Punya Mishra’s Web

The math-po (and sci-po) stream keeps flowing. Math Mama Writes, who started the whole math-poetry movement has some more on her blog, and here is Erin Nash with some really beautiful biological poetry. And of course, here’s her husband Sean Nash having his students writing poetry too. Of course let’s not forget my daughter Shreya (who sort of started this whole thing) and her sci-po’s at her blog Uniquely Mine.

Below are some thoughts about math-poetry – but you can ignore all that and scroll right down to the poem: The infinity of primes!

Math art by durentu

Through all this I have been plugging away at my math poetry. I know the original challenge was to write something to motivate students to learn math (and I did write one along those lines). But more interesting to me has been this theme I have picked up, which is of writing proofs as poetry. I know many people have described mathematics in poetic terms but I am trying something slightly different here. I am trying to explain theorems (as in these couple of instances, see here, here, here and here) and speficially in the poem included below, I am actually trying to construct a mathematical proof in rhyming verse.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hot off the press:

Schmidt, D. A., Baran, E., Thompson, A. D.,  Mishra, P.,  Koehler, M.J. & Shin, T. S. (2010). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): The development and validation of an assessment instrument for preservice teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(2), 123 – 149.

Abstract: Based in Shulman’s idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) has emerged as a useful frame for describing and understanding the goals for technology use in preservice teacher education. This paper addresses the need for a survey instrument designed to assess TPACK for preservice teachers. The paper describes the survey development process and results from a pilot study on 124 preservice teachers. Data analysis procedures included Cronbach’s alpha statistics on the TPACK knowledge domains and factor analysis for each domain. Results suggest that, with the modification and/or deletion of 18 of the survey items, the survey is a reliable and valid instrument that will help educators design longitudinal studies to assess perservice teachers’ development of TPACK. (Keywords: TPACK, instrument development, preservice teachers)

I received an email from Michael Porter of the Littleton Public Schools in Colorado about a version of the TPACK game Michael and his colleagues recently conducted with their K-12 Leadership team (building principals and district administrators). I know that Matt Koehler and I had discussed a TPACK mashup game in our SITE 2008 Keynote but what Michael and his colleagues have done is something different. Essentially they gave their participants a set of scenarios that they then had to evaluate using a TPACK lens. They ended up what  a set of “scatter plots” that reveal the manner in which each of the scenarios integrated technology, pedagogy and content. Read the post (The TPACK game) to see just how this plays out.

Photograph of “scatter plot” generated by the TPACK game,
Image credit Littleton Public Schools & Michael Porter

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently received an email from a teacher in Poland, seeking advice for a curriculum outline for their Design Technology Section. They said, and I quote:

Unfortunately, I have minimal experience with the subject as a teacher or as a student in my younger years, consequently, I have little background as to what a DT class should look like.

As you might guess I’m struggling trying to put together some sort of DT curriculum for our Middle School.

Our small school does not not have any kind of fabrication equipment so our DT class is currently heavy on IT design aspects….(web design, research on a topic and devise a solution, book creation,etc… )

The specific request was for”some useful and practical information that I can implement fairly easily.”

Is this what design is? by StephenMitchell on Flickr

As I crafted the response I realized that (given my lazy self) that it would make a good blog post. So here is what I wrote back:

Read the rest of this entry »

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #6, January/February 2010

Welcome to the sixth edition of the TPACK Newsletter, with 642 subscribers (representing a 13% increase during the past 2.5 months), now appearing twice each fall and spring semester. If you are not sure what TPACK is, please surf over to www.tpack.org to learn more.

Gratuitous Quote about Technology
“Technology presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is.”  ~Robert M. Pirsig

0. In this Issue:
-2. Introductory Blurb
-1. Gratuitous Quote about Technology
0. In This Issue (You are here.)
1. Recent Journal Articles and Conference Papers about TPACK
2. Recent TPACK-Related Dissertations
3. Join a Fireside Chat about TPACK
4. TPACK @ SITE 2010 Conference
5. TPACK Handbook Reviews
6. The Future is Now … So Now What?
7. Learning and Doing More with TPACK
–. Un-numbered miscellaneous stuff at the end

Read the rest of this entry »

I had written about the EduPunk movement earlier, in fact had even designed a logo for it.

A brief description of Edupunk can be found on Wikipedia (a google search will reveal many more). Wikipedia describes it as follows:

Edupunk is an approach to teaching and learning practices that result from a do it yourself (DIY) attitude. The New York Times defines it as “an approach to teaching that avoids mainstream tools like Powerpoint and Blackboard and instead aims to bring the rebellious attitude and D.I.Y. ethos of ’70s bands like The Clash to the classroom.”

Well, I am no expert on 70’s bands but the EduPunk title does appeal to me. It appeals to me because for the longest tie the main attraction of digital technology, to me, has been this DIY attitude, the fact that I can, over an evening or two, create a stop-motion movie with my kids (here or here), or mashup a commercial, or, in this case, create my own course website. The final product may not have the finish or sheen of a commercial product but it is in some key way “authentic.” It is mine. It embodies me, my sensibility, my approach, my vision in ways that other products can not.

