Future

I've said in my last blog that that blog was the last blog for the course. That is true. The course Pedagogies of Flexible learning supported by Technology has come to an end (I hope I completed it well...). But that doesn't mean that I will never post a blog on this page evermore. I liked writing posts on this blog very much, so I will try to stay posting my ideas about education on this blog in the future (if time let me do so). So: stay in touch!

Reflection about using and teaching TPACK

This will be my last blog for the course of Flexible Learning. In this blog, I reflect on the final assignment, designing a professional development course for teachers in which they’ll learn to work with TPACK. And, of course, we had to use TPACK in our own design process... In this blog, I will reflect on that two points, the design process and the working with TPACK. 

Design process

We had to design a programm in groups of four students. The four of us all wanted to design a professional development programm, so that was the base on which we choosed to work together. And I have to say it was a good decission. I’ve never worked in a group so easy and efficient (I hope our grade will reflect this feeling...). 

Context

So we had to design a course for teachers in which they’ll learn to work with TPACK. And we wanted to use the TPACK model by designing this. So, the first thing we had to do was choosing a more detailed context. Who will be the participants, what are they allready knowing, how long will the programm take, etc. This was discussed very quickly, we all wanted to design something for teachers of different primary schools with different knowledges and the programm will take place in a couple of months. 

T, P and C

Then we went to the P, the C and the T. The content was allready given, teaching the teachers TPACK. And that was all we wanted. Stimulate the teachers to use TPACK for integrate technology in their lessons. Then we thought of the pedagogy. We thought that collaborative learning will be a good way to learn the use of TPACK in combination with some lectures and expert-guidance. But the most important is the interactivity of the teachers. So we thought the working in teacher teams would serve this the most. Thereby, we came almost autimatically in the TPK. How can you make teacher teams work when there are teachers from different schools? Here the online working with eachother was mentioned. New technologies as Skype or chat in an online learning environment was the best way to support this.

I will not repeate exactly what we described in our paper, so I won’t go systematically across all the elements of TPACK. But what I told in this blog illustrated the way we used TPACK. It all was going very natural. There were no difficulties by a forced way of thinking of: ooh, what will be the TCK, or how do we reach the PCK? By thinking of the elements T, P and C, the integration came with it. To start with the design, the model helped us to think about T, P and C, and thereby, the rest wasn’t that difficult anymore. 

Implementation in programm

So, the elements of the programm were clear in the first meeting. But how do we do this in practice? We discussed that, and very soon we came with a global planning of the programm. Everyone was agreeing with starting with some theoretical information and examples, and than working in teacher teams with guidance of the expert. After a couple of weeks of trying TPACK, another, shorter day will appear with sharing experiences with the other groups. There were no great discussions in our group. Everyone came with ideas, and we could use the most of that ideas in our programm. So, after that meeting, our programm was globally set up. We’ve token some time to think further, and we used technology to discuss later that week. We had a chat-meeting to experience what we wanted to let the teachers do. At the end of that meeting, we agreed that contact eachother by chat is a possibility that can be handy, but voice-to-voice contact would be more effective. Because we experienced that by chatting, everyone can type something at the same time, with the result that you can type something when another is typing the same, or allready about a whole different subject. Conversation isn’t as effective as it could be in that way. So, the teachers are advised to use Skype instead of chat...

But after that chat-session, our plans were clear. We could divide the tasks for working things further out, and have contact by mail. And that went out very well! I wanted to be critical, but it wasn’t necessary! In no time, our report was on paper, and I was happy with what we’ve made. We’ve put in some good ideas (having enough coffeebreaks to support informal learning) and I think that teachers can integrate TPACK with our programm quit well. 

Working with TPACK

Some short words about working with TPACK because I allready talked about this in the former of this blog.

As I mentioned before, I experienced that working with TPACK made us effectively think about the integrated elements of the course. Thinking of TPACK, I was aware of the relations between the T, C and P and of the content of the elements on their own. By using TPACK, you really can integrate technology with pedagogy and content.

I also thinks it’s good to work with TPACK by yourself before you say to others that they have to use it. In the last weeks, we’ve thought about TPACK, and also this time, we had to design a development programm for teachers working with TPACK. But now, we had to work with TPACK by ourself. Because of this, I could experience what it is to work with it. And I found it a handy model. Now, by having used it once by myself, I can more easily tell to others why they should use it also (because it is a complete model, you can use it to really integrate content to pedagogy to technology and in reverse... in stead of just add it on). And I think I will use it more often when I have to design a lesson or programm.  I believe this is really a good model to use for designing lessons and for integrating technology. This because it is a complete model and you are forced to think explicity about the three elements and their relations. Further, by using TPACK, you have to be flexible in your thinking and by this, you can use new ways of teaching something in a way that it will be more effective than you did in the past. And that will help students to learn more effective, efficient and with more satisfaction!

