Assessing TPACK

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Peter Albion on April 10, 2011 at 6:16pm

I recall some discussion of this at SITE this year when somebody asked whether TPACK referred to the complete diagram or the triple intersection in the centre. There was no clear answer among the group at the time but I suspect the question is an important one especially as folk attempt to find ways to 'measure' TPACK so that its growth can be charted.

If we think back to how we understood Shulman's PCK I think that was always, and only, the intersection. My understanding was always that the complete diagram represented teachers' knowledge, in which P and C were important but the PCK intersection was a special area in which the two were fused. Similarly, it seems to me that it is the triple intersection in which T, P and C are merged that is crucial.

Originally the acronym was the unpronounceable TPCK and TPACK later emerged as a way to make the concept pronounceable and to support talk about the 'Total PACKage'. Perhaps we need to step back, think about that, and begin to apply TPACK to the complete diagram/package and TPCK to the triple intersection. That might make a useful distinction that would help to clarify discussion and attempts at measurement.

 

Permalink Reply by Maggie Niess on April 10, 2011 at 9:16pm

I agree with you Peter.  I have been noticing that TPACK is labeled as the intersection and TPACK is labeled as the whole model INCLUDING the Context (which doesn't get the discussion that is needed in my view).  I have been lately referring to the intersection (the center) as an integrated knowledge called TPACK - and I think that is the knowledge where the content is TPACK, an integrated discipline - one we need to describe more carefully - one that is similar to PCK in the Shulman description. Then the entire model I look at as interdisciplinary where the disciplines of each of the subsets are important to the developing knowledge.  I'm not sure I am making much sense but I do see some assessments of TPACK that I think are getting at the integrated TPACK and some focusing on the interdisciplinary TPACK.  Does this make any sense?

Permalink Reply by Peter Albion on April 10, 2011 at 11:47pm

I think that makes sense, Maggie. Both aspects are important but I'm not sure we have a clear understanding of what we mean by TPACK. It's become important for us here because of our Australian national Teaching Teachers for the Future project which is committed to using TPACK as a framework and to trying to measure improvements in graduates' TPACK as a result of the project. That's difficult if we don't know what it is we are trying to measure! We are just tidying up the instrument we are about to use across all teacher preparation programs nationally to collect baseline data.

Somebody in the project recently commented that for all the TPACK talks about the messiness of the concept the diagram looks too neat. I'm not sure how to 'mess' the representation but perhaps we do need to clarify the concepts.

Permalink Reply by Maggie Niess on April 12, 2011 at 7:52am

I am curious about the instrument that is being posed fro Australia Peter.. Any way to see what it is and what it's basis is. It must be based on parts of the model?  like TCK and PCK?  or was it based only on TPACK?

Permalink Reply by Peter Albion on April 12, 2011 at 8:02am

Maggie, I'll email you a copy of the draft we discussed in a teleconference today. There are still some minor changes to be made but it is close to what we plan to use for data collection across 39 universities later this month. It was based on the work that Romina Jamieson-Proctor and Glenn Finger have done over the past few years and from which we had papers in SITE and ISTE last year. It includes some other sets of items for the project in addition to what we are hoping might provide some indication of TPACK confidence/capability in students. We have had some measurement people working on it and expect that the data will be examined using Rasch models as well as other techniques. Given that we have had 10 to 20 people working on it by email and teleconference in addition to a face-to-face meeting it may turn out to be a 'camel'.

Permalink Reply by Maggie Niess on April 13, 2011 at 6:40pm

Hi Peter,

Thanks so much for the survey.. I have been using the following description of TPACK and wondered how closely it matches with what is being used for the instrument.  These 4 components are from my research and are based on Grossman's (1990) 4 components of PCK.  I am focusing on the centered TPACK - the part that I call an integrated vision.

 

    An overarching conception about the purposes for incorporating technology in teaching subject matter;
    Knowledge of students’ understandings, thinking, and learning of subject matter topics with technology;
    Knowledge of curriculum and curricular materials that integrate technology in learning and teaching subject matter topics;
    Knowledge of instructional strategies and representations for teaching and learning subject matter topics with technologies.

 

I'd be interested in seeing what was used for the instrument.

 

Maggie

 

Permalink Reply by Peter Albion on April 15, 2011 at 9:01pm

Maggie

 

The instrument originally developed by Romina and Glenn was based on the productive pedagogies but was subsequently seen to have links to TPACK. The revision for the TTF project followed some Rasch analysis that suggested the range of 'difficulty' on the items was too restricted. A group of people from around Australia contributed to developing a number of additional items that focused on the elements of the TPACK model that included 'T' with an eye on things like the graduate teaching standards. Once we have some data (we are hoping for some 1000s of responses) from around the country there will be some work to determine which items should be retained and how they match the relevant models.

 

Peter

Permalink Reply by Maggie Niess on April 15, 2011 at 9:53pm

Peter, This information will be really useful as it will link statements back to framework. The results could be very useful in ultimately coming to a consensus on what we are talking about!  I suspect that both you and I are hoping that this engages the broader community in a discussion of "what" we are really measuring!  I sure od look forward to some of the views of others .. but until then, we can interact and raise questions.. RIGHT?

Maggie

 

Permalink Reply by Bonnie Bracey Sutton on September 11, 2011 at 5:44pm

I just incorporated this into a blog. I wish I had been at AERA> good questions.,