For my entire tenure here at MSU I have constructed my own course-websites, cobbling them together with what I have often jokingly called “duct-tape and magic.” I have even written about this, long before the EduPunk moniker came along (see links at end of post). What I want to describe in this post are my current experiments (for my CEP817 Learning Technology by Design course) using using Wordpress as a learning management system, and boy am I impressed!! [My partner in crime in this is Kristen Kereluik, a graduate student in our program.]

Read the rest of this entry »

Jordy Whitmer over at the Birmingham School district forwarded me this link to this really cool video by George Kembel on Awakening Creativity. There is a lot in the video to ponder and discuss but I want to focus on something he said about music learning that really hit home with me. Citing some research on music learning he describes a strong link between speaking a tone language, such as Mandarin, and having perfect pitch. A search on Google led to the following article: Tone Language Translates To Perfect Pitch: Mandarin Speakers More Likely To Acquire Rare Musical Ability. As this article says:

Perfect, or absolute, pitch is the ability to name or produce a musical note of particular pitch without the benefit of a reference note. The visual equivalent is calling a red apple “red.” While most people do this effortlessly, without, for example, having to compare a red to a green apple, perfect pitch is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, with an estimated prevalence in the general population of less than one in 10,000.

Image credit: Tom Carmony

So think about this for a second. Here is an ability that was once thought to be extremely rare, within the capability of just extremely talented musicians. People born with this talent, as it were. This research, however, shows just how mistaken this view is.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is an article in today’s Chronicle titled Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students.

I have been somewhat skeptical of the learning styles literature for a while, not the least for hearing the phrase being bandied about without much thought. I have heard people claim without much evidence, that today’s kids are visual learners. I have heard a teacher say that as a consequence, that visual learners prefer reading text from a Powerpoint slide, rather than read it on a blackboard! (Those who know me that I am rarely at a loss for words, but that statement truly struck me dumb! In Wolfgang Pauli’s words, that statement was not even wrong.) I have also had students claim that they did not do well in a certain course because it did not match their learning style!

Anyway, the study reported in the article

… does not dispute the existence of learning styles. But it asserts that no one has ever proved that any particular style of instruction simultaneously helps students who have one learning style while also harming students who have a different learning style.

What does this non-finding mean for practitioners (teachers and professors)?

Read the rest of this entry »

My friend, Martin Oliver, over at the London Knowledge Lab sent me the following link about a TPACK related publication that appeared in the International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, aka IJEDUICT. (Boy, that’s a long name for a journal, and I dare you to pronounce the acronym.) As it turns out, I was not acquainted with this journal. A quick browse showed that it had a strong international authorship and readership. Sadly most of my publications (with a few exceptions) have been in US journals, and doubly sadly, most authors published in US journals are from US universities. This is so parochial and a pity because there is a lot that we can all learn from each other, especially in a field like Ed Tech.

Any a bit of TPACK-searching on the journal website led to three separate mentions (technically there are two since one of the mentions was in an editorial describing an article in that very issue that utilized the TPACK framework). Anyway, for the record here are the citations (and links).
Read the rest of this entry »

Ken Friedman, whose article I had used as the basis of my previous posting, From incompetence to mastery, the stages dropped me an email in response to my critique. To provide some context, (you can read my full post here) I had suggested in my posting that it may be inappropriate to label the the highest level of mastery as being unconscious competence. My concern, of course, was with the “unconscious” part – since I felt that true mastery requires a level of reflection, something denied by the word “unconscious.”

Ken wrote that he actually sees examples of unconscious competence everywhere. He went on to say (quoted with permission) Read the rest of this entry »

Carole Ames, Dean of the College just sent out this note regarding the sad news of Jere Brophy’s passing. She has asked for it to be shared with our broader networks, so I do so.

Note: The memorial service for Jere Brophy has been scheduled for Monday, October 19th 2009, from 10 – 12 at the MSU Alumni Memorial Chapel

It is with great sadness that I write with the news that our dear colleague, Jere Brophy, died last night from an apparent heart attack. There are no words to express the loss of this intellectual giant to the field of education, but more importantly, we have lost an esteemed colleague, a cherished friend, and generous mentor. Jere’s warmth of character was apparent in all his interactions. He always had an inviting smile, was known for his laid-back manner, and greatly enjoyed a good chuckle. He had a genuine interest in other people, their families, lives, work and ideas. To the world, Jere was an internationally-renown scholar whose writing informed researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners alike. To us, he was all that, but, in addition, we had the privilege of having him as our beloved colleague.
Read the rest of this entry »

I chair the committee on Innovation & Technology of the American Association for Innovation & Technology (AACTE). The committee has been working hard with people over at AACTE (Rachel Popham deserves a big shout out) in organizing a webinar series coming up November 17th – 19th. Here’s a description:

This webconference addresses creative teaching and learning in the digital age. Designed within the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework these sessions by top-notch scholars, researchers and practitioners will cover a range of topics: including the educational potential of social networking, the expanding use of GPS, intelligent use of video to teach science, and the role of cloud computing in face to face and online classes. The goal is to help participants think creatively about integrating multiple technologies into varied teaching and learning contexts.

Readers of this blog will find a familiar name, Sean Nash of Nashworld as one of the presenters!! I may be moderating one of the sessions though that is still being worked out. So lock in these dates and you can find out more by going to the AACTE website.


