TPACK - a framework for technology integration

Hello, I am very much interested in a a framework called "TPACK."

Technology
Pedagogy
Content Knowledge

(Image from http://www.tpack.org/, updated 3/16/09)

The intersection of these three domains for any given educator intrigues me and obviously the academic community as well due to the growing body of academic research on it.

In summary it is the"essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching." Personally, I believe it is the key to effective technology integration in any given school district. I would like to begin a discussion here on this very topic. The purpose is two-fold:

1) Increase the general awareness of the TPACK framework so that others in this network may benefit (Reach out)
2) Bring together like-minded individuals who are already familiar with the framework to expand upon our current working knowledge and understanding of its implications on teaching and the diffusion of educational technology (Reach in)

With that in mind, please post below if you are interested in joining this conversation. I will post several other TPACK (formerly known as 'TPCK') resources below to help those unfamiliar with it get started.

TPACK home at Punya Mishra's Michigan State University webpage.

The original article as published in TCR.

An entertaining video by Mishra and Koehler from a keynote on TPACK.

(More to come, if others are interested)

Tags: change, in-service, knowledge, pedagogy, pre-service, technology, tpack, tpck

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Permalink Reply by Treva Emter on May 13, 2010 at 2:29pm

This sums up my experience and frustration. I am using TPACK as a framework to make Administrators aware of what is needed to support teachers in successfully integrating technology into their practice.

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 11, 2009 at 10:02pm

Mandy, I could not agree more. It seems to me that this integration of T, P & C can be difficult to achieve. This is part of the reason why my interest has begun to shift in the past year or so into trying to better understand teacher creativity. (A part of the keynote presentation liked to above deals with that as well). It seems to me that it is only through an emphasis on teacher agency and creativity that we can hope to find solutions that balance all three.

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 12, 2009 at 9:41pm

Mandy, you are right about institutional barriers as being an important issue and that is one of the things that I am intrigued by. One thing that I believe that even in the most rigid of conditions there is always some wiggle room for teacher creativity (creativity with a little "c" rather than Creativity with a capital 'C"). The most important part of it needs to come from the teacher ... what these propensities are, and how they can be best nurtured, is what I would like to better understand.

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 13, 2009 at 7:40am

Wish I could claim credit for that, subtle yet crucial distinction, but it was Czsiksentmihaly (I am sure I messed up the spelling of that name!) who talked about it in his book on Creativity. Too often we think of big "C" creativity - which I think is setting the bar too high (not everyone can be a Picasso or Einstein) - and forget little "c."

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 11, 2009 at 10:52pm

Matt, TPACK is a framework for teacher knowledge. So though it can make pedagogical sense to have students select their own technology tools, clearly the teacher needs to have some knowledge of what these tools can do (what we have called the "zone of possibility" of a given technology). This does not mean that the teacher needs to know all these tools in detail - however it does mean three key things: (a) that the teacher has willingness to learn enough of these new tools the students bring in to understand how they can be best used; (b) that the teacher be comfortable with ambiguity and the loss of control that comes with it; and (c) that the teacher have a strong level of comfort with Pedagogy and Content that they can modify them given what these new tools can do. P and C cannot be subservient to T (irrespective of who brings T to the table).

I have had this situation come up often enough in professional development courses that I teach - that I have learned to be comfortable with both. That said, the situation would be quite different in a K-12 classroom, where I think we often over-estimate how much students know of these new tools (as you indicated in your comment to the above post).

In brief, the TPACK framework is not against students selecting their own tools. In fact I would argue the TPACK framework becomes even more important as a way of understanding the kind of knowledge a teacher needs in these fluid contexts, particularly given the rapid rate of technology change.

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 11, 2009 at 10:10pm

A couple of more resources to add to those already listed by Matt.

1. The TPACK wiki at http://www.tpack.org/ is a good resource for current work in the area. Incidentally the diagram above is an older version. The latest version can be downloaded from the wiki. The most important change that has occurred in the diagram has been the addition of somewhat permeable "context" around the current venn diagram.

2. There is now a TPACK newsletter that one can sign up for. It goes out once every month or two and contains latest news about articles, conference presentations, professional development activity etc. You can find archived copies of the newsletter as well as information for signing up at my website http://punya.educ.msu.edu

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Beezley on March 13, 2009 at 10:47am

I've been very interested in your framework as well. In the process of trying to develop professional development that helps teachers develop TPCK. It's tough when you have teachers at so many different levels to help teachers get to the point where they are adept at considering all three in their decision making.

Are there any pd structures that are being developed using this framework that have shown some measurable success? Looking for inspiration.

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Beezley on March 13, 2009 at 10:48am

I've heard of the "Learning by Design" model, but I'm not sure I understand enough about how to do this (especially with wide ranges of technological, pedagogical, and content proficiencies). I'd love to know more about it.

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 13, 2009 at 5:16pm

Heidi, a couple of issues/questions here that I will try to address to the best of my ability.

First, developing TPACK. There have been various strategies that have been suggested. Learning by Design is one of them (an overview can be found in a couple of pubs Matt and I have written, more info on TPACK.org or my website). Another is the activity structures approach advocated by Judi Harris (we have a paper coming out on this - please contact me directly if you want a pre-press version). I have also on my blog links to couple of courses taught at other universities (BYU and UFM) that attempt to develop TPACK, and I know Iowa State does something similar - though I don't have a link for that.

Second, the problem with developing TPACK given differential levels of knowledge. My response to this is that TPACK is not an end-state it is a continuum, so different people will be at different points on it. The important goal (and the learning by design approach does that quite well) is that opportunities to develop TPACK, whether for a beginner or an expert, deal with all three of these components together, not independent of each other - which has traditionally been the case (think special course or workshop on technology).

Hope this (however brief) note helps. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by punya mishra on March 13, 2009 at 9:23pm

Matt T., I don't think that anybody considering us as being colleagues is making a mistake! I just happen to have two colleagues called Matt (doesn't everybody), I mean Matt's a pretty common name. Now if you had two colleagues called Punya! **That** would be strange!

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Beezley on March 13, 2009 at 9:40pm

Lol! Thank you both for the leads! I think finding ways of developing PD that coheres with the TPACK framework is tough since usually technology is its own entity separate from the content areas. So content area PD tends to use little technology and technology PD rarely directly considers and supports specific contents. That's one of the biggest obstacles I see (at least for k12).

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Permalink Reply by Milan Sherman on March 14, 2009 at 11:21am

I wonder if teacher beliefs would be considered part of the TPACK framework? In other words, when we talk about a framework for teacher knowledge, does "knowledge" encompass beliefs? In my experience teaching pre-service secondary mathematics teachers how to integrate the use of technology in mathematics instruction, this is an issue that needs to be addressed before giving them opportunities to learn how to integrate their knowledge of T, P, and C. For example, many teachers believe that students should learn how to do everything by hand before using technology, or that technology (calculators in particular) are merely computational tools which can weaken students' skills and foster an unhealthy dependence. In other words, for these teachers T is in opposition to P and C, and therefore impossible to integrate. Addressing these beliefs seems like the first step. Believing they can be integrated would be a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for developing TPACK. Does that make it part of TPACK?