge (CK)

This is the knowledge about the content. The teacher needs to possess knowledge and skills about the subject such as facts, concepts, backgrounds and theories.

• Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)

This domain includes the pedagogical knowledge about how students learn, which approach can be used to teach, how a lesson can be organised, prepared, taught and evaluated.

Like the models shown, if just two of the domains will be integrated, we get also overlapping areas in the circle. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is about how particular aspects of subject matter can be taught and how to make students understand this.  Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) is about how technology can change pedagogies or how the pedagogy can be supported by it and Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) is about how a technology can be used to learn students the subject matter of how content can be changed by the technology.

To teach using technology, the teacher always needs to have knowledge about those three domains, but most importantly, the teacher has to integrate those domains, and has to know how they work together, because they are not distinguishable in a lesson but are interlinked.

http://www.ttf.edu.au/what-is-tpack/what-is-tpack.html

http://www.matt-koehler.com/tpack/tpack-explained/