Welcome to the fourth edition of the TPACK Newsletter, now with 494 subscribers (representing a 36% increase during the last four months!), and appearing bimonthly between August and April. If you are not sure what TPACK is, please surf over to www.tpack.org  to learn more. 


Gratuitous Quote about Technology

"My theme for philanthropy is the same approach I used with technology: to find a need and fill it.”
- An Wang

In this Issue:
-2. Introductory blurb
-1. Gratuitous Quote about Technology

0. In this issue (You are here.)

1. Recent TPACK Articles
 
2. TPACK-in-a-text(book)
 3. (Sort of) Recent TPACK Articles

 4. Recent TPACK Presentations

 5. TPACK Podcasts

 6. TPACK Research in Progress

 7 TPACK Professional Development
8. Recently Completed TPACK-based Dissertations & Theses
 9. Learning and Doing More with TPACK
–. Un-numbered miscellaneous stuff at the end

1. Recent TPACK Articles

TPACK was a “Top Story” on August 26, 2009 in both eSchoolNews and eCampusNews! A feature article (“TPACK explores Effective Ed-Tech Integration”) written by senior editor Laura Delaney explained TPACK and its components in considerable detail, plus one way of helping teachers to develop TPACK: using curriculum-based learning activity types. Punya, Matt, Judi, Mark Hofer, and Karen Richardson were interviewed and provided the content for the feature stories.

Hot off the press! Judi Harris & Mark Hofer’s Feature and Learning Connections articles are appearing in the September/October 2009 issue of Learning & Leading with Technology. “’Grounded’ Technology Integration: Planning with Curriculum-Based Learning Activity Types” introduces a TPACK-based approach to technology integration during instructional planning, and “’Grounded’ Technology Integration Using Social Studies Learning Activity Types” illustrates how to do this in the social studies. Watch future 2009-2010 issues of L&L for more Learning Connections articles about math, world languages, science, K-6 literacy, and English language arts activity types, written with collaborators Neal Grandgenett, Marcela van Olphen, Meg Blanchard, Denise Schmidt, and Carl Young.

This summer, Judi, Punya & Matt published an overview of TPACK, emphasizing the roles of content and technological content knowledge, and how to help teachers to develop it, in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, vol. 41, no. 4, PP. 393-416. The article is entitled, “Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed.”

A few months earlier, Hyo-Jeong So (Nanyang Technological University) and Bosung Kim (University of Missouri) published the results of a study that “examined perceived difficulties and concerns that pre-service teachers encountered when applying their knowledge on technology, pedagogy and content to design a technology integrated lesson.” They utilized a collaborative lesson design similar to Matt & Punya’s Learning by Design approach to developing TPACK. The article, “Learning About Problem-based Learning: Student Teachers Integrating Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge,” was published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(1), PP. 101-116. A .PDF of the article is available for your perusal.

2. TPACK-in-a-text(book)

Candace Figg (Brock University) and Jenny Burson (LeTourneau University) are pleased to announce a new arrival: their TPACK-based preservice text, Designs for UnPacking Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): A Handy Guide for Teaching with Technology, which will be released on September 5, 2009 by Soleil Publishing. Additional information about the book, including sample pages and a table of contents, is available online.

3. (Sort of) Recent TPACK Articles

Two recent issues of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE) featured articles on TPACK. In a special issue devoted to TPACK (volume 9, issue 1), six articles appeared:

TPACK:  A Framework for the CITE Journal
G. Bull & L. Bell

Mathematics Teacher TPACK Standards and Development Model
M. L. Niess, R. N. Ronau, K. G. Shafer, S. O. Driskell, S. R. Harper, C. Johnston, C. Browning, S. A. Özgün-Koca, & G. Kersaint

Teaching Science with Technology: Case Studies of Science Teachers’ Development of Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge 
S. S. Guzey & G. H. Roehrig

Strategies for Preparing Preservice Social Studies Teachers to Integrate Technology Effectively: Models and Practices
T. Brush & J. W. Saye

What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? 
M. J. Koehler & P. Mishra

Examining TPACK Among K-12 Online Distance Educators in the United States
L. Archambault & K. Crippen

In volume 9 issue 2 of CITE, three TPACK-based articles appeared:

Mathematics Teachers’ Development, Exploration, and Advancement of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the Teaching and Learning of Algebra 
S. Richardson

Giving, Prompting, Making: Aligning Technology and Pedagogy Within TPACK for Social Studies Instruction
T. C. Hammond & M. M. Manfra

Enhancing TPACK With Assistive Technology: Promoting Inclusive Practices in Preservice Teacher Education
M. T. Marino, P. Sameshima, & C. C. Beecher

4. Recent TPACK Presentations

Maggie Niess (Oregon State University) will present a paper entitled “Mathematics Teacher TPACK Standards and Revising Teacher Preparation” at the 10^th International Conference of The Mathematics Education Into the 21^st Century Project, “Models in Developing Mathematics Education,” which will take place on September 11-17, 2009 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany.

Bill Bauer, the Director of Music Education at Case Western Reserve University, will be presenting “Music Teachers and Technology: The TPACK Framework" at the Society for Music Teacher Education’s 2009 Symposium on Music Teacher Education: Enacting Shared Visions, September 10-12, 2009 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

There were several TPACK-based sessions at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC in late June 2009:

• Teresa Foulger and Maureen Gerard (Arizona State University) presented the results of their study, “Making the Ideal Real: Reciprocal Mentoring and Technology in Preservice Education.” A .pdf of their paper is

  available online for your perusal.