Conclude

To conclude, I think that using TPACK to design a course in which TPACK will be learned was a very nice way to complete this course of Pedagies for Flexible learning using Technology. With this case, we had to use our newgotten knowledge and in the same time we experienced TPACK by ourselfs.  I’ve learned a lot about flexibility, technology and TPACK in this way, and I liked it very much also! And I think that the awareness which the TPACK-model gives you of the integration of pedagogy, content and technology all in a given context is a great effort of this model in designing lessons!

Integrating technology, how can you stimulate the teacher?

A basic assumption of using TPACK is that technology is really integrated in education. Teachers don’t use technology just for fun or as an add-on in their lessons, but use it as an important, integrated element together with the content and pedagogy. But how can you stimulate teachers to really integrate technology in their education? In this blog, I discuss my ideas about this. 

      I think integrating technology is a process. This process goes form knowing and experience technology and their uses by the teacher. After knowing it, they’ll have to believe in the opportunities. When they are willing to integrate technology, the skills are needed even as a context for trying it out. At the last, time is needed to getting used to it. In the following I describe these steps in more detail. 

      

      Knowing technology

I think that in the first place, teachers have to experience the use of technology by themselfs. Technology has to be concrete for them, and they’ll have to know how usefull it can be for their learning. Therefor, we put in our teacher development course an online learning environment. Hereby, teachers can experience the usefullness of this technology. Also, they’ll get a lot of technological examples in the workshop of what technologies you can use, and how you can use it. In the first day of the workshop, the teachers have to think about their use of technology and talk with other teachers about their use of it. Together, they can discuss how they can use technologies in a  better way. The reason for letting the teachers think and talk about the use of technology is that they’ll become aware of the possibilities of technology. When you want to integrate technology in your lessons, you have to think about technology as a normal way of teaching and you have to know the existence and uses of different technologies. Knowing technologies is the first prerequisite of the integration of them in your lessons.

 

      Believe in technology

After knowing technologies, teachers must be willing to integrate the technologies in their education. How can you stimulate this? I think that it’s important that teachers see and believe the opportunities of technologies for learning. When they think that learners learn more with the technology, they are willing to integrate them in their lessons. I think every teacher wants that their students learn the best, so when they believe that technology can help them, they will integrate them in their lessons.

            Being able to use technology

So, to stimulate teachers to integrate technology in their lessons, they have to know the technologies and to believe in the opportunities for learning. When these two factors are there, I think teachers are willing to really integrate technology in their education. But they need the skills to integrate them. And therefor they have to work with it, learn about it and try it out. They can do that on their own, but I thinks it’s more efficient and effective when they do that in teams. When a teacher is working in a teacher team, he or she can talk about things with other teachers, they can watch by eachother how they use technology, they’ll face difficulties not only by themselfs, but also by others and they’ll see good practices by others and by themselfs. By working in teacherteams, they have more experiences with the use of technology, so they can learn more about it. Evenso, they have people around them who can help with problems. Help to search for solutions. Two are knowing more than one, and five will know even more!

  

            Getting support

Beside of the teacher teams, I think it will be a great help when their is an expert who can help teachers with the use and integration of technology. An expert which is aware of which technologies can be used and of what is possible in the classroom. This expert can help teachers by showing them uses of technologies, but also by thinking of how to use them. Also, the expert can give guidelines of how to get the greatest effects out of technology and out of the teacher teams. Hereby, the expert can give the teachers the TPACK-model. This can be a great guideline to integrate technology in the education.

             On the long run

 Finally, to really integrate technology in the education, I thinks it is important to guide teachers on the long run. I think it won’t help teachers very much when they are stimulated one day to use technology. They have to get help and stimulation longe. Therefor, teacher teams have great opportunities. The teams are working together for longer time, and the expert can come across once in a time. On this way, teachers can’t forget the way of using technology easily. They are forced to think about it regulary. Thereby, at a certain moment, they don’t have to think explicitly about the use of technology, but they’ll use it as a normal element of their lessons. They will say: of course I use technology in my lessons, that’s just as important as the content or the pedagogy of my lessons!  

As I said, I think integrating technology is a process. In this process, teachers can be supported by an expert and by peers. By doing this carefully and getting the time for it, I think teachers can be stimulated to integrate technology with content and pedagogy in their learning practice.

A flexible TPACK?

