TPCK (a.k.a. TPACK)

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), builds on Shulman’s idea of PCK, and attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK). See Figure.

TPCK diagram

Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic, transactional relationship between all three components. A teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator).

The two definitive articles on TPCK are:

  • Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record. 108(6), 1017-1054.
  • Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (in press). Introducing Technological Pedagogical Knowledge. In AACTE (Eds.). The Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Educators. To be published by AACTE and Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

For a comprehensive and ever growing literature on TPACK please visit the TPACK wiki at http://www.tpck.org