• Judi Harris and Mark Hofer presented a Spotlight Session entitled, “Developing TPACK: Teachers’ Technology Integration Knowledge in Action.”
  A video of that presentation is
  available online, as well as the slides that they used (.mov

  file) during the talk.

• A sold-out workshop, “School 2.0 and Understanding by Design,”
  presented by Chris O’Neal and Donna Herold, was co-sponsored by ISTE, ASCD,
  the Central Susquehanna Intermediate School District and the US Department
  of Education. Punya noted in his blog that the talk tied together UbD ideas

  with TPACK (starting at about 14:50) in an interesting way. A recording of the workshop is
  archived for viewing.

We learned about a fascinating paper about helping teachers to develop TPSK – technological pedagogical statistical (and probability) knowledge – that was presented at the 2009 Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education in February. A .pdf of the paper, “Preparing to Teach Mathematics with Technology: Lesson Planning Decisions for Implementing New Curriculum,” written by Sarah Ives, Hollylynne Lee, and Tina Starling (North Carolina State University) is available online for your perusal.

Last but certainly not least, we discovered presentation slides by Dan Maas, Chief Information Officer for the Littleton Public Schools in Colorado, which interpret TPACK vis-à-vis 21^st-century technologies. An entry in Dan’s blog explains that these slides supported a reflective exercise for educators that focused on “inspired writing.”

5. TPACK Podcasts

"Understanding TPCK," one of the "Teaching in the 21st Century" series of weekly podcasts for teachers, was posted recently by the Maine School Administrative District 75. The podcast explains TPACK and provides examples of TPACK in practice, in which 21^st technologies were repurposed creatively for educational use. For example, in Bill’s English class students used Twitter to create microblogs to discuss the books that they’re studying.  This podcast was created in response to Matt & Punya’s feature article in the May issue of Learning & Leading with Technology, “Too Cool for School? No Way! Using the TPACK Framework: You Can Have Your Hot Tools and Teach with Them, Too.” All podcasts in the series are produced and edited by students in MSAD 75’s middle and high school.

A thoughtful and thorough podcast prepared by Ruben Puentedura for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative Fall Teacher 2008 Leader Institutes was shared recently by Lydia Leimback in her blog, "Teacher Tech." Dr. Puentedura introduces and explains two conceptual models that can be used together: TPACK and SAMR. SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition, which focus upon the roles that digital technologies play in changing the nature of students’ learning, when compared to the use of more traditional technologies for the same or similar learning activities. Illustrative examples of higher education courses are provided to show how TPCK and SAMR can work together in designs for students’ learning. A transcribed version of the podcast is also available.

6. TPACK Research in Progress

Julie Mueller (Wilfrid Laurier University) is currently examining pre- and post- questionnaire, interview, and observation data generated with teachers, administrators, and students as part of an elementary school-initiated laptop integration project, using TPACK as her theoretical framework.   The preliminary results of this study suggest that teachers do indeed consider all of the components of TPACK when planning and providing instruction, but they are not always integrated.  In addition to identifying behavioral measures of TPACK (which Julie feels are much-needed at present in TPACK research), student outcomes will be used to measure the impact of the laptop integration.  Julie hopes to present the results of this project at SITE 2010. 

Ghaida Alayyar, a doctoral student at the University of Twente working with her supervisors, Drs. Petra Fisser and Joke Voogt, is studying the use of TPACK as a framework to change the nature of preservice science education in Kuwait. Joke writes, “The current curriculum for prospective student- teachers in Kuwait is characterized by a teacher-centered approach and only has an optional course on basic technology applications. The content of the new course is based on the ideas of TPACK. In the first phase of the study (currently underway) a group of 50 science students is designing elementary science technology applications in small groups (3-4 persons). They are coached by subject matter, pedagogical and technology experts. …In the second phase of the study, a new group of prospective students will be involved, with part of the coaching happening via a Web-based support system. Data about student-teachers’ TPACK competencies will be collected before and after the course with the TPACK survey developed by Schmidt, Baran, Thompson, Koehler, Mishra & Shin.”

Are you researching TPACK? Please consider adding a description of your research methods to the TPACK wiki’s “Researching TPACK” section and/or sending us a brief overview of your ongoing work to share in this newsletter.

7. TPACK Professional Development

As mentioned in the first TPACK Newsletter (January 2009), Craig Cunningham reports that the faculty at National-Louis University in Chicago were involved in a Faculty Senate-funded TPACK faculty development project during the 2008-2009 academic year.  In the project, small groups of teacher-education and subject-matter faculty worked with technology “experts” from the faculty to develop ways to integrate technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge.  The various groups worked on topics such as using video to teach interviewing techniques, using Web cameras to conduct live chats with science experts, and ways to better use interactive whiteboards.  Faculty enthusiasm for the project at the end of the year led to the submission of a renewal grant for 2009-2010, which was recently awarded!  The second year of the project will continue the work of the first year, with the addition of a monthly series of TPACK-based seminars designed to increase faculty expertise across the university.   For more information, please contact arlene.borthwick@nl.edu or craig.cunningham@nl.edu.