To be a real cognitivist, I have to combine the new information with my prior knowledge. So, this blog will combine the TPACK-model with the things I learned earlier in this course. In the last reflection in this weblog, I summarized the first three topics of the course, flexibility, pedagogy and technology. So, I won’t do that again in this blog. What I will do, is talk about the role these things play when using the TPACK-model.

Pedagogy and technology

Pedagogy and technology are elements of TPACK. So, teachers have to think about them in relation to eachother. When one changes, the other will probably change too. What I’ve learned about technology is that there are educational possibilities with all kinds of technology. In the TPACK-model, teachers can be very creative by using these technologies (as the figure from Mishra and Koehler (2009) shows). Technology is more than an add-on. It is one of the elements of the TPACK-model. So, it isn’t just the instrument, it also influences the content and the pedagogy.

Flexibility as prerequisite                                           

But flexibility is not an element of the TPACK-model. How can these two be combined? In my first blog, I’ve said: flexible learning in generally goes about the freedom of students to choose their way of learning (Collis & Moonen, 2001). That’s from the perspective of the learner. But now, I think flexibility is also going about the choice of the teacher. Do the teacher have the freedom to choose the content, pedagogical approach and technology (s)he wants? That’s at the core of the TPACK-model. When teachers don’t have the choice in the T, P and C, TPACK can’t be used. So, flexibility of the teacher is a prerequisite for TPACK. This flexibility can be given by the school and the environment. But it also have to be in the teacher him/herself. When a teacher can’t or won’t think about other ways of teaching, there is no flexibility and TPACK won’t be used. So, teachers must see the added value of TPACK and they must be able to work with it. They must be, or learn to be, flexible.

Flexibility as outcome

I think, flexibility for the learners can also be an outcome of TPACK. When a teacher combines a specific T, P and C, flexibility can be the outcome. It could be that students will learn the content the best when they have freedom to choose, so when there is flexibility. But it can also be the outcome that flexibility is not wanted. So, in this way, flexibility is dependent on TPACK.

Flexibility as context

Third, flexibility can be a prerequisite for the course. It could be that flexibility is given and teachers have to deal with it. Than, flexibility is the context of TPACK. Teachers have to think about TPACK within the given flexibility for the learner. It could be that they have to deal with elective courses, or with different backgrounds of the learners. The TPACK has to be defined by that context.

So, combining TPACK with my prior knowledge, I can say that technology and pedagogy are part of TPACK. Both are important and influences eachother. I think you can see flexibility in light of TPACK in three ways. First flexibility as a prerequisite. Teachers need to think flexible when they use TPACK. The second is flexibility as an TPACK-outcome. Thinking about TPACK, flexibility for the learner can be the outcome, or no flexibility at all can be prefered. Third, flexibility as the context of TPACK. Flexibility can be a given state where in the teacher have to practice and use TPACK.

To go short, I think flexibility and TPACK are interdependant also, just as the T, P and C in TPACK are interdependant to eachother. So teachers have to think about flexibility also by using TPACK. 

Mishra, P. & Koehler. M. J. (2009). Too cool for school? No way! Using the TPACK framework: You can have your hot tools and teach with them, too. Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(7), 14-18.

Combining Pedagogy, Content and Technology: TPACK!

In earlier blogs, I talked about different pedagogies en technologies. They all were going about how teachers can teach their students in the best way. For good teaching, it is necessary that teachers think about the pedagogical approach with which the students will learn the most of the course. Different kind of technologies can be used for teaching in the best way. So the teacher should have knowledge about the technologies that can be used. What are the affordances, what are the constraints? There is one thing I didn’t discuss earlier. That’s the knowledge about the subject matter. The teacher should have knowledge about the content of the course.

So, there are three elements of whom the teacher need to have knowlegde from technology, pedagogy and content. But having knowledge of the three elements alone, is not enough. Every teacher know that the pedagogy and the content are related to eachother. For different kind of content, different kind of pedagogical approaches can be used. The teacher must think about which approach will serve teaching a specific content the most. Also in reverse, a specific pedagogical approach will learn the student different content. By example, when the teacher uses cooperative learning, the students will learn to work together. When the same lesson is given in a traditional face-to-face approach, the student won’t learn to work together, but maybe will learn more facts. So, content and pedagogy influence eachother and the teacher needs to know what the effects are of the content and the approaches.The same is going for the technological knowledge. The used technology influence and will be influence both the pedagogy and the content. Using technology gives opportunities for the pedagogical approach. The use of a Nintendo DS by example, gives the teacher other opportunities than the use of paper and pencil. And by using the internet, other things have to be learned to the students than without the use if internet. 