8. Recently Completed TPACK-based Dissertations & Theses

Chauser, J. (2009).  Instruction 2.0: Effective education for the 21st century. Master’s thesis, National University.

In this thesis, Jacqueline describes the design and implementation of a professional development course for teachers. Building on the TPACK framework, the course encourages an integrated approach to using technology for instruction and respects the interconnectedness of the three knowledge bases required for such integration.

Richardson, K. W. (2009). Looking at/looking through: Teachers planning for curriculum-based learning with technology. Doctoral dissertation, College of William & Mary.

The literature related to teacher planning practices is, for the most part, several decades old. As such, it fails to take into consideration both the proliferation of digital technologies in schools, as well as new frameworks for understanding teachers’ knowledge. This interpretivist study drew upon the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) to study teachers’ lesson planning processes. Specifically, it focused upon 12 fifth, sixth and seventh grade content area teachers from three southeastern U.S. School districts as they planned for and used digital technologies during lessons in their classrooms. Participating teachers had a variety of professional experiences and placements and had participated in educational technology professional development. They were interviewed about the processes they used to plan instruction, focusing upon how they determined which technologies might be used. In addition, sample technology-infused lessons were observed to see how the plans were put into action.

Terpstra, M. A. (2009). Developing Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Preservice teachers’ perceptions of how they learn to use educational technology in their teaching.  Doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University.

This study uses activity theory and current conceptions of knowledge for teaching content with technology to analyze the working knowledge and experience of a group of seven preservice teachers in order to yield insights into how preservice teachers learn to teach with technology. Findings showed that the preservice teachers exhibited more TK than TPK and TPACK. A developmental trajectory of learning to teach with technology is suggested that takes into account knowledge exhibition and breadth.

9. Learning and Doing More with TPACK


Interested in learning more about TPACK or getting more involved in the TPACK community?  Here are a few ideas:

• Visit and contribute to the TPACK wiki
  at: http://tpack.org/
• Join the TPACK SIG at: http://site.aace.org/sigs/tpack-sig.htm
• Join and contribute to the TPACK Google group at: http://groups.google.com/group/tpack/
• Review and provide feedback on the TPACK
  Learning Activity Types at: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net/

Feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested in its contents. Even better, have them subscribe to the TPACK newsletter by sending a blank email to sympa@lists.wm.edu , with the following text in the subject line: 
subscribe tpack.news FirstName LastName 
(of course, substituting their own first and last names for ‘FirstName’ and ‘LastName’ — unless their name happens to be FirstName LastName, in which case they can just leave it as is). 



If you have a news item that you would like to contribute to the newsletter, please send it to: tpack.news.editors@wm.edu 



If you are interested in volunteering to help run the newsletter (we need help!), send email to: tpack.news.editors@wm.edu 



Standard End-Matter


If you have questions, suggestions, or comments about the newsletter, please send those to tpack.news.editors@wm.edu .


If you are subscribed to the tpack.news email list, and — even after reviewing this impressive publication — you prefer not to continue to receive the fruits of our labors, please send a blank email message to sympa@lists.wm.edu , with the following text in the subject line:  unsubscribe tpack.news 


Have a great new school year, everyone!  We’ll be back in late October with issue #5 of the TPACK Newsletter.



- Judi, Matt, Mario, and Punya



Judi Harris,                   Chair, College of William & Mary

Matt Koehler,               Vice-Chair, Michigan State University

Mario Kelly,                 Futon, Hunter College

Punya Mishra,              Recliner, Michigan State University

The Institute of Education, University of London is organizing a series of seminars on New forms of doctorate i.e. the manner in which multimodality and e-learning are influencing the nature and format of doctoral theses in Education and the social sciences.

This is a topic of great interest to me and I spent a bit of time browsing through some of these presentations. There is a lot to learn here. One thing that stood out for me is just how influenced by technology and cultural/historical context the Ph.D. thesis / dissertation really is. Several of the presentations, make this point. In fact, the entire symposium series is predicated on some version of this idea.

One presentation that really stood out for me, particularly given some of the discussions that are going on in my department is by Prof. Carol Costley Institute for Work Based Learning, Middlesex University.. Below is a brief description of her presentation followed by a copy of her slides (sadly there is no audio track).

On the distinction (if any) between doctorates which are research qualifications and those which are qualifications in advanced practice.
Since the early 1990’s work based learning (WBL) has been developing in UK universities within subject disciplines and also outside disciplinary frameworks as a field of study in it own right. Both forms of WBL (as a mode of study and as a field of study), have developed pedagogies that have moved away from more traditional approaches. In some part this can be attributed to the mature adult community who are attracted to part-time courses that incorporate study into their work rather than a learning experience unrelated to working life. However, the developing pedagogies also relate to a wider, more transdisciplinary reflection of a knowledge-based society.

Following the successful institution of WBL ‘taught’ degrees at Bachelor and Master levels the natural progression was to introduce work-based doctorates. Professional doctorates had already started to increase in the UK and in the late 1990’s the Doctorate in Professional Studies sometimes called Professional Practice (DProf. sometimes called Prof D.) was introduced. The DProf is aimed at the actual work activities and circumstances of people engaged in high-level professional practice. Candidates already have considerable expertise in their work and their work-based research and development projects are likely to draw upon knowledge from a range of fields and also on tacit and professional knowledge. The Candidates’ situatedness outside the academic sphere brings about a balance of activity, focus and control between the academic and the professional environments.

Drawing mainly on the DProf., the presentation explores how postgraduate WBL works in higher education and there is some consideration of its academic underpinning (Costley and Stephenson 2008). There is discussion concerning generic assessment criteria; the structure of the doctoral programme; the kinds of research and development projects undertaken by the candidates; and the learning and teaching processes which are ‘essentially concerned with the individual and their own practice’ (Scott et al 2004).

I had written recently about TPACK being the top story on eSchoolNews (see TPACK is top story on eSchoolNews or go directly to the article: TPACK explores effective ed-tech integration). What I didn’t realize at that time is that there were actually three stories about TPACK, one in August that I had blogged about and two in Septmber. The two that I had missed were actually more interesting to me personally since they dealt with the manner in which the TPACK framework was actually being used in schools. Both these stories deal with the manner in which the San Diego Unified School District is embracing the idea of TPACK as a key piece of their strategy to transform how their students are taught.

These two other articles (also written by Senior Editor Laura Devaney) are titled (a) San Diego explores effective ed-tech integration through TPACK: New professional development model focuses on the intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge; and (b) Reinventing education: As schools nationwide examine new federal priorities, San Diego unveils a five-year plan to transform the way students are taught

This news makes me extremely happy, for the simple reason that this means that our ideas have moved beyond graduate school curricula, beyond research articles, beyond doctoral dissertations into actual practice. This is every educational researcher’s dream. Here are some key quotes from these articles.

The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) has embraced a concept called Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) in its professional development model, to ensure that the smart use of technology drives every aspect of classroom teaching and learning.

As technology becomes an increasingly important tool for teaching and learning, this relatively new concept, which focuses on how educators can integrate technology effectively into their instructional practices, is making its way into pre-service and in-service teacher education programs.

TPACK is based on the work of Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler, both associate professors of educational technology in the College of Education at Michigan State University.

Here’s another:

“We worked closely with the [district] Educational Technology department to design a professional development program that is all-encompassing,” LaGace said. “When you look at the TPACK model, it gets around to improving the whole classroom experience. … It puts the focus not on teaching teachers how to turn on a Promethean Activboard, but why to turn it on.”

Why turn it on? What a profound question, and one that hopefully will be asked by every teacher in San Diego.

Can you guess why I love my job?

Have you heard of the marshmallow experiment? It is a pretty famous experiment conducted at Stanford back in the 60’s. Walter Mischel a psychologist conducted this experiment on four-year olds in which the children were given one marshmallow and promised a second marshmallow if only they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one. Turns out that some children could and others couldn’t wait. Following up on this study Mischel and his collaborators found that those who waited were better adjusted, dependable and, on some measures, more successful than those who could not delay gratification. In fact they found that these children scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT!!

You can read more about this experiment and its findings in this New Yorker article titled Don’t: The secret of self control.

I had read of this experiment a while ago, it had also been the focus of a recent RadioLab segment and then I began running across a video titled Oh, The Temptation. As the director describes it he used, 2 Hidden Cameras, A bunch of Kids, 1 Marshmallow each to create this movie. He agrees that this was “not an original idea, but very fun to make.” And it is great fun to watch…

A decade into the 21st century, how are we doing with the movement to “position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education.” The National Journal Online has been conducting an discussion on this topic… some very interesting views represented there, from both sides of the spectrum. I have some definite opinions on this, which will have to wait for another day (I am swamped with work right now) … but for now here is the link to the discussion: Has The P21 Movement Succeeded?

What do you think? What do we mean by 21st Century skills? How are they different from traditional skills (such as critical thinking) that were the rage some time ago? What is the role of content knowledge in the 21st Century? What about trans-disciplinary, or inter-disciplinary knowledge? … Important questions, worthy of discussion and thought.

TechTrends is a leading journal for professionals in the educational communication and technology field and is the official publication of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). The current issue has 5 articles devoted to the TPACK framework (including one by yours truly with Matt and Kristen Kereluik). I am providing titles and key quotes from each (with a link to the article written by us).

Mishra, P., Koehler, M. J., & Kereluik, K. (2009). The song remains the same: Looking Back to the Future of Educational Technology. TechTrends, 53, 5. p. 48-53.

The TPACK framework emphasizes the role of teachers as decision makers who design their own educational technology environments as needed, in real time, without fear of those environments becoming outdated or obsolete. Using this approach, teachers do not attend to specific tools, but instead focus on approaches to teaching that endure through change in technologies, content, or pedagogies. Teachers with flexibility of thought, a tolerance for ambiguity, and willingness to experiment can combine traits that perfectly design and tailor their own educational content, pedagogical, and technological environments.

David Passig recently wrote on the topic of melioration, or “the competence to borrow a concept from a field of knowledge supposedly far removed from his or her domain, and adopt it to a pressing challenge in an area of personal knowledge or interest” (2007)… According to Passig, melioration is a skill that affords teachers the flexibility to experiment with a vast array of technologies to meet their specific educational needs. Novel frameworks and concepts like TPACK and Passig’s melioration are starting to look at educational technology in a new way. These new perspectives focus on overarching cognitive skills, competencies, and creativity rather than technical understanding and functional knowledge of specific technologies

Read the rest of this entry »

I just discovered that TPACK made the Top Story of the Week for Educators on eSchool News!