Fig. 1. TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2009)

 

These interactions are part of the TPACK-model. In this model, a picture is showed below, the three elements of technological knowledge (TK), pedagogical  knowledge (PK) and content knowledge (CK) are interrelated. Every element has a combined area with the other elements. Those are called the Technical Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and the Technological Content Knowledge (TCK).  In the centre, there is another area, the TPACK. It’s the Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. In this area, all the three elements are combined. It shows that the elements are interdependant of eachother. Teacher must think about all the three elements and about the interactions of them. When they have knowledge 

about all three and about the interactions, they can set up their courses in the best way, by using the best of the technology for the specific content in the best fitting pedagogical approach (Harris, Mishra & Koehler, 2009). Thereby, they must also think about the context. Every teaching takes place in a context and must fit in that context. What is possible, what not, what is important and what not. It’s all given in the context.

But how can teachers use this model? I think this model is a great help to think about the possibilities of a lesson. By using this model, teachers will become aware of the different elements and the relation between them. Practically, they have to start thinking by one element. But by using this model, they’ll think about the other elements and areas ass well. By thinking about technology in relation to pedagogy and content, they can be very creative. Technologies can be used in different ways. By thinking about them in relation to P and C, they can think about other usabilities of that technology. E.g, a digital camera can be used for remembering your vacation, but it can also be used for looking at the world in a different way. Teachers can be very creative in using things. By thinking of the TPACK, the elements T, P and C won’t be add-ons to eachother, but will be empower eachother and thereby empower the learner and the teacher, because the teacher has to learn about the always changing technology and the use for pedagogy and content... (Harris et al, 2009).

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, 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.

Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70. 

Cooperative Learning

Searching on the internet, I found this video. I thought it is interesting because it shows the affordances of cooperative learning.

A reflection on what I learned till now

In this blog, I will reflect on the topics I mentioned in the earlier blogs, pedagogy, flexibility and technology. 

First something about flexibility. Flexibility in teaching was a kind of unclear thing for me. What is it? Is it really helpful? And would I like it in the classes I follow? After the lecture and the literature, now I think: Yes, I would like to have flexibility in my lessons. And it is allready there. Flexibility goes about the time in which and on wich you do your learning, about the content you are going to learn, the entry requirements, the approach and the delivery and logistics of the course. And less or more, I experience flexibility in all of these elements in the courses I follow right now. By example, I have classes on two days in the week, the rest I have to do on myself or with a group. When I do things, doesn’t matter, as long as I finish them on time. That is also the lack of flexibility. I have to do assignments every week, before a setted deadline. That’s not that flexible... Also the entry requirements are a bit flexible. I did another bachelor than the others in my class. And the delivery methods and kind of assignments are different in all courses. By example this blog, its totally new to me and we use blogs only in this course. I like that flexibility, its more challenging because I have to perform on different ways and I can do it a bit on my own time. I don’t have to travel each day three ours, but I can study in my own house. I can sum up a whole lot of other flexibilities which I experience, but I won’t do that, you can think of that by your own...

I wil go on to the second topic, pedagogies. I like that topic very much. It’s about the way in which courses are set. Examples are traditional learning, inquiry learning, problem-based learning or collaborative learning. By choosing the approach for a course, you have to think about what the best way is to let the students learn. I like this, because you think about how people learn, how will they remember and own the most information, skills or attitude? I like the collaborative approach. Students have to interact with eachother to construct their knowledge. You need a community to learn with, in and from. I think that’s important in real-life. You can learn so much from other people. They look at different ways at things, they know other things than you know. I believe you can learn so much from talking and doing things together, and others can learn things from you also. When people are sharing their knowledge, we are so rich in our world... But it cost a lot of time to work collaboratively, so it is nice that there are other approaches also in which you can learn a lot...

In the pedagogy-approaches teachers can use a lot of technologies. By now, there are so much different technologies you can use. From a simple pen and paper to the more complex nintendo DS. I used them both in the lesson about technology. Both have other possibilities and dissabilities. On the nintendo, we played the game ‘professor Layton’. In this game, the player has to solve logical problems. It was fun, but also younger people can learn from this things.

Especially new technologies have many possibilities for teaching. But always, the teacher have to look at the use of it in a pedagogy. The use of new technologies can be fun and thereby motivating. But technology has also other opportunities for teaching. With a digital learning environment, the different pedagogical approaches can be better implemented.

I think, technology can empower the pedagogy, and thereby create more flexibility. This will support a deeper learning from both the learner and the teacher. And that, above all, is the goal of education, isn’t it?