Written by Laura Devaney, Senior Editor of eSchoolNews the article is titled, TPACK explores effective ed-tech integration. It is a pretty comprehensive piece with quotes from Matt and me, as well as Judi Harris, Mark Hofer and others. Don’t take my word for it, check it out…

Just came across this on the Ph.D. design list (a listserv for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design) from a posting by Charles Burnette. He quotes Donald MacKinnon, author of a large study on creativity in the arts, sciences and professions:

If I were to summarize what is most generally characteristic of the creative [individual] as we have seen him (sic), it is his high level of effective intelligence, his openness to experience, his freedom from petty constraints, and impoverishing inhibitions, his aesthetic sensitivity, his cognitive flexibility, his independence of thought and action, his high level of energy, his unquestioning commitment to creative endeavor, and his unceasing striving for creative solutions to the ever more difficult … problems he constantly sets for himself.

The question to ponder is, how many of these correlates of creativity are amenable to teaching (i.e. can be taught / nurtured) in the classroom or other contexts and how many are completely outside of our control?

Charles Burnett also provides a couple of references to MacKinnon’s work:

MacKinnon D W. (1962). The nature and nurture of creative talent. Amer. Psychol. 17:484-95.

MacKinnon, D. W. (1978). In Search of Human Effectiveness: Identifying and Developing Creativity. Creative Education Foundation.

Those of you who have been following this blog know, over the past few months I have made a few short videos with my kids. The ones I am most proud of are a set of three made around the words Explore, Create, Share (you can see them all here). There were great fun to make, and have turned out pretty nicely, if I say so myself

These videos have a few things in common. First, they are short (the longest is a minute long) and involve minimal post production, if any. Second, they always focus on a specific word and attempt to express the meaning of the word through video. Third, each video ends with that word represented in some creative, interesting way.

The other day, while talking with Leigh Wolf, I realized that there was no reason why we could not share the joy of making something like this with others. Why not solicit similar videos from other people? One thought led to another and this competition is the result. The rules of the competition are simple – building on the similarities described above.

1. Each video MUST have a core theme that can be captured in a word (or two). We recommend choosing evocative words related to learning and technology (like design, innovation, invent and so on).
2. The video MUST be original i.e. don’t just copy someone else’s idea, or footage. This is NOT a mashup of existing video.
3. The video should be short (30 seconds to a minute, no more) with minimal editing or post-production.
4. Each video should end with the thematic word represented in some fashion (see the original videos Explore, Create, Share to see how this works).
5. The video MUST use one of the music clips available for download below. These clips were composed specifically for this competition by Sonny Mishra, a freelance musician from Seattle. [Music Clip 1 | Music Clip 2]
6. Once you have created a video, upload it to the web (say YouTube) and send me the link. Please DO NOT send me actual movie files.
7. All links to movies have to be turned in by Wednesday the 22nd of July, 2009.

A jury consisting of myself, Leigh Wolf, Soham & Shreya (the two people who helped make the first three) and Sonny (the music composer) will judge these movies and nominate the winner. The winner will receive a copy of Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s book Sparks Of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools Of The World’s Most Creative People, autographed by the authors. How cool is that!!

Do let me know if you have any questions about this competition. Enjoy!

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!

The recently concluded NECC conference had quite a bit of TPACK related presentations. Sadly neither Matt nor I could make it to NECC… maybe next year!

One I discovered just today (h/t @mhines on twitter) was one titled School 2.0 & Understanding by Design.

Clicking on the link will take you to an archived webinar organized by ISTE, ASCD, SRI International, Central Susquehanna Intermediate District with funding support from US Department of Education. It is worth a listen if not for anything else but for a somewhat neat way of tying together TPACK with the Understanding by Design framework. This is something we have been doing for a while, though haven’t explicitly written about – so it was cool to see this convergence of ideas.

I also liked a slide they had titled Technology Integration 2.o! It does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? Maybe that is what we will start calling TPACK!

Judi Harris told me about two other sessions:

Making the Ideal Real: Reciprocal Mentoring and Technology in Preservice by Foulger & Gerard

Developing TPACK: Teachers’ Technology Integration Knowledge in Action by Harris & Hofer. Slides posted here.

You can actually see the video here:

In this TCRecord piece, Daniel T. WIllingham uses what we know about cognitive psychology to explain  Why students don’t like school. He suggests that

although most people believe that humans are good at thinking, it is actually the weakest of our mental faculties… Our minds are biased against thinking, because thinking is slow and effortful. In addition, it’s error-prone; it may not even produce an answer at all, much less a good one.

What we truly hate, according to him are things that are (a) either too easy; or (b) things that are incomprehensible. What fascinates us are problems that hit the sweet spot, not merely unpredictable but rather postdictable. He defines this as being “initially be surprising, but then be understandable with a bit of thought.”As he says:

… interest is engendered by an appraisal process: that is, a process by which we evaluate the potential interest of something before we delve into it. If we perceive an event to be novel and complex, but also comprehensible, we find it intriguing and worthy of continued thought. Tasks that lack complexity seem too easy. Tasks that lack comprehensibility seem too hard.

Just two points here. First, most of school, it seems to me, lies at these two extremes, either lacking in complexity OR lacking in comprehensibility. Combine this with the diversity of student interests and background it is hardly surprising that even students who like to learn, learn to hate schoo.

Second, I had never heard of this term “postdictable” before but I think it is going to become a part of my vocabulary from now on. It helps me explain and categorize educational activities that work from those that don’t. Additionally it helps me explain movies and books I like – from ones that don’t. I know I hate predictable plots and stories (something I am trying to get my daughter to realize particularly around the typical Disney fare she so seems to love). However, complete unpredictablity is also a pain – a waste of time. Movies I like are postdictable… surprising at first glance but understandable later. Cool.

Harris, J.,  Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. J. (2009). Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity Types: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed. Journal of Research on Technology in Education.

In this paper we critically analyze extant approaches to technology integration in teaching, arguing that many current methods are technocentric, often omitting sufficient consideration of the dynamic and complex relationships among content, technology, pedagogy, and context. We recommend using the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework as a way to think about effective technology integration, recognizing technology, pedagogy, content and context as interdependent aspects of teachers’ knowledge necessary to teach content-based curricula effectively with educational technologies. We offer TPACK-based “activity types,” rooted in previous research about content-specific activity structures, as an alternative to existing professional development approaches and explain how this new way of thinking may authentically and successfully assist teachers’ and teacher educators’ technology integration efforts.

Matt Koehler and I just published an article in Learning & Leading with Technology, the membership magazine of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

The complete citation is as follows:
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2009, May). Too Cool for School? No Way! Learning & Leading with Technology, (36)7. 14-18. [PDF download].

This article includes a few examples of work done by my students as a part of a doctoral seminar. I had given them an assignment titled, How can a technology become an educational technology? and the work of three of them made it to the paper. I had written previously about Noah’s idea for using microblogging in the classroom (see here, here & most recently here). I haven’t blogged about the other two (though I have discussed them in presentations I have made) so it is good to have them represented here. Paul’s idea was to use specialized search engines (particularly visual search engines) to help students understand the idea of inter-textuality (the idea that texts often refer to each other in complex and intricate ways to create webs of meaning). Erik Byker, on the other hand, looked at how freely available DJ software can be used to teach mathematical concepts such as ratios, fractions, and percentages. Cool stuff!

One of the many things I have to do as a faculty member is review grant proposals. This is an important service to the field, but truth be told, given how busy I am I do see it as somewhat of a chore. I was recently reviewing some educational research proposals for a grant giving agency – and I was struck by something that led to this post. (I guess, it is less of a chore if it leads to a blog-post!).

I must say, without giving too much away, that these proposals were broadly related to education and not restricted to just the field of educational technology. That said there were two that were directly technology related, one having to do with virtual partners and the other with webbased learning. It is not surprising that these two would focus on technology directly.

What was surprising however was just how infused with technology all the other projects were. In each of these “non-tech” proposals various forms of technology were used for every aspect of the research from the kinds of information being collected, to how the information was collected; from how the informaiton was analyzed to how it would be reported and disseminated. For instance, there were studies on probing athletes cognition using fFMRI technologies, and another on collabrating across continents using webcams. There was one study that handed student-teachers Flip cameras to help them create digital stories, and subscriptions to surveymonkey or specialized statistical analysis packages!

What this shows clearly is just how fundamentally how we conduct research (in the field of education) has changed with these new digital technologies. And it has changed not in some flashy “pay attention to me, I’m so cool!” kind of a way but in a more insidious and sneaky manner (but no less revolutionary for that). These technologies have become transparent to the researchers – and are just seen as being part of what they do. Now I am sure this is not something unique to education. This is happening in each and every discipline from astronomy to zoology. What this means is that our disciplinary relationship to the world is now mediated through these new tools and devices.
Read the rest of this entry »

I did not go to AERA this year – choosing instead to go to Chicago to Keynote the Engaging Minds: Pedagogy and Personalism, the 2009 DePaul Faculty Teaching and Learning Conference. We did have a paper to be presented there (and I am sure our Iowa State friends must have done a splendid job).

As it turns out there were quite a few presentations/sessions at AERA devoted to TPACK. For the record I am including their titles and abstracts here below: Read the rest of this entry »

I am in Chicago to give the Keynote address at the 2009 DePaul University Faculty Teaching and Learning Conference. The conference theme this year is Engaging Minds: Pedagogy and Personalism. I was invited by Sharon Guan (she was part of the AACTE Innovation & Technology Committee that edited the TPACK handbook). The title of my talk is Blurring the Boundaries, The Personal and the Professional in a Webbed World. Here is a brief description of what I will be talking about

Dr. Punya Mishra of Michigan State University asks DePaul faculty to consider the role of the professor’s identity (or persona) in course design. What are the challenges, benefits –and limits — of bringing personal experiences, values and interests into one’s teaching? We want our students to see us as “being knowledgeable yet accessible, wise but funny, cerebral but warm, benevolent and yet firm.” How can we do this in an age where we are increasingly communicating via electronic media that alter, extend and/or challenge the teacher’s identity?

The CITE Journal had a recent special issue devoted to TPACK. You can access the special issue (edited by Judi Harris and Matt Koehler) here or individual articles below.
Read the rest of